Silent War - Ben Bova (Starhunter fans, look here)

[Vanguard the Newly Employed]

I saw this book in the Coles in the mall where I work a few days ago, and I must say, it's really intrigued me.

It seems to be the third of a trilogy, but they are broken up so you can read them as separate novels.

The world has run out of resources, and global warming has caused the oceans to rise, destroying coastal cities and leaving the world's population in a pretty big mess. Two superconglomerates have decided to use new space technology to pioneer resource-gathering in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to relieve strain on Earth's ecosystem. One company plans to use the resources and profits to help only those it's CEO can personally govern, while the other works to save all of humanity.

Anyway, many of the themes of this book (corporate rule, space pioneering, mining, and piracy, and a ravaged earth) are also in Starhunter, so fand of the show might be interested. I myself have not yet read it, but I've still got a $10 gift card for Coles, and my girlfriend can get me her employee discount, so it sounds like something I'll pick up. I may not get to it for a while though, as I've got about a hundred other books to read.

[jabberwocky]

Hey, thxs for the low down on the book, I'll have to keep an eye out there for the book when I'm finally out of school.

[dakota69]

Hey! I just got through reading some Ben Bova (Mars). I'm a big fan of his fiction, as well as his editorials. I'll have to look for this series. His stuff is always extremely well researched and plausible. Hard SF with a capital H. His characters are usually really juicy too.

[Vanguard the Newly Employed]

There was a really neat excerpt that was in the beginning of the book, which mentioned G-based acceleration for the space ships, and it was a really dark passage to boot. It really sounds like an interesting book.

[Vanguard the Newly Employed]

So, I'm about a third into this book now, and it's a pretty neat story, but the writing style kind of sucks. The characters are fairly two-dimentional as well. But the idea of early space mining and such is still pretty neat.

[dakota69]

That's disappointing to hear. Maybe Mr. Bova's decided to just start crankin' out novels. I liked a lot of his stuff from the `70s, and Mars, from the early `90s, was pretty good.