Customer Reviews

The Green Trap

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Oh, man, I wanted this book to work! It just starts falling apart from the get-go. When the main character's brother is killed, the coincidences just start piling on . . . and the main character never wonders out loud, "Who are these new people in my life?" His actions, as the novel unfolds, aren't credible and he's so passive as a protagonist that when the end of the novel comes around we feel nothing for how it turns out.

Bova has written (and continues to write) some of the best science fiction in the business. His Grand Tour Novels and short stories are unequalled. I HIGHLY recommend the Asteroid Wars novels, MERCURY and especially VENUS and JUPITER (which may even be his masterpieces). Bova is also a master of the short story and is a fine editor . . . but this book just doesn't work at all and I wish it did. I've read everything Bova has written in the last twenty years and this is the first time he's stumbled in a major way. I think THE GREEN TRAP is an attempt to move Bova into Michael Crichton's territory, but the book is full of unbelievable characters and political cliches.

The Green Trap is not one of Bova's best. If you're a fan of his, you might want to steer clear or wait until you can grab it from the library.

I think that the premise of the novel is quite good. Man finds technical solution to problem. Man is killed. Man's brother tries to find his killer. Beautiful spy helps or hinders...etc.

Bova kept promising some better intrigue and then failed to deliver. The relationship between the two main charachers just didn't ring true for me...it was shaky right from the start and time after time, they're actions didn't seem to follow "reality". The characters weren't really fleshed out that well either. I felt like broad strokes were used when a deeper character study would have been more satisfying.

The dialog was equally strained. Sometimes I felt as if I were reading a screenplay from a rank beginner. Additionally, some politically charged characters were introduced and it felt as if they were only there to provide the needed drama...almost covering up the fact that there wasn't enough drama with the already enlarged cast of characters.

Nice cover art, though.

When his brother claims to be on the trail of millions of dollars, college professor Paul Cochrane is tempted to laugh it off--research scientists aren't known for getting rich. But his brother insists and Paul agrees to visit him. When he arrives at his brother's office, however, Cochrane's brother is dead--murdered and his research missing. It's pretty clear that whatever project Cochrane's brother was working on really was important. It becomes even more clear when an oil billionaire sends a thug to demand the secrets--and offer a ten million dollar payment.

Cochrane hooks up with beautiful industrial spy Elena Sandoval and the two of them try to find the secret. Eventually Cochrane realizes that his brother had made a breakthrough. The cynobacteria he was working with had been modified to produce extra hydrogen. The dawn of a new economy, one based on hydrogen, seems at hand. But the oil billionaire is making record profits and isn't in a big hurry to let the secret out before he's ready. And he'll do whatever it takes to make sure Cochrane doesn't spread his brother's secret.

Author Ben Bova's THE GREEN TRAP could hardly be more timely in a world which has seen dramatic increases in energy prices and which is facing ever-higher levels of greenhouse gasses. Some solution is necessary but, with current technologies, hydrogen is not the answer. Hydrogen must first be produced, which absorbs more energy than it will eventually release (thanks to the law of entrophy). Bova's hypothesised genetically engineered cynobacteria will resolve this issue. Bova enhances his story with news clippings, discussing various approaches currently being explored that use renewable bio-energy sources.

THE GREEN TRAP deals with a very real set of issues, but the book is not without problems. First, the characters didn't have much depth. Cochrane lost his brother, fell in love, and had a chance at millions of dollars, but it was hard to get any sense of emotion out of it. The falling in love thing seemed undermotivated and the dialogue, and especially internal monologue was often clunky.

I also had some problems with the science. It's easy enough to believe that a cynobacteria could release hydrogen. After all, splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen is a major part of what cynobacteria do. But there needs to be an energy source. You can't just put bacteria in a pail of water, in the dark, and expect hydrogen. Presumable sunlight would be added as the energy source, but redesigning cars to flow the little bacteria into sunlight would be a lot rougher than the simple garage shop operation Bova described. Plus, the environmental risks of releasing a new cynobacteria without understanding how it would affect the environment when released in the wild is never discussed. Would the lakes and oceans be split into oxygen and hydrogen, leaving us a dry and dead planet. Finally, I think Bova cheated on the wrapup. I don't think that Cochrane's solution would really get around the patent problem.

Dear Ben Bova:
Please please please, for the love of God and all that is holy, please do not try to write anything else but science fiction. You are one of the best sci-fi writers out there and usually, your books are the best, with great plots and complex characters.
This book...well, it's a travesty. The main character was flat with no emotion or common sense. When his brother dies at the beginning of the book, he feels no emotion about it. When people start to show up and ask questions, he accepts them for who they are and don't ask questions or have any doubt about who they are. And what is up with the dialog? It feels canned and cold.
I kept reading this book, expecting it to get better. I mean...come on! It's a Ben Bova book. Boy, was a disapointed when I hit the end.

The Green Trap (2006) is an SF novel set in the near future. The search for new sources of oil has not produced any new wells and the demand is increasing. The cost of oil in now over $110 a barrel and gasoline is over $7 per gallon and still going up. Other energy technologies are either too polluting, too wasteful or too immature to replace oil.

In this novel, Paul Cochrane is a professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He has fled from the death of his wife Jennifer in an automobile accident, getting as far as possible from the events surrounding her death in Massachusetts. His mother-in-law still considers him responsible for the accident.

His brother Michael calls Paul with hints of a very profitable find in his research, but refuses to tell him over the phone. Paul finally agrees to come to Palo Alto to meet with him. But Mike is murdered in his office within the Calvin Research Center as Paul is waiting at the reception desk. When Michael doesn't answer his phone, Paul leaves and looks elsewhere for his older brother.

The next morning, two policeman come to his hotel to question him about the murder. Learning of his brother's death is shocking and Paul isn't really tracking the conversation as the policemen imply that he has killed his brother. Yet he remembers an odd occurrence that should prove his innocence and the police leave to check his story.

Irene is Mike's widow. Paul tries to contact her, but only gets the answering machine. Eventually she calls him and he agrees to help with the funeral arrangements.

Elena Sandoval finds Paul in his office and introduces herself as an agent for the Department of Justice. She questions him about his brother's research, but Paul knows nothing except that it involves cyanobacteria. Later, she flies to California with him to attend his brother's funeral.

Mitsuo Arashi is a "facilitator", arranging deals for big corporations. He is waiting in the hotel room when Paul gets back from helping Irene with the arrangements. Arashi offers Paul fifty thousand dollars for information on Mike's research. He also tells Paul that Elena is not a federal agent.

Lionel Gould is the principal stockholder and chairman of the board of Gould Energy Corporation. He had made an offer to buy the Calvin Research Center, but then dropped the offer and went straight to Mike to make a deal. Now that Mike is dead, Gould is looking for other ways to get information on the research.

Kensington is a thug who is works for Lionel Gould. He scares both Arashi and Sandoval. Later Kensington "accidentally" kills Arashi during his interrogation of the man.

In this story, Irene tells Paul that her husband had been unfaithful to her. Naturally, Mike carefully concealed his affairs because Irene has two big and brawny brothers who are likely to react violently to such news. Paul wonders whether they killed his brother.

Paul also wonders if Kensington has killed Mike. The thug is also big and brawny and not at all reluctant to use violence. Gould disagrees with this idea since Mike was working for him. So who did kill Mike?

This tale follows Paul and Elena as they look for a missing laptop containing Mike's research notes. Finally finding the data, Paul takes steps to pass the info on to Gould. Then he learns that Gould wants to suppress the findings, so Paul and Elena flee with the data.

In many respects, this story is not really science fiction, but rather a technothriller. The situation it addresses is too much like the present day. The main fictional element may be motives of the oil company executives, but maybe not. Certain elements of the population would have no quarrel with this conspiracy premise.

This fictional expose of the oil industry is very much like the prior works by this author. It shows a good understanding of the scarcity of petroleum as well as the base nature of mankind. However, it is just not as exciting as his other works and has a depressing ending.

Recommended for Bova fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of monopolistic conspiracies, fleeing innocents, and doubtful romance.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Buying into this story line takes more suspension of disbelief than viewing Harry Potter as non-fiction. Fortunately, I'm only out time and not money as I borrowed the book from my local library which, to their credit, classified it as Fiction thus saving the SciFi section from the wrath of 'one rotten apple spoils them all.' As most other reviewers have noted, not only is the story line both weak and old but it's hard to feel sympathy for any of the characters. And that's the real problem with this yarn. Even if you buy into the nonsense that the oil and automobile companies engage in ongoing criminal activities to keep new energy sources off the market, there's little here to hold your attention. No innovative science and the characters behave like non-thinking automatons. The cover calls it "A Thriller" but, if Bova is trying to emulate Crichton, he's got a long way to go.

It seems as though the only reason for this book was the writer's desire to plug his idea that somehow this special brand of bacteria will rescue us from the gasoline addiction that we have here in the US. All of the characters are poorly drawn stereotypes. Not even the hero and his love evoke any passion. Stay away from this book.

This has to rank as one of the year's top stinkeroos - so bad as to almost defy description. Seriously, where do you start when every single aspect is pathetic and inept? It's a bad rewrite of Urban Legend 214 that we've all heard in so many variations. A highschool class project was a fuel with no emissions but "they" kept it off the market, a guy in his basement hammers out an ultracheap fuel cell but winds up missing, a line worker comes up with a 300 mpg motor but GM "does something." The author has added a predictable love interest.

If a shredder is unavailable how about an editor? From "between you and I" [sic] to "Las [sic] Casita" to possibly the worst dialogue around - it's a mess. Obviously, the author's ideas of how business operates are based on hack films, bad move-for-TV movies and "populist" spouting - in other words, no resemblance to reality. In the real world CEO's do not kidnap folks or kill those who outwit them. Even more absurd, no CEO in their right mind would "put away" a product worth trillions. Teams of hitmen do not come out of the wood work at the drop of a hat.

This is at most a two hour read - probably about half the time it took to be written. Each section of "chapters" (BIG fonts, a couple of pages long) has a little "true" story about the state of alternative energy. Actually these were more interesting than the tale itself. It is all so trite, hack and predictable. Bova has always been a light writer but this makes fat free look decadent. The dialogue is pitiful, the relationships make no sense, politicians are crafty, CEO's are ruthless, cops are straight from Law & Order - caricatures, not characters.

**** Spoiler Warning **** (not that it matters) Plot: Guy gets call from brother who's invented something. Brother is murdered. Guy meets love interest (sexy, beautiful, smart,) who wants info on dead brother's work. Then one long chase scene across the country, fighting, sex, deals, etc Gal admits she was banging brother who was killed "by mistake" then hero releases brother's entire R&D (as email attachments!!!!!) and gets run off road by evil CEO's hoodlums. Take Cover.

This book has it all: greedy big business, police, murder, a beautiful woman, intrigue, double crossings, shady politicians, misery, and mystery. Ben Bova has put it all together in a depressing and unsatisfying read.

The main character, Paul Cochrane, is supposed to be a smart guy but continually acts so stupid that it made me want to cringe. He is more of an antihero. Much of the book revolves around what is or isn't on a computer, but the realities of computer encryption and forensics are over simplified and unrealistic. The book almost reads like a movie script that demands suspension of disbelief.

I rushed through reading the end of the book to get it over with. And in the end, I was disappointed - people die unnecessarily, the bad guys win, and the beautiful woman is a killer. The main character, Paul, his life ruined meets a pitiful and worthless end. Maybe it was intended to be a cautionary tail. I picked up in an MWR library in Afghanistan, paying money would have just made it worse.

Bova has always been one of my favorite authors, and still is. However, as many reviewers have stated, this is not one of his most exciting novels. I think his motive was neither another book nor more income. He, like many Americans, feels that he MUST add his voice to the rising chorus calling for an emphasis on renewable energy and the need to free ourselves of oil dependence. His messages gets out because he has a name, and he wants to use it.

The plot and characters ARE two-dimensional, but by design. He wishes the reader to focus on the theme, not the plot or characters. He wants each reader to ask himself, over and over, "Gee, why are we in this energy mess? Could it really be that bad a prognosis? Can science, or more appropriately, technology, help us out? How might that happen in a realistic way, not something exotic like launching satellites to capture solar energy and beam it back to Earth?"

In fact, his science is flawed. As an engineer, I can spot several technical problems ignored by the author. But again, that's not his point.

His point is simple. We cannot continue for long to gobble oil. It WILL eventually destabilize global culture, and we're near the tipping point. His message is, yet another, clarion call for thought, plans, and action. He is perhaps reaching an audience that doesn't read the news or listen to politicians. If he does that then the book is worth publishing.