Bova offers a new collection of wide-ranging science fiction stories, essays about the onrushing future, and observations about the craft of SF itself.

Included - among others - are such tales as the touching "The Man Who Hated Gravity," the satirical "Crisis of the Month" and "Fitting Suits," rigorously hard SF like "To Touch a Star," and wrenching drama like "Answer, Please Answer" and "Brothers." Framing all the stories are Bova's insights into the challenges posed in the writing of each one, a vade mecum of home truths about the science in SF, trusting one's own instincts, writing what you know, dealing with publishers, generating plots, creating sympathetic characters, and getting the job done. Also included is a remarkable pair of pieces, one a speculative essay about the world of fifty years hence ("2042: A Cautiously Pessimistic View") and the other a novella, Thy Kingdom Come, set in the world outlined in that essay and dramatizing its problems and opportunities.

Finally, Challenges also presents a generous selection of Bova's output as an essayist both in and outside the SF field, such pieces as "Will Writing Survive?," "Science in Science Fiction," "What Works for Me - And What I Work For," "John Campbell and the Modern SF Idiom," and his resounding affirmation of humanistic rationalism, "Science, Fiction and Faith."

Any collection of Ben Bova's fiction would be cause for celebration. With its generous helping of Bova's comments - particular, provocative, and deeply practical - on the SF field itself and the real future into which we are all embarked, Challenges is an even more special book for SF readers, aspiring writers, and anyone interested in where the human race is headed at the end of the twentieth century

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About the Author

Ben Bova (1932-2020) was the author of more than a hundred works of science fact and fiction, including Able One, Transhuman, Orion, the Star Quest Trilogy, and the Grand Tour novels, including Titan, winner of John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the year. His many honors include the Isaac Asimov Memorial Award in 1996, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation in 2005, and the Robert A. Heinlein Award “for his outstanding body of work in the field of literature” in 2008.

Dr. Bova was President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past president of Science Fiction Writers of America, and a former editor of Analog and former fiction editor of Omni. As an editor, he won science fiction’s Hugo Award six times. His writings predicted the Space Race of the 1960s, virtual reality, human cloning, the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), electronic book publishing, and much more.

In addition to his literary achievements, Bova worked for Project Vanguard, America’s first artificial satellite program, and for Avco Everett Research Laboratory, the company that created the heat shields for Apollo 11, helping the NASA astronauts land on the moon. He also taught science fiction at Harvard University and at New York City’s Hayden Planetarium and worked with such filmmakers as George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry.


Title: Challenges : Stories and Speculation from one of SF's Greats
Author(s): Ben Bova
ISBN: 9781429931540
Copyright 2011
Release Date: April 01, 2011
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group
Countries: United States, Canada | Learn more about available countries
Language: English
Format: mobi,ePub | Learn More about our supported formats
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