Mercury

ben bova's grand tour novels are all great hard sci fi adventure stories filled with great charecters with lots of heart and the need for exploration. i truly hope we get to visit every planet in the solar system on bova's grand tour. i recommend these books to anyone who loves good sci fi with a well told story. and the cover illustrations are grand too! brian d

To be honest I don't remember this book specifically that well. It is on par with his other Grand Tour books. Personally I read these during my vacation time and tend to finish them after a few days. To me they are a bit like action movies, pretty mindless fun for a couple hours. Honestly pick one up from the library see if you like it. I am not sure if I would buy any of them for my shelf though...maybe if they all came in a nice box set for not too much.

Mercury (2005) is the fourth SF novel in the Planet Novel series, following Saturn. In this novel, Mance Bracknell was exiled from Earth when the Sky Tower that he constructed split at the geostationary level and the lower portion fell on the planet. Coming down to the west of its base at Quito, the tower wrapped around the Earth, with the far end coming down into the mid-Atlantic. Over four million people were killed as it fell. During the trial, Mance was desolate, blaming himself for the disaster. He became agitated when Elliot Danvers, the New Morality minister at the site, stated that he had reported something like nanomachines being used to construct the tower. Then he became angry when his associate Victor Molina implied that Mance had ignored warnings about this new construction method. Years after exile to the Belt, Mance learns from Danvers that his fiancee, Lara Tierney, had married Molina. Later he discovers that the Yamagata Corporation had sabotaged the tower. He becomes obsessed with plans of vengeance on Danvers, Molina and Yamagata. After his ship is destroyed by Yamagata assassins, Mance alters his name and face, opens a construction consulting company on Selene, and looks for an opportunity for revenge. This novel is a study of ambition, vengeance and jealousy as well as loyalty and atonement. The three targets are brought together on Mercury with Mance, in his new identity, setting the stage. First Victor is led to believe that there is life on Mercury and then the plot unfolds. Recommended for Bova fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of space ventures, ambition and betrayal. -Arthur W. Jordin

Continuation of Ben Bova Grand Tour series. Good development of characters, and although this is sci-fi, there is just enough real science to make it almost believable. A good read.

I happen to be a big fan of Ben Bova's no nonsense, straight forward brand of science fiction. He makes logical extrapolations of science, religion and politics in the near future, and leaves the fantastical to other authors. The Skytower backstory for MERCURY owes much to Arthur C. Clarke's FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE, David Gerrold's more recent descriptions of a "beanstalk" in JUMPING OFF THE PLANET, and its demise is perhaps one of the best examples of future terrorism fueled as much by corporate greed as by religious fanaticism.If you have read any of Bova's novels VENUS, JUPITER, or SATURN--then you will already be familiar with a few of the characters that reappear. I find this one of the most appealing features of The Grand Tour Series, that they are not dependent on each other, but they are linked by characters and a near future "universe" that feels comfortably familiar, even in it's twisted politics and collapsed ecology. Highly recommended.