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Kinsman #1
Kinsman
Spanning the years between now and the close of the century, Kinsman shows the eventful, expanding space program from today’s space shuttle to the first permanent Moon base through the eyes of its dedicated—and driven—hero. Such scenes as a dramatic rescue on the Moon and hair-raisingly hazardous training exercises—or the hilarious first attempt at off-Earth lovemaking—capture the unique quality of the men and women who are even now training for Man’s greatest adventure.
Chet Kinsman, born of an aristocratic, influential Quaker family, defied tradition and broke with his father to join the Air Force. Not to fight—he was still enough of a Quaker to find killing unthinkable—but to be free of the bonds of Earth, first by flying, then by finding his way into space, to the still peace and beauty of the gulf between the stars.
Kinsman rose rapidly in the service—rapidly enough to be entrusted with a unique emergency mission, the inspection of a secret Soviet satellite. But the satellite was guarded…and Kinsman became the first human to kill another in space.
Grounded for good, Kinsman saw his career and his dreams in ruins. Perhaps he could have lived with that, however bitterly, but he saw also the ominous swing of public interest—and public money—away from space, and the faltering of mankind’s hope to find a new way of life away from its tired, crowded planet.
To salvage the space program, Kinsman readied himself to lose all he had left—friends, the woman he had loved, even honor…
Preceding the widely acclaimed Millennium in the author’s gripping chronicle of the next quarter century, Kinsman is a vivid picture of what the future will mean in human terms.
Chet Kinsman, born of an aristocratic, influential Quaker family, defied tradition and broke with his father to join the Air Force. Not to fight—he was still enough of a Quaker to find killing unthinkable—but to be free of the bonds of Earth, first by flying, then by finding his way into space, to the still peace and beauty of the gulf between the stars.
Kinsman rose rapidly in the service—rapidly enough to be entrusted with a unique emergency mission, the inspection of a secret Soviet satellite. But the satellite was guarded…and Kinsman became the first human to kill another in space.
Grounded for good, Kinsman saw his career and his dreams in ruins. Perhaps he could have lived with that, however bitterly, but he saw also the ominous swing of public interest—and public money—away from space, and the faltering of mankind’s hope to find a new way of life away from its tired, crowded planet.
To salvage the space program, Kinsman readied himself to lose all he had left—friends, the woman he had loved, even honor…
Preceding the widely acclaimed Millennium in the author’s gripping chronicle of the next quarter century, Kinsman is a vivid picture of what the future will mean in human terms.
- GenresScience FictionFiction
245 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1979
4 people are currently reading
145 people want to read
About the author
Ben Bova
714 books1,036 followersBen 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
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
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 15, 2021
Solid book by Ben Bova. I love the way he writes and the characters he develops. I was hoping this was going to be more set in space and the relationships between countries developing there like it was in the first third of the book and less about Kinsman dealing with his PTSD. However, while it was not what I was expecting or hoping for (thus the 3 stars) the book was still excellently written and had a wonderful look into the intensity of those traumatizing moments.
October 20, 2017
The fact that Bova predicted as much technology as he did is wonderful. Overall a very good read, but too much blasphemy for my taste.
July 31, 2025
2.5
sexist man discovers empathy and colonizes the moon
sexist man discovers empathy and colonizes the moon
January 10, 2012
This book is considered a great SciFi classic, but I found it tedious and boring. There was more character development and inner turmoil than in the usual scifi, but in the end I didn't care. I had no interest in the characters by the end of the book, which I feel is a failure of the author. The technology was also very dated and tended to trip me up a bit. This was written at the very beginning of the Space Shuttle program and would have been very interesting at that point, but now it just seems hackneyed and off-putting. There are sequels to this book, but I have no intention of reading them. I would not recommend this book.
November 26, 2014
This is a novel of attempts to settle on the moon. Chet Kinsman was a Quaker who joined the Air Force in an attempt to venture into space. Despite his peace-loving religion, he becomes the first man to kill another in space.
March 1, 2009
Bova's Kinsman stories are exceptional in terms of their relevance to geopolitics at the time of their composition, his protagonist a sympathetic figure.
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August 25, 20101ST BRITISH EDITION. EX -LIB.
April 5, 2014
Read this as title "Millenium"
April 13, 2017
This is hard science fiction that has become alternate history as the future didn't play out the way Bova imagined -- good in that there is no Soviet Union, bad in that space exploration hasn't happened the way it should have been. This book has much more characterization than most hard science fiction as Kinsman, who grew up a Quaker and at first seems like a Top Gun style good-old-boy pilot, has to come to terms with what he did to a Russian cosmonaut and then sacrifice everything, even friendship and the woman he loves, to achieve his dream of a moonbase.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews