Ben Bova was overrated

Ben Bova was one of the greats in science-fiction... for better or worse. I bought Mars used and failed to get far in it. Lately I got The Precipice used and am having the same trouble with that one.

They come in the same series, Mars first I guess. Let's just say: it's no Mars Crossing or The Martian. And The Precipice is no Expanse.

The conceit is that global warming is happening and, by The Precipice, is boiling. Coastal cities are collapsing and, at the worst possible time, earthquakes are shaking up New Madrid again. Meanwhile William Jennings Bryan has emerged from his grave or something and has, at last, united the Christian faithful with socialists in a "New Morality". Similar is happening in Japan; and in the Near East there's a "Sword of Islam" although brave Ben Bova bravely has the Christians doing most of the terrism.

Humanity's only hope is in nanotechnology, which also might stand to rejuvenate old men (Bova was gettin' up in years by 2001) and even to bring nitrogen-cooled guys out from Nederland back to the land of the living. If only we could do away with the Red Tape! I do hope Charon docked this schmendrick's skiff on the same dock with CS Lewis . . .

Bova does sometimes pull himself back from the moral, er, precipice as he realises that his stance against religionism is also a stance against the average American, who've been suffering rather a lot in his backstory. We might forgive that; we might further indulge aspects of the backstory - warminism aside, there's a lot of tectonics itching the Turtle Island's shell, and American society may indeed not be well suited for the coming Scratchings. But now we must speak of Bova's characters where they are not statistical voting-blocs.

Dan Randolph and Martin Humphries are painted with crayon borrowed from Ayn Rand. Randolph is the good guy and Humphries is the bad guy, but they're both wealthy financiers and they're spying upon one another. And they're equally stymied by the real bad guys who are religious-left types.

I guess tomorrow I'll get to muse upon how this ponderous scribbler got access to crayons for as long as he did.