Are there any other Ben Bova fans among us?

All of his later novels are set in a world which has become subject to what he calls the "Greenhouse Cliff," in which global climate change has set in with a vengeance, and many times more rapidly than even the most pessimistic scientists had envisioned. What is left is a planet mired in human misery and a political stagnation reminiscent of the Middle Ages. He focuses a great deal on political power struggles and intrigue, which I find fascinating. But it isn't just the conflicts among the characters which is so gripping.

One of the entities he posits in his serialized future history is the New Morality, a group which has come to dominate the world, not only in Christendom, but in every world religious sect, with all religions under its control and allied to reinforce orthodoxy and anti-scientific sentiment.

The only place left in which there is any personal liberty is in space, and many settlements are established, each of which has its own unique character, but all of which display the characteristic mark of the human condition. In these exotic locales, survival is paramount, and thus there is no place for superstition; science still thrives, unfettered by the stultifying laws of Earth. Ambition still thrives here as well, though, and it is in these places that the corporations enforce their will, beyond the frontiers of Earth law, and thus with impunity.

If you've never read his work and you're interested in escapist literature, but still would like to find something relevant to politics, pick it up. Most notable in the bibliography of his work along these lines are Moonrise and its sequel Moonwar, Millennium, Privateers, the Asteroid Wars series (Precipice, The Rock Rats, and The Silent War), and Saturn.

Has anyone else had an opportunity to read some of these and know what I'm talking about?

...i've read those and they're not bad. but may i refer you to kim stanley robinson's series 'mars trilogy' (red mars, green mars, blue mars) for the love of science, politics, morality, arabs, great charicters. enjoy!

Maybe I'll try to pick it back up. But the one I liked best for its fascinating ideas was his Icehenge, set I believe, on Pluto.

The Mars trilogy.

but he seems to abstract them from the universe he has created for the others of his novels which take place during the same general time period. No talk of New Morality, no mention of the Greenhouse Cliff.

Still, well worth the read.


edit to acknowledge your sig line, with one of the few bright spots from season two.

My mistake. I was thinking of the trilogy Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars.

I have read Bova's Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn.

I have not read Return to Mars yet but I would like to.

I'm looking forward to it.

I was a huuuuuuuuuuuuge Ben Bova fan in my younger years.

I need to go back and reread some of his works so I can grip them with a more mature mind.

Since all three were written within the last five years or so, you may have missed them. These three (The Precipice, The Rock Rats, and The Silent War) are easily the best and most gripping of his novels. The only thing I've read that could compare to these for sheer excitement is Roger MacBride Allen's Farside Cannon (or possibly Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination).

My only problem with that series was that when one ended, I wanted the next to pick up where it left off. Each one took place in a completely different time in completely different generations on the same ship, so that it seemed even the culture itself had changed. Even so, some of his best work.