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The Grand Tour #26
Pluto
Hugo Award winner Ben Bova and Les Johnson complete Bova's Outer Planets series (Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto), a Grand Tour of the human settled solar system, with a final encounter on Pluto.
Major Larry Randall has been called to Pluto to retrieve Dr. Aaron Mikelson. Mikelson, no longer human after a horrific accident, is now melded to an AI. His enhanced senses have detected an alien artifact on Pluto’s surface, and he's not leaving without it.
Transferred to the research vessel studying Pluto, Randall and the other scientists are stumped as to the artifact's purpose and origin. Looking for similar signs of aliens they make their way to Pluto's moon, Charon, where, buried deep under its icy surface, something stirs—and wakes.
Against a backdrop of unknown alien technology and potential interplanetary war, Mikelson’s inhuman ego and obsession will risk humanity by calling something unknown to our solar system.
The Outer Planets Trilogy
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Major Larry Randall has been called to Pluto to retrieve Dr. Aaron Mikelson. Mikelson, no longer human after a horrific accident, is now melded to an AI. His enhanced senses have detected an alien artifact on Pluto’s surface, and he's not leaving without it.
Transferred to the research vessel studying Pluto, Randall and the other scientists are stumped as to the artifact's purpose and origin. Looking for similar signs of aliens they make their way to Pluto's moon, Charon, where, buried deep under its icy surface, something stirs—and wakes.
Against a backdrop of unknown alien technology and potential interplanetary war, Mikelson’s inhuman ego and obsession will risk humanity by calling something unknown to our solar system.
The Outer Planets Trilogy
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
284 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 4, 2025
9 people are currently reading
77 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 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 24, 2025
Having finished the book and read some other commentary about it I the title should be Pluto: The Conclusion to Ben Bova’s Grand Tour by Les Jonson. As Les writes in the acknowledgments:
Is this the book how Ben would have completed the series? Almost certainly no. He didn’t leave an outline because, as I learned when he and I coauthored ‘Rescue Mode’ when Ben got an idea for a book, he just began writing. I’m an outliner; Ben was a pantser – he wrote by the seat of his pants. He left the rough beginning of the novel and no notes telling me where to take it.
When I first heard rumours of this book was coming I was under the impression Ben had left a substantially completed novel which just needed tidying up. Apparently not.
Having just read Uranus and Neptune I completely agree with Les that this is not the book Ben would have written. He was leaning towards a much more epic finale than is given here, but with Ben not leaving any notes who really knows what he had planned.
But I’m not saying this is a bad book, far from it. Of the Outer Planets trilogy I actually think this is the best book. It has the action and the science that typifies the best of Bova’s Grand Tour books. It reads like the next step in the trilogy, but a more polished version than the first disappointing 2 books from Ben.
It’s not a perfect book by any means. The timings of ice ages is still wrong, though it get’s closer to accurate in this book. And there is still no evidence linking the past events on Uranus, to the artefact on Neptune, and the new artefact on Pluto. The characters still keep claiming it’s all linked and irrefutably proven, without any evidence given to the reader in the books.
And this book being primarily written by someone else has missed capitalising on issues Ben was emphasising in Uranus and Neptune. Events in Neptune aren’t even mentioned in this book, only events from Uranus.
This book itself as a standalone read is decent. The plotting and pacing is good. The prose is easy to read and enjoyable. The characters are engaging. There are a few too many characters, but that’s a result of the plot. You couldn’t have one person doing and knowing everything that goes on as it simple wouldn’t be credible to for a single person to have that much knowledge and skills. But the large cast means some of the characters are just names rather than personalities. And the soap opera love triangle added nothing to the plot or characters.
I would recommend reading this if you’ve read Uranus and Neptune even though I don’t really consider it a Ben Bova book. But I wouldn’t recommend you read Uranus or Neptune, they weren’t good examples of Ben’s Grand Tour books. So, all things considered, probably skip this final leg of the Grand Tour unless you’re a dedicated fan.
Is this the book how Ben would have completed the series? Almost certainly no. He didn’t leave an outline because, as I learned when he and I coauthored ‘Rescue Mode’ when Ben got an idea for a book, he just began writing. I’m an outliner; Ben was a pantser – he wrote by the seat of his pants. He left the rough beginning of the novel and no notes telling me where to take it.
When I first heard rumours of this book was coming I was under the impression Ben had left a substantially completed novel which just needed tidying up. Apparently not.
Having just read Uranus and Neptune I completely agree with Les that this is not the book Ben would have written. He was leaning towards a much more epic finale than is given here, but with Ben not leaving any notes who really knows what he had planned.
But I’m not saying this is a bad book, far from it. Of the Outer Planets trilogy I actually think this is the best book. It has the action and the science that typifies the best of Bova’s Grand Tour books. It reads like the next step in the trilogy, but a more polished version than the first disappointing 2 books from Ben.
It’s not a perfect book by any means. The timings of ice ages is still wrong, though it get’s closer to accurate in this book. And there is still no evidence linking the past events on Uranus, to the artefact on Neptune, and the new artefact on Pluto. The characters still keep claiming it’s all linked and irrefutably proven, without any evidence given to the reader in the books.
And this book being primarily written by someone else has missed capitalising on issues Ben was emphasising in Uranus and Neptune. Events in Neptune aren’t even mentioned in this book, only events from Uranus.
This book itself as a standalone read is decent. The plotting and pacing is good. The prose is easy to read and enjoyable. The characters are engaging. There are a few too many characters, but that’s a result of the plot. You couldn’t have one person doing and knowing everything that goes on as it simple wouldn’t be credible to for a single person to have that much knowledge and skills. But the large cast means some of the characters are just names rather than personalities. And the soap opera love triangle added nothing to the plot or characters.
I would recommend reading this if you’ve read Uranus and Neptune even though I don’t really consider it a Ben Bova book. But I wouldn’t recommend you read Uranus or Neptune, they weren’t good examples of Ben’s Grand Tour books. So, all things considered, probably skip this final leg of the Grand Tour unless you’re a dedicated fan.
October 7, 2025
2.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews
Summary
A scientific expedition to explore Pluto and Charon calls in the military when a scientist uploaded to a machine refuses to respond. The rescue leads to conflict with alien devices.
Review
I haven't read all of the sprawling Grand Tour series, but I've read a lot of it. Even broken into sub-series, it's so big that I've frankly lost track of what's happening, and sometimes lost track of the series entirely - just lost interest.
I felt Neptune , the book I thought was the last in the series, was okay, and a big step up on its predecessor Uranus , but still substantially flawed. This (new) last book ties off the trilogy with the help of Les Johnson, who seems to have effectively written the whole book based on a draft chapter or two. Unfortunately, Johnson is in some ways a fit for Bova in that all three books of this sub-trilogy come across as dry and dated.
I only know about Johnson what I read in his bio, but the book is a throwback to some books of the 50s and 60s - sexism is fine so long as you don't mean it badly, military men are better than other people, etc. I was startled to come across this in a book in 2025.
Technically, the book is okay - the plot is credible, though the ending is mostly open, rather than closing off the long Grand Tour. Unfortunately, the book aims at a character-based approach, and I found the characters grated. For just one example, the military officer/scientist protagonist, on a ship full of highly competent and intelligent scientists, doubts their ability to maintain their own ship, because ... well, it's not clear, but the implication is that only the military can do serious work. For another, our protagonist is constantly patting himself on the back for understanding that scientists don't work in the same command structure the military does - which by implication would be better. All in all, it felt to me like a very dated viewpoint with more modern science.
If you've been following the Grand Tour, you don't need this last stop. It doesn't resolve much, mostly wasn't written by Bova, and is less good than Neptune was.
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.
Summary
A scientific expedition to explore Pluto and Charon calls in the military when a scientist uploaded to a machine refuses to respond. The rescue leads to conflict with alien devices.
Review
I haven't read all of the sprawling Grand Tour series, but I've read a lot of it. Even broken into sub-series, it's so big that I've frankly lost track of what's happening, and sometimes lost track of the series entirely - just lost interest.
I felt Neptune , the book I thought was the last in the series, was okay, and a big step up on its predecessor Uranus , but still substantially flawed. This (new) last book ties off the trilogy with the help of Les Johnson, who seems to have effectively written the whole book based on a draft chapter or two. Unfortunately, Johnson is in some ways a fit for Bova in that all three books of this sub-trilogy come across as dry and dated.
I only know about Johnson what I read in his bio, but the book is a throwback to some books of the 50s and 60s - sexism is fine so long as you don't mean it badly, military men are better than other people, etc. I was startled to come across this in a book in 2025.
Technically, the book is okay - the plot is credible, though the ending is mostly open, rather than closing off the long Grand Tour. Unfortunately, the book aims at a character-based approach, and I found the characters grated. For just one example, the military officer/scientist protagonist, on a ship full of highly competent and intelligent scientists, doubts their ability to maintain their own ship, because ... well, it's not clear, but the implication is that only the military can do serious work. For another, our protagonist is constantly patting himself on the back for understanding that scientists don't work in the same command structure the military does - which by implication would be better. All in all, it felt to me like a very dated viewpoint with more modern science.
If you've been following the Grand Tour, you don't need this last stop. It doesn't resolve much, mostly wasn't written by Bova, and is less good than Neptune was.
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews