Series: Book 1 in the Novels series
Rating: Not rated
Tags: EN-SciFi, Lang:en
Summary
Multiple Hugo–winner Bova's 18th Grand Tour novel
(after 2009's The Return) is a quick-paced space adventure.
Physicist Grant Archer, part of the exploratory team in
2002's Jupiter, is now a research station director dedicated
to proving the intelligence of the leviathans his team
encountered 20 years earlier. He's aided by four newcomers to
the station: biologist and art student Deidre Ambrose; deep
brain stimulation expert Andy Corvus; cyborg Dorn (familiar
to readers of Bova's Asteroid Wars novels); and engineering
physicist Maxwell Yeager. Katherine Westfall, a powerful
International Astronomical Authority member, is also en route
to Jupiter, on a mission to shut down Archer's team. Bova is
at his best writing about the leviathans and their
perceptions. The human motivations and emotions (particularly
romance) seem more shoe-horned in, with the exception of
Archer's engaging scientific passion. (Feb.)
In the well-received Jupiter (2001), Bova introduced
scientist Grant Archer and the city-size life forms he
discovers in the vast oceans of Jupiter. Now Archer returns,
seeking to discover if the leviathans are intelligent. With
him is a young woman who wants the expedition to jump-start
her scientific career; against him is a woman who blames him
for the death of her sister. But as the expedition plunges
deeper into Jupiter's atmosphere, the planet itself becomes
the real protagonist, with its bizarre environment of
bone-straining gravity, storms the size of planets, and
internal heat from the days when it was trying to be a star.
And then there are the leviathans themselves, apparently
thriving in that same environment'but how? Finding the answer
will keep readers turning pages, particularly if they are
aficionados of hard-science sf'of which this is a stellar
example and Bova one of the major creators. --Roland
GreenFrom Publishers Weekly
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