The Best of Bova, Volume 1

by Ben Bova, Stefan Rudnicki (Narrator), Vikas Adam (Narrator)

The first volume in a sterling collection of stories from legendary hard science fiction master Ben BovaThese are selected stories from Bova's amazing career at the center of science fiction and space advocacy. He is the creator of the New York Times bestselling Grand Tour series, a six-time Hugo award winner, and past president of the National Space Society. The very best of Ben Bova, these stories span the five decades of Bova's incandescent career.Here are tales of star-faring adventure, peril, and drama. Here are journeys into the mind-bending landscapes of virtual worlds and alternate realities. Here you'll also find stories of humanity's astounding future on Earth, on Mars, and in the solar system beyond--stories that always get the science right. And Bova's gathering of deeply realized, totally human characters are the heroic, brave, tricky, sometimes dastardly engineers, astronauts, corporate magnates, politicians, and scientists who will make these futures possible--and those who often find that the problems of tomorrow are always linked to human values and human failings which are as timeless as the stars.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Audiobook, Anthologies, Ebooks

Audible Audio

First published January 15, 2016

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

[Stevie Kincade · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Audiobook) This is a remarkably consistent short story collection and my first introduction to Bova. Comparing it to Ken Liu's "The paper menagerie" I don't think there is any one story as good as the best 2 or 3 in that collection but every story was good to very good and there were no stories I hated or struggled to get through as I did with some of Liu's.

I thought the weakest story was "Vince's Dragon" but that can be forgiven since Bova clearly wanted to tell the story about being the first to publish an Orson Scott Card story, who could blame him. There was also a story about Kinsmen wanting to join the thousand mile high club I dubbed "sexual harassment in space".

I was under the impression these were all early Bova stories from the 50's and 60's but it turns out they span his whole career. Bova has some conservative leanings but that didn't bother me as I like a writer with something to say whether I agree completely or not. He went slightly political in the hilarious farce "a suite of suits" where Bova imagines our law suit happy society taken to extremes and flips the trope about emerging from cryogenic sleep a millionaire on it's head.

"The long way back" Bova's first published work was a strong start. "inspiration" was a clever attempt to bring Lord Kelvin, Albert Einstein and HG Wells together (with a twist at the end). "Forman where do you flee" was a great science fiction short story.

The audiobook is very well done with Bova himself providing the introductions to each Chapter. Orson Scott Card does some narration, that was a surprise. The main narrator (Stefan Rudnicki I am assuming) had a booming deep voice and leant a sense of gravity to the stories he read.

A solid introduction to Bova and I am looking forward to reading a novel from him I am thinking of going with "Mars Inc"

[Amiranus Romanus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great short stories, really enjoyed the sense of continuity in them.
This is especially evident in the ones set in the universe of the Emperor of the Hundred Worlds :3

I just remembered this while watching a review of "Drifters" on youtube and had to add: "Bushido" is definitely one of the best short stories of this collection.

[Zina · Rating 4 out of 5]

these are old-time true scci-fi stories. They are not as amazing and profound as some of the titans' (Bradbury, Asimov, etc) but still interesting. I think I'd give them 3.5 stars. Some stories are better than others. After the introduction,
the book contains (and I hope to get bacck and leave notes on other stories as welll; I only mark the ones that I particularly liked right now):

3 • A Long Way Back • (1960) • short story by Ben Bova
23 • Inspiration • (1994) • short story by Ben Bova
37 • Vince's Dragon • (1981) • **** a pretty cool story about an aspiring ambitious wannabe Philly mafiosi and a she-dragon.
51 • The Last Decision • (1978) • novelette by Ben Bova
77 • Fitting Suits • (1990) • short story by Ben Bova
83 • A Small Kindness • (1983) • short story by Ben Bova
97 • Born Again • (1984) • short story by Ben Bova
113 • Blood of Tyrants • (1970) • novelette by Ben Bova
133 • Bushido • (1992) • ***** an awesome story about attempting to get admiral Yamamoto to win World War II. Particular pluses: science of time travel; interesting take on villains in general and this oone especially; cool ending
151 • Sam Gunn • [Sam Gunn] • (1983) • **** mostly fun
167 • Amorality Tale • (1985) • ***** LOLOLOL this could NEVER be alllowed nowadays. --Girls bring on World Peace by basically having lots of sex with all men, who just no longer have the will or the energy to fight after that.
175 • A Country for Old Men • (2012) •
213 • Priorities • (1971) •
217 • To Be or Not • (1978) •
225 • To Touch a Star • (1987) •
245 • Risk Assessment • (1996) •
265 • Men of Good Will • (1964) • with Myron R. Lewis
271 • Foeman, Where Do You Flee? • [Dr. Sidney Lee] • (1969) • novella by Ben Bova
317 • Old Timer's Game • (2014) •
329 • The Man Who Hated Gravity • (1989) •
345 • Zero Gee • [Kinsman] • (1972) •
375 • Test in Orbit • [Kinsman] • (1965) •
391 • Fifteen Miles • [Kinsman] • (1967) •
405 • A Slight Miscalculation • (1971) •

[Jay French · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was an avid reader when young, and upon entering high school started volunteering in the high school library. As one of the benefits of working for the library, besides hanging out in the storeroom, I got to read Galaxy and Analog sci-fi magazines first, the day they arrived in the mail. I don’t recall reading a lot of sci-fi short stories before discovering these magazines, but I remember really appreciating the variety of topics and themes, and even the variety of writing styles. You could sense some writers really thought the way you did, and you looked forward to their next story. Can sci-fi stories make you feel nostalgic? You bet. Ben Bova’s short stories in this collection were very similar to reading one of these magazine issues from the 70s – you got the variety of topics and themes, and even writing styles. Bova covers a wide variety of topics, from comic fantasy involving a dragon doing jobs for the mob, to your typical space battle, to your deep thought pieces (typical of which the key line would be something like “They are not aliens, they are human!”). And here you also got the description behind the story. On audio, the descriptions were recordings of Bova, and the various stories were read by a variety of narrators, including the group that do the Ender series as well as Orson Scott Card himself. This really kept me interested throughout. The audio version was very well done. I plan on listening to the next in the series.

[Steve Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ben Bova has some really grand ideas and concepts, but never quite pulls them off in the way that Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, and some other greats have done. Still, I was very impressed that a few of these stories were written when he was just 16 years old!

Most of the stories are entertaining reads. A few are just downright silly.

But there are a few stand outs that deserve 5 stars including "A Country for Old Men", "Old Timer's Game", "To Touch a Star", and "Born Again"

"Foeman, Where Do You Flee?" has a satisfying surprise ending

[Marc Diepstraten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grand master: yes indeed! A very diverse collection of tales. Some a couple pages, some 40odd pages. Can't fault any of the stories which are without exception all very enjoyable, surprising and just plain fun to read. Short stories is something that Ben Bova does very well although I can imagine that not everybody will find all stories equally pleasing. Very good indeed!

[Jeff J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first of three volumes of short stories by one of my favorite SF writers. They are organized randomly: they aren’t in chronological order, or by topic, which is kind of odd. Several of the stories I had read previously, primarily the ones from the Grand Tour series.

[Wendelle]

okay/good stories that traverse friendly, familiar story beats. it's a good collection to round off one's experiences of an established sf master, but this is not a collection of revolutionarily brilliant or suspenseful stories that would announce the entrance of a new young talent.

[Máté · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really tried liking these stories, but most of them were not interesting at all.

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great compilation and range of stories; I had the fortune of listening to great narrators which leant a layer of richness to his stories.

[Jack Jacobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Bova

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dated but still enjoyable

[Magnus Westerlund · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the stories are fairly good. However, one do notice the age of some of the stories. The sexism in some of them disturbed me.

[Earl Truss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the stories were good but some were very dated. For instance, they talked about being on the Moon in a colony in 1965 and a lot of what the Moon was like was wrong.

[Britt Halliburton · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is... okay.

As with almost any compilation of short stories, some will entertain, others will not. From the commentary, we can get the writer's views and motivations, which is interesting in and of itself, especially when he seems to dislike some of his work, which I found good, and likes others, which I disliked. It is impossible give a true review of such a book as this as it really requires reviews of each and every story in the book, which are all wildly varied. Some are two star stories, others are higher. There are plenty of interesting ideas to be found throughout, while some less so.

One consistent frustration are the women. Most often they are objects of the protagonists thoughts, several times they're not even present, just this idea, this desirous object that the character fawns over. Sometimes their devotion to these women feels almost Disney cartoon levels of absurd. When Bova does give us proper, complete women characters, they're not badly written, though often still verge on unfortunately dated mannerisms. The male protagonists are very eclectic, which is what you'd expect from a series of short stories, which can leave you annoyed if you don't like the main character and are stuck with him until the next story.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been aware of Ben Bova's writings since the 1970's when I read The Dueling Machine back in the 1970's. Recently I was listening to the 2/12/16 Baen Free Radio Hour podcast which had an interview with Ben Bova discussing The Best of Bova: Volume 1. So when I saw the book this month on my public library's New Book Shelf, I picked it up. I enjoyed the stories, but as with any collection, some I like better. "Vince's Dragon," "A Country for Old Men," and "A Slight Miscalculation" are probably my favorites of this volume. Mind you, I have a strange sense of humor, so your choices are likely to vary, but do read the volume and make up your own mind.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific book! This compilation of many of Bova's short works (the first of 3 volumes scheduled by his publisher) are a nice overview covering his long years as a writer. The icing on the cake with this book is the personal introductions to most of the stories written by Bova. He provides a number of insights and interesting background to how these tales came into being. A must-read for any Ben Bova fans and a nice introduction for those who have never read his science fiction tales.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I have read a number of Bova's novels, but not a great deal of his short stories. This was a good chance to read some and I must say I enjoyed this collection. I think the shorter format suits him far better than the longer format. At times there is padding in the novels but the shorter format he is more concise. Well worth the read if you like his novels.

[David Mohr · Rating 4 out of 5]

can't wait for book 2 in July