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The Grand Tour #22
Tales of the Grand Tour: Short Stories
New tales of humanity's near-future exploration of the Solar System, from a science fiction master and award-winning author Ben BovaIn novels like Mars and Moonbase, and Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn, as well as Privateers, The Precipice, and The Rock Rats, Ben Bova has been telling the stories of the wars and rivalries, the outsize individuals, public crusades, and private passions that will drive us as we expand into the Solar System and make use of its vast resources. And throughout, Bova has shown our cosmic neighborhood as we know it to be, giving us a sense of Venus and Jupiter and the Asteroid Belt and Mars that's as up-to-date as the latest observations. For the last two decades have been a golden age of near-Earth astronomy and observation, and in his novels Bova has made dramatic use of our newest knowledge.But during that time Bova has also written short fiction about some of the same events and characters---Sam Gunn, Martin Humphries, Klaus Fuchs, Dan Randolph, the Asteroid Wars. Now, in Tales of the Grand Tour, those stories are collected in book form for the first time, creating a volume that is a landmark of modern SF.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
394 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2004
21 people are currently reading
403 people want to read
About the author
Ben Bova
715 books1,039 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 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 3, 2020
To someone who has read the whole Grand Tour series, this volume is a complete waste of time offering nothing new (which is the most valuable virtue of this series - offering new and up to date reflections of what is really about to happen in Space Exploration). Don't waste time reading this volume, but read the whole rest of the Grand Tour series!
November 7, 2019
Reasonably good collection of short stories on the Grand Tour, spoiled only because many of them were actually excerpts from previous GT books which mean that, if you (like me) read them in the recommended order, you'd be reading them again on this book.
May 25, 2024
Some of these stories come from the books of the Grand Tour, so it serves as a sample for the series. I love Mr. Bova’s fiction, and this collection of short stories is great. He does a great job of writing the future in a believable, extrapolating way.
April 14, 2021
Well written short stories taken from Ben Bova's multi volume Grand Tour series. After reading these stories, you'll want to tap into the whole series.
May 19, 2021
Not exactly what I thought it was going to be. I liked the first story that included Sam Gunn into the Grand Tour...the rest.....weird.
December 2, 2023
Duration: 3:12:49
March 24, 2020
Collection of short stories from the Grand Tour. Some are excerpts from the novels, others are new stories. If you like his novels, you should enjoy this collection. Still has some dated views on gender but the sci-fi aspects are pretty solid. There are some author notes before each story which adds some value to the stories. Not enough new stories (~half the book?) but worth the buy if you like Bova.
May 19, 2010
Fine on it's own, however if you have read the books in the Grand Tour series you have probably read most of this as well. The excerpts taken from novels are the bulk of the material here, but I liked the few short stories just fine.
July 7, 2014
An interesting combination of short stories and excerpts from some of Bova's novels. The former are more exciting that the latter, but if one is not already familiar with the Grand Tour novels, or if one hasn't read some of them for a while, the excerpts are fun, too.
July 29, 2015
Interesting combination of short stories and excerpts from some of Bova's novels. Some of the stories are excerpted from novels, but they hold up on their own. Recycled from the Grand Tour books...."Nothing to see here, move along."
November 1, 2009
Pretty good stories about exploration of the solar system.
May 27, 2013
Recycled from the Grand Tour books. Disappointing especially if you've read most of the series. Nothing new here.
October 13, 2013
Audiobook. Ho hum. Very mediocre, killed some time in the car.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews