Empire Builders

The Grand Tour: Privateers #2

by Ben Bova

Dan Randolph never plays by the rules. A hell-raising maverick with no patience for fools, he is admired by his friends, feared by his enemies, and desired by the world's loveliest women. Acting as a twenty-first privateer, Randolph broke the political strangle-hold on space exploration, and became one of the world's richest men in the bargain.Now an ecological crisis threatens Earth--and the same politicians that Randolph outwitted the first time want to impose a world dictatorship to deal with it.Dan Randolph knows that the answer lies in more human freedom, not less--and in the boundless resources of space. But can he stay free long enough to give the world that chance?

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook, Science Fiction Fantasy, Adventure, Space, Fantasy

416 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Ben Bova was born on November 8, 1932 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1953, while attending Temple University, he married Rosa Cucinotta, they had a son and a daughter. He would later divorce Rosa in 1974. In that same year he married Barbara Berson Rose.

Bova was an avid fencer and organized Avco Everett's fencing club. He was an environmentalist, but rejected Luddism.

Bova was a technical writer for Project Vanguard and later for Avco Everett in the 1960s when they did research in lasers and fluid dynamics. It was there that he met Arthur R. Kantrowitz later of the Foresight Institute.

In 1971 he became editor of Analog Science Fiction after John W. Campbell's death. After leaving Analog, he went on to edit Omni during 1978-1982.

In 1974 he wrote the screenplay for an episode of the children's science fiction television series Land of the Lost entitled "The Search".

Bova was the science advisor for the failed television series The Starlost, leaving in disgust after the airing of the first episode. His novel The Starcrossed was loosely based on his experiences and featured a thinly veiled characterization of his friend and colleague Harlan Ellison. He dedicated the novel to "Cordwainer Bird", the pen name Harlan Ellison uses when he does not want to be associated with a television or film project.

Bova was the President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past President of Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

Bova went back to school in the 1980s, earning an M.A. in communications in 1987 and a Ph.D. in 1996.

Bova has drawn on these meetings and experiences to create fact and fiction writings rich with references to spaceflight, lasers, artificial hearts, nanotechnology, environmentalism, fencing and martial arts, photography and artists.

Bova was the author of over a hundred and fifteen books, non-fiction as well as science fiction. In 2000, he was the Author Guest of Honor at the 58th World Science Fiction Convention (Chicon 2000).

Hollywood has started to take an interest in Bova's works once again, in addition to his wealth of knowledge about science and what the future may look like. In 2007, he was hired as a consultant by both Stuber/Parent Productions to provide insight into what the world is to look like in the near future for their upcoming film "Repossession Mambo" (released as "Repo Men") starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker and by Silver Pictures in which he provided consulting services on the feature adaptation of Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon".

http://us.macmillan.com/author/benbova

Reviews

[Geoff Battle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This outing for Dan Rudolph is perfectly readable as a stand-alone novel and has more of the gung-ho chauvinism and courageousness that is typical of early Bova. Set in an alternate timeline, Empire Builders still roughly adheres to the Grand Tour series, however it is less about science fiction than political power struggles and character building. Although that may sound off genre, there are plenty of entwined strands of deception, revenge and good old plans of murder. This is played out both upon the Earth and Moon with a sweeping story about (the then hot topic) of the Greenhouse Effect. Although at times stereotypical enough to make you wince and let down by a weak by-the-numbers finale, it is engaging and most importantly entertaining.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok.

So.

This is not the worst book in this series, but that’s a pretty low bar. The first half is actually pretty interesting and fast-paced (with a minimum of the romantic nonsense that Bova seems determined to inflict on us), but around the halfway point the mafia starts trying to use the effects of climate change to take over and rule the world. Then we just embark upon silliness for the final 200 pages, complete with a kidnapping plot, ninjas, hari-kari, love at first sight, horrifically phoneticized Australian accents, the destruction of New Orleans via flooding (a full decade before Hurricane Katrina), constant references to how much Italians love opera, and a (mostly) happy ending all tied up with a neat little bow.

Even so, it’s better than Privateers.

[Graff Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Grand Tour 03 Empire Builders by Ben Bova

challenging informative mysterious reflective sad tense

Slow-paced

Plot or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters are a main focus? It's complicated

3.75 Stars

Writing anything that is speculative, and deals with the future in an alternate universe...is ALWAYS frought with struggles. How to predict the future? I think, especially WHEN this book series started and how long it has been ongoing, it shows that it's done some things right.

The future thinking of the problems that we are currently having (in 2025), with greenhouse gases, and how that it is effecting our climate and possible future is STILL debated hotly from both sides, but it is becoming more clear, that it IS happening, and we may not have the TEN years that is proposed in this novel. Also, the people who are holding to "this is not happening", are becoming more and more delusional. They have been lied to by politicians, and the massive amount of misinformation that is on the internet. We NOW have too much information (and you cannot prove one side or another, because the floading of wacky theories from both sides, that just muddy the water...for most honest seekers for the truth. It is becoming clear, even for them...that the greenhouse "cliff" that they represent in this story, is currently happening.

Then you have Bill Gates on the other side, that says that the ONLY way to reduce CO2...is to reduce the amount of people on the earth, and he's already introducing ways of depopulating the planet through "vaccines". Yikes!

On the other side, there are people that are refusing to believe that vaccines are important to keep humanity from devolving. Yeah, I'm not sure we are going to match the progress that is seen in this series. We might not make it.

Now, reading how Valsili Malik and his belief systems (from the Soviet Era), is funny to read about...in a future thinking story, but here we are.

BUT, on the other end, we have an Elon Musk type person...as the protagonist in Dan Hamilton Randolf. His misoginistic views and his fight for an ologarchy in the US, and in the world...gives me pause. Fact or fiction (as we see Elon Musk attached at the hip to the Orange Turd, and dismantling the country of my birth). Our own Dan, is scarier than the one on the page, but they are BOTH very dangerous.

Sadly, the women in this series (so far) are ALL tied to the male characters...and don't have agency of their own...and that's just not acceptable in this day and hour.

With all that said, and there are many more things that I find cringe in reading this book, but it still hits close enough, that I keep reading onward. It reminds me of the recent TV series, For All Mankind, and their view on the past (via an alternate history...which is obviously easier to do), than trying to predict the future. It still makes us able to compare and contrast what HAS happened (and how we feel about it), and what could happen...in our near future...to either surpass the advancements that are predicted, OR fall WAY short. Yeah.

Charles Stross had a series going, dealing with Near Future events, but the path forward kept making his next book unreadable (even though I enjoyed what he did), but he just couldn't sustain it (sadly). The series was called, The Halting State series...that ended AFTER book two. Sadly, I heard that while reading Rule 34, and it sucked the air out of my enthusiasm for the book/series...and I never finished it. I might need to pick up Halting State for a reread, and then "at least" finish Rule 34, for I am a completionist, and that has been left uncompleted (and it bugs me). Ugh.

Okay, on to Mars, the fourth book in The Grand Tour series.

[فرهاد ذکاوت · Rating 4 out of 5]

After powersat which Bova wrote in 2005 for a very beginning of the grant tour, this is the second and political games and environmental reasons for an economical game started by CEOs and governments.

It still has technological aspects aside political dialogue which is the entire book as Privateers was. If some readers are looking for a full adventure by bova this is not the one but a necessity for enthusiasts of Grant Tour.

Game changers of the Grant Tour are "almost" all appear here. I liked it since I like political novels. Bova did it very well in Grant Tour. And finally, The issues we are facing in politics today regarding to environmental and near future CEO games in Ben Bova's fictional world from 70s. Some of them are exact predictions of today's reality.

These recent years there is a new PhD program as Politics and economics of space science and technology.

My vote is 3.8/5.

"He knew the world can not recompilliation nationalism, specially smallest countries which could slaughter millions of people by biological weapons, but the alternative was a global government which was no appeal; a worldwide bureaucracy that gradually imposing a global dictatorship by committee, leveling everything on earth to the same flat donate bonus."

[JP · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Powersat, the big bads were terrorists. In Privateers, the Russians. In The Empire Builders it's... global warming and the mob?

Given how times have changed, it's amusing to see the specter of a 'greenhouse cliff' looming over the world, with no one believing at first that such a thing is even possible. Nowdays, you'll see arguments over if it's happening or not (more and more rarely) and if we caused it in the first place (of course we did), but you'd be hard pressed to find too many people that have never even heard of the idea. That's what you get for reading near future sci-fi written a quarter century ago I guess. It's a straight forward enough plot with a few twists through politics, squatters on the moon and natural disasters and an engaging read. I find myself increasingly interested in what happens to this other Earth.

Surprisingly, I find myself actually like Dan Randolph slightly more than either of the previous books. He's still crazy sexist and unable to see his own faults, but beneath all that... he really does want to do the right thing and will go through some fairly crazy lengths to make it happen. So... well written Ben Bova I guess?

Characterwise, it's most interesting to see the growth of Vasily Malik and his relationship with Randolph. Again, I didn't expect to sympathize as much with Malik as much I as I did. It probably helps that with the fall of the Soviet Union (in the real world), the Russians aren't quite as much the cartoonish villains this time around. It's kind of a bummer not to see Teresita Hernandez at all and only a little of the elder Saito, although what we get is interesting and good characterization for him and Dan and might just set up for something later (I honestly don't remember).

Overall, it's my favorite of the series so far.

Next up: Mars! I remember quite enjoying that book.

[Brian Layman · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are completing the grand tour, skip this one, at least until all others are read. It is not consistent with the timeline/events in rest of the books anyway.

Builders is said to be the worst of the series, except for privateers, and typical of early Bova. That's disappointing as it may now taint my impression of his other books.

It is full of misogynistic garbage like rape as the expected punishment for the girls who've wronged you. Yes, that was the exact word and reasoning used multiple times.

There was a discussion about how "All cats are gray in the dark" and if you should bother getting to know women or just keep using brothels. The conclusion was that women were like fine wine and you should sample as many as you can.

Even the women who rise to power are flat caricatures, merely tools controlled by more powerful men, with other men ready to rescue them from their dire circumstances and/or rape them.

I will say that the prose is as easily read here in as all of Bova's work, even if the content is not.

[Durval Menezes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Standard, naive Space Opera: the good guys are 100% good, the bad guys (with a single exception) are really bad, and the formers beat unsurmountable odds to defeat the latters in the end, and get the girl to boot.

That said, it's a fast, fluid read and if you like that type of story and the aforementioned naivete doesn't bother you too much, you should find it engaging and enjoyable.

I've actually read that book quite a few years back (in the 90s) and just re-read it; I'm going through an effort to read all the books in Bova's Grand Tour that I haven't read yet, and was not sure whether I've read it or not, so started reading it up to the point I started recognizing some of the characters and situations, but decided to keep reading it to the end as it was not so bad. Not nearly as good as some other books in the series ("Mars" aka Grand Tour #4, was much better), but not bad either: I might have given it a 4-stars rating when I read it first, but on that second reading (perhaps because it's not such a novelty, out perhaps because I'm older and more cynic and naivete bothers me more than before, or perhaps because of those two factors combined) nowadays I can only give it 3 stars.

[Grant McMillan · Rating 1 out of 5]

The back cover has a blurb written by Ray Bradbury; the blurb reads, "I believe that by far the science fiction author who will have the greatest effect on the science fiction world, and the world as a whole, is Ben Bova." I love Ray Bradbury's fantastical stories, but this blurb may be the most outlandish in his entire body of work.

This is not a good book. It's a half-baked smattering of tropes presented uncritically and without the backing of interesting characters. The double threat of its deeply misogynistic protagonist and its entry level libertarian ideology curdles the narrative at its most fundamental levels. Mileage may vary on which of these two elements will stink worse to a given reader.

Lastly, Dan Randolph whines about freedom every chance he gets, but all he really stands for is his own freedom to be the ruling class he claims to resist. Swapping global government for global corporate oligarchy is just authoritarian ethos with a different coat of paint.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bova, Ben. The Empire Builders. Grand Tour No. 3. Tor, 1993.
Dan Randolph is back in The Empire Builders, and he is even more a Heinleinian magnate than before. A scientist has discovered that there will be a massive global warming “cliff” within a decade that will increase sea levels quickly. Randolph encourages a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to make the disaster survivable, but it will depend on expanding the space program and developing new space-born technologies. The UN goes along, but there are unintended consequences—the powers that be confiscate his company and make him an outlaw on the Moon. The part of the plot that deals with the problem of hiding out on a controlled environment like the Moon is fun. The political drama and the usual romantic complications of Dan’s life are less so. 3.5 stars.

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daniel Randolph learns that the Earth is facing a global level greenhouse catastrophe within a decade. Bringing his findings to the GEC, he is ousted as head of Astro Tech and faces confiscation of assets and arrest for kidnapping.

As Randolph struggles to spread his message, the Mafia makes a move to impose a stranglehold on the GEC, even if it means killing Randolph.

Bova weaves a tense tale which explores in detail the risks of a greenhouse cliff.

[Timothy Darling · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Ben Bova. He's a refreshingly strong voice in a field gone soft. This book became a little preachy at the end, but you get the impression that the whole book was a setup for the next story anyway, so a little rationalization is to be understood. Dan Randolph is a fun character and Jane Scanwell is quite sympathetic. Enjoy the story simply for seeing how Bova's going to get his heroes out of the mess he put them in. It's worth the read.

[Marica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have enjoyed this book more if the author had made up his mind which woman the main character is in love with. First he loves one then in the second book "he thought he had loved her" and then loves a woman half his age. Everything was fine up until the 3rd book where he is divorced from the younger one whom "he thought he had loved" again... and is in love with the first one all over again. Apart from the love inconsistencies the book was still enjoyable.

[MajorEpic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bova is a bit long winded, but I’ve come to expect it from him. The action is better in this book than in Privateers, but I thought the world building was better in Privateers. The beginning of this one was much better than Privateers, but Privateers ending was better. Seems like it’s just a trade off between the first two books in the series. The ending of this one somehow felt like the last few chapters were a little rushed. Which is odd for Bova.

[Randy Mcbride · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories Bova creates keeps drawing me back. This is despite how much I despise his protagonist. It is kind of like politics where you have to pick the one you dislike the least. Well the protagonist is just a little bit better than the antagonist, barely. Having him give a nice speak at the end of the book does not change that.

And yes I will take a few months off and read the next story.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another sequel in the Dan Randolph series, this book takes the reader on a roller coaster ride as Dan discovers the ecological disaster that awaits earth from greenhouse gasses. Other adversaries, however, want to use this as an excuse to impose a new world order. This book is pretty fast-paced and one of the earliest science fiction novels that actually depicts climate change and ways to fight it.

Read this if you like the Grand Tour series.

[Will Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good outing by Ben Bova. I like the Dan Randolph Character, but really am not into the female love interest/protagonist, Jane Thorton. If there is one knock I have against Bova, it is the stereotypical way he writes characters. On one hand you can identify with them to some degree, but in other ways it makes them cookie cutter. Still a good read though.

[Carmilla Choate · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's strange to read a speculative book about exactly what we're dealing with today and how different the climate crisis is being handled in reality. The optimism Bova had in the 90s about the topic is kinda hard to read in today's current hellscape.

Great book, topical, and real sad to read when the planet is literally on fire

[Yegods · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent adventure in the continuing Grand Tour saga. My distaste for the hero is also continuing. Such a misogynist. If I weren't so interested in this story of our expansion into the solar system, I would give up on this set of books. At least the plot differs from the previous two, and becomes sort of a riches to rags story, which was fun.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dan Randolph remains the man of the hour. After Defeating the Russians I thought we had seen the last of him. But he is back with a vengeance to take on mankind’s collective failure to check itself - greenhouse emissions.
Bova continues to deliver action and politics in the best way possible.

[Gary Redman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ben Bova runs his "hero" Dan Rudolph through the ringer trying to save the world from the effects of global warming while saving his own neck, eluding his enemies out to stop him and steal his company. Farfetched but enjoyable sci-fi romp in Bova's Grand Tour series.

[Mark Fuller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is somewhat dated, but very good and timely. I thoroughly enjoyed it , despite call the flaws. It’s a shame that we are pretty well done with Dan Randolph as a character. I’ve enjoyed these three books.

[John Ulrich · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay. I'm going through the whole Grand Tour and so far Powersat is still my favorite. Classic cultural issues like environmental and capitalism etc in this one though but definitely kept me turning the page.

[Tom Getzinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, I'm done commenting that this near future story got dated by the downfall of the soviet state. Just accept the characters and assume they actually belong to different nations or that it is an alternate history. IN that case, it was a fun ride!

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

AUDIBLE BOOK
future intrigue intertwined with global warming

[Darin K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to see how someone in the past imagines what the future will be like. Clearly written while the cold war was raging.

[Dave Packard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of sad, I forgot that I just read this and picked it up to start it again. I guess it didn’t make much of an impression.

[Tom Rowe · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit dated.

[Krista Walsh-Guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read…a little confused at the beginning at the revision of how Dan and Jane met, but otherwise enjoyable.

[Steve Mahomet · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a letdown compared to last book. Finally got tired of the Randolph character and his escapades.

[Shawn Deal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this whole trilogy very much.