Customer Reviews

The Kinsman Saga

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I first read The Kinsman Saga, I was amazed and awestruck at how it was written. Most of all, of how one man and his closest friends unite two cultures of different backgrounds into acheiving what could be described as the impossible. The prevention of nuclear destruction on the Earth.

Ben Bova has created an adventure that is a very successful blend of science fiction and political thriller, with some romantic overtones. He was also very accurate concerning Ronald Reagan's old SDI-Star Wars-plan. Bova even created characters that were multi-dimensional and real. Chet Kinsman was definately someone I could relate to. His passion and drive for establishing a colony on the moon is something any explorer can understand. Not only that, but the hardships he had to endure with his family, his friends, and the only woman who truly loved him.

I liked the idea of a colony being established on the moon in 1999, and the scientific reality that was behind it. By far, The Kinsman Saga is a SF classic that is worth reading. It introduces the reader to a future that might have been, and a future that is yet to come. If you like The Kinsman Saga, you will also enjoy Colony. Another epic novel set in the same future, dealing with similar political and social issues.

The Kinsman Saga is definetly a masterpiece of science fiction literature. When I first picked this book up I was hesitant, I'd never heard of the author, and it was long, I feared it would be another modern science fiction novel with an unoriginal plot. I was surprised to find one a classic science fiction novel, one so well written you are drawn into it. The future Bova creates is so realistic it makes you wonder if our society is leading us down the same path. We mean Chet Kinsman as a young recruit. We follow his life through it's various stages, as he works his way through the air-force space program. Bova's characters are richly developed, you learn a lot of their background, and what makes them tick so to speak. The novel does not strictyl cover technical science fiction aspects, but also politics, human emotions, and a bit of romance. Overall the book is an extremely satisfying read, I can't think of anything negative to say about it. Highly reccomended to anyone, sci-fi fan or not.

Science Fiction;
this book is a chronicle of a young man named Geroge A. Kinsman. He joins the Air Force to become an astronaut. His parents dislike he fact that he has joined the Air Force saying that he is a "training to become a killing machine". His mother has passed away and his father hates him. My favorite charecter in this novel was George A. Kinsman beacuse he is a born leader.One of the qoutes from this book on page 280 is "dont beat your life one it" that qoute makes alot of sense to me. I would say that this is a good book and that you should read it.

In the Kinsman Saga, Ben Bova does something brave but rather foolhardy: He tries to predict the near-term future. Why foolhardy? Because your mistakes become all too apparent as the future you imagined is quickly replaced by a present that is very different. To be fair, Bova does predict a few things in this book that are on their way to becoming reality, although not nearly as quickly as he imagined. Most notable of these is the anti-missile defensive system that he imagines being built in the late 1990's. But more often, his predictions are so far off the mark that they're almost laughable. Consider, for example, the moon base that by the year 1999 is home to more than 1,000 people, and on the verge of being completely self-sufficient. If only that prediction had come true!

So Bova wasn't able to accurately predict the future. That's still not a big deal if this book was a better piece of literature. But when you combine his lapses as a futurist with his penchant for overblown characters and juvenile plotlines, it leads to a very uneven story.

If you do decide to read the Kinsman Saga, you might want to skip the first half of the book entirely. There's not much there to make it worth the effort. However, I found myself enjoying much of the second half, which was published as a separate book called "Millenium" in 1976. I suppose it's because I have such a soft spot for any story that creates a halfway realistic portrayal of human habitation on the moon. So I'm giving the Kinsman Saga three stars.

Ben Bova's Kinsman Saga covers the life and work of Chester A. Kinsman; pilot, astronaut, rebel and statesman. Kinsman's struggle to live with himself after a devastating personal conflict, and to build a better world through a Lunar rebellion makes this work a true epic. Nicely done, Mr. Bova