Classic SF Time
Review: Power Challenges by Ben Bova
Ben Bova's last novel was published in 2021, a few months after the author's death, by Caezik SF & Fantasy, an imprint of Arc Manor (disclaimer, I know the EIC of Arc Manor personally).
They did a pretty good job. About two-thirds of the book was clearly finished. The last third...was clearly not. It has no chapters and feels decidedly rushed. Perhaps Bova's process involved the extended outline variety of first draft. Whoever put it together managed to make it coherent and readable, but if you pick this up...understand that it is the posthumous publication of a novel that appears, at least in part, to have been gathered from notes in Bova's desk.
This is a political thriller focused around America's return to the moon. To the 2025 reader it is likely to appear naive...Bova was of conservative tendencies, like many white men writing this variety of science fiction, and he has a Republican president listening to his science advisor.
Weird how quickly that has become unimaginable. It's dated in a few other ways, too. Bova's first novel was published in 1968, which means he came out of that particular school of science fiction (his second, in 1971, was the novelization of THX 1138). There's a little bit of mildly problematic content in the description of a Japanese-American character, but I am giving him a pass because he also refers to her as "technically more American than George Washington," which gave me a laugh.
The book is also fourth in a series, which I wouldn't normally review, but I wanted to give Arc Manor kudos for getting it out. It looks like Bova intended to continue, too.
Honestly, I recommend this one mostly to fans of Ben Bova who might not have noticed the project was done and published. Also, if you like old school, Golden Age style near future SF thrillers...it's far from a bad example of the type.
Review: A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold
One of the things about the Vorkosigan Saga is all the genres it contains within it. Yes, it's space opera, but each book is also something else. Maybe you'll get military science fiction. How about a political thriller? Ooh, let's have a fake dating romance.
A Civil Campaign is a comedy of manners and I wish I had found it in 1999, when it was published.
I actually want a time machine to go back in time and hand this book to my Jane Austen-obsessed, science fiction-hating teacher. The one who tried to get my parents to throw out all of my science fiction books and replace them with, most importantly, Jane Austen.
I've hated Jane Austen...and comedies of manners ever since...but I'm also a completist and I couldn't skip this book just because of that.
This is the book that could have had us reconcile our differences, because A Civil Campaign is both good science fiction and a good comedy of manners. There's enough science fiction in it that it let me enjoy it and finally, at 52, see why she loved Austen so much.
And it might have shown her why I love science fiction.
Of course, this being a science fiction comedy of manners, it includes somebody turning into a man to get around inheritance laws...and discovering he likes it. It includes ugly bugs that produce edible food from any organic matter, including sublime ice cream, but the bugs are ugly. Yes, they do escape.
And it ends with one wedding, two engagements, and two likely future engagements.
Lois McMaster Bujold beautifully takes the Michael out of the very society she invents and proves that the woman can, in fact, write anything.
Recommended.