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Set in the same universe as Bova’s "Moonrise" Mars series, "Venus" sets itself apart from both. In "Venus", set in the near future, a ruthless tycoon offers billions for the recovery of the remains of his eldest son from hellish and not-yet conquered Venus. Martin Humphries’s first son died while trying to land on Venus years ago. His surviving son, Van, is a whiny, spoiled brat who suffers from a rare and incurable anemia. In a stroke of genius, Bova makes Van (as unsympathetic a character as you can get) the hero. Van is no fearless strapping pioneer - he explores planets using VR goggles - but his love for his dead brother draws him to Venus. (Van also needs the prize money, since Humphries has cut off Van's stipend to pay for it.) Because of his love for his brother, and hatred of his father, winning the prize seems the best way to achieve two aims – all Van must do is reclaim his brother’s remains…from the surface of a planet that approximates hell itself. Also vying for the prize is the mysterious Lars Fuchs. An old enemy of Humphries, Fuchs made his fortunes as a "rock rat", a sort of wildcat driller essentially exiled to the asteroid belt. The enmity between the two provides some of the mystery to the story. Though Humphries is the typical villain in the Bova mold (filthy rich and an anti-environmentalist tycoon - essentially evil incorporate), Fuchs is an enigmatic genius in the Verne mode - of dark moods, many secrets and an oversized ego. Fuchs also has an ominous taste in naming his spaceships. (Fuch's spaceship is named "Lucifer"; the descent module is named "Hecate" after the underworld goddess.) Bova even tosses in a sort of love-interest in the beautiful Marguerite Duchamp. When disaster strikes, and the two must throw their lot in with the enigmatic Fuchs, Bova becomes deliberately vague about what Duchamp must do to save herself and Humphries from their savior and captor. The characters are compelling, but the real star is Venus, one of those worlds that seethes damnation. Closer to the sun, Venus is exposed to more heat than Earth, but can’t vent it because of the clouds of sulfuric acid that enshroud it. Because there’s no liquid water, Venus has no “fuel” for the geological movement needed to vent the planet’s interior heat. With volcanic pressure of Venus's core steadily building up without release, the planet is turning into a geological time-bomb. With its slower planetary rotation, Venus accepts the brunt of the sun's energy on one side, (the "subsolar"), generating huge storms called "super-rotations". Bova makes all of this clear to the reader, not simply because he uses Van as the narrator but makes Van something approachable to readers - a planetologist making the leap, not from one planet to another, but from a virtual version of one planet to another. Bova doesn’t serve the heaping moralism of the Moonrise and Mars books (in which anything “corporate” is bad; also in which some fabulous new technology is assailed by fundamentalist religious types, and become available only to the very rich), though expensive technology firmly demarcates the line between haves and have-nots more forcefully than in those other books. Though Van's transformation to hero is a bit too pat, and there's little-enough sense of time or tension as to what he will find when his chance comes to land on Venus, "Venus" the story still excels in the climax.Read full review
Another Great book by Ben Bova --- Van Humphries is the sickly, second son of a evil corporate tycoon. His older brother died on a failed attempt to be the first man to land on Venus. The father offers a $10 billion reward for anyone who can retrieve his beloved son's remains. Why would he sponser such a task? And to everyone's surprise, why would Van decide to attempt it?? Read the book and you will find out........,
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