Customer Reviews

Leviathans of Jupiter

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Twenty years ago, Grant Archer and his team descended into Jupiter's vast ocean. Once inside, they discovered massive living creatures; "leviathans" which fed on particles and fought for survival against the dreaded darters. Archer barely escaped with his life, thanks to the help of one of the leviathans. Now the director of Station Gold orbiting Jupiter, Archer intends to send another crewed mission into the depths of the Jovian ocean to try to establish communication with the leviathans.

Four crew members are slated for the mission: Diedre Ambrose, a microbiologist; Andy Corvus, a scientist; Dorn, an ex-mercenary; and Max Yeager, designer of the ship to be used on the mission. However, other forces are at work as well. Katherine Westfall, a member of the IAA, is determined to see the mission fail. Convinced that Archer is wasting money, she has come to Station Gold to set him back in line. Westfall will stop at nothing to make sure that the mission fails, even if it means sacrificing the crew.

Finally, the ship sets down into the Jovian sea. Once there, the crew tries to establish contact with the leviathans. But the pressure takes a heavy toll on both the ship and crew. Will the crew be able to determine if the leviathans are in fact intelligent creatures, or will the ship succumb to the tremendous pressure exerted by the Jovian ocean?

I've read all of Bova's previous "Grand Tour" novels, and I was pleased to see that he decided to re-visit Jupiter. The story line from the first book was very good, and this book does a good job of picking up and expanding on it. Bova's books are full of adventure, and "Leviathans of Jupiter" continues in that tradition. Highly recommended.

I have been reading quite a bit of Ben Bova recently. The first one I read was Jupiter. It hooked me right in to a completely believable future of humans he has created. None of Bova's books are the fantasy sci-fi that Star Trek, Star Wars, etc... are, but they are more of a true science grounded in current ideas about space travel and exploration.

Overall Opinion:

Leviathans of Jupiter was a good, engaging read. I did not ever feel the need to put it down and always wanted to continue to the next chapter.

Character:

Bova's characters in Leviathans seem to always be created from the ground up and are always believable. There is not much introspection from the characters, it is more of a day to day record of what they are doing. Not much feeling comes from the characters so it is more like you are watching a movie when thinking of the characters. Bova usually does not choose a main character and prefers an ensemble cast, however this book primarily focuses on one character.

Story:

The story was essentially that of Jupiter; A group of scientists who all have their own varying jobs on the station wish to contact the natives of Jupiter, the Leviathans. There is a semi-weak character who wishes to stop them but there is very little conflict.

Ideas:

Bova has created a believable future of the human race in his "Planet" books, including Leviathan. He uses technology currently being spoken of and researched: nuclear fusion ships, nanotechnology, artificial gravity, etc... He may not have any ground breaking technology ideas but he seems to have a true scientific basis for most of the tech in these books.

Make into a movie?

I've come to the conclusion that Bova's novels would not make good movies for the general public. For the niche honest sci-fi culture perhaps, but since there aren't elements of fantasy, the ideas would be lost.

If you are looking for adventure and action, this book is not for you. If you are looking for a traditional science fiction depicting a believable future of humans, this is the book for you.

As a six-time winner of the Hugo Award just saying Ben Bova may be enough to recommend Leviathans of Jupiter but I will add more. If you are a Science Fiction fan and have never read anything by Ben Bova you are in for a treat. If you have read his books in the past you will not be disappointed.

Leviathans of Jupiter is part of the Grand Tour continuing series but if you have not read any of the series do not let that stop you. While the background and some of the characters reappear in some of the stories each book in the series stands alone. Grant Archer led an expedition to explore the depths of Jupiter in the book of the same name. That expedition barely escaped death when their vessel malfunctioned. They were saved when one of the city sized leviathans helped. Grant is convinced that the leviathans are intelligent and 20 years later he is trying to launch a new mission to study the leviathans. Not everyone wants the mission to succeed and therein lies the story.

Ben Bova knows how to tell a good story and with the knowledge from his PHD in physics he adds science in just the right amounts. He uses dialog and action mixed with small amounts of description to keep the story moving. I had trouble putting the story down and finished the 400-page book in record time.

I miss good old fashion Science Fiction and it was a real joy to find and read Leviathans of Jupiter. I hope Ben Bova continues writing in this series.

I had been anticipating this book's arrival.

Well worth the wait!

I only hope Mr. Bova will write a third 'Jupiter' novel.

I was extremely disappointed after reading Leviathans of Jupiter; here's why: There wasn't an ounce of originality to the story. It was immediately evident to me that Ben Bova used L. Frank Baum's masterpiece "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" as the blueprint for this novel.

First, we have the beautiful, naive young heroine, Deirdre (Dorothy), who has never been away from home, traveling on an Intergalactic Transport to start a new career at a research outpost orbiting Jupiter. On the transport, she follows illuminated yellow arrows in the hallway floor (the yellow brick road) where she meets up with her three companions in this adventure: skinny, gawky Andy Corvus (Scarecrow), Dorn, a Cyborg (Tin Man), and shaggy-haired engineer Max Yeager (Cowardly Lion). Eventually we also meet Grant Archer (the Fortune Teller/Wizard), Katherine Westfall (Wicked Witch), Nanotechs Franklin and Janet Torre (Munchkins). And ALL of these characters exhibit the same personality traits of their Wizard of Oz counterparts. About the only thing missing from this story was the dog, Toto!

Ben Bova also heavy-handedly pushes pro-christianity beliefs onto the reader, which I found offensive.

I found this book to be a waste of both time and money; not worth the paper it's printed on.

If you like Bova, you'll be reasonably satisfied with this book. It has the usual: scientist as protagonist, power-mad rich person as villian, good guys win in the end. It's predictable, but it reads decently enough to not be a waste of time.

As a disclaimer for my review, I'll mention that I'm trying to read all of the Grand Tour (19ish) books by Ben Bova in their chronological order - which is not the order they were written in. Leviathans of Jupiter is the 14th book in the chronological order.

Mr. Bova takes us back to the largest planet in our solar system with this sequel to 2001's "Jupiter." Grant Archer, who we met in "Jupiter" as a wet behind the ears scientist just arriving at the massive space station orbiting Jupiter has become the station director in the 20 years of Grand Tour time that have elapsed since the last book. Archer is determined to take another crewed mission into the heart of Jupiter, despite the deaths and injuries of previous missions. Opposed to his plan, mostly for her own gain, is Katherine Westfell of the IAA who is determined to become head of the agency and fears Archer's success might prevent her goal. Archer and a team of newly arrived scientists, including a beautiful female microbiologist (Deirdre), Dorn (the cyborg and continuing character from previous Bova works), master engineer Sam Yeager, and Deep Brain Psychologist (Andy) must race to discover whether the giant creatures swimming through Jupiter's worldwide ocean are intelligent, braving the crushing pressure of Jupiter and ongoing attempts by Westfell to sabotage their mission.

Bova's 2nd book dealing with Jupiter is another good adventure among the Grand Tour books that suffers from a few flaws I find very typical to his books. The hard sci-fi is there, and I enjoyed the fact that while there is - as usual in Bova books - a political or corporate scheming sub-plot, that a lot of the book was focused on Leviathans and the unimaginable conditions faced when trying to explore a planet like Jupiter. The foursome of protagonists also seemed to fit well and be a believable group of friends despite the fact that they meet at the beginning of the book and only have a few days to get to know each other before they face some pretty intimate situations and trials. The characters are pretty stereotypical for Mr. Bova. We can't hear often enough about how attractive Deirdre is, or how awkward Andy is (want to guess which characters fall in love...). Dorn, despite his atrocities during the Asteroid Wars books, has become a standout character and gets a chance to shine in Leviathans.

My biggest issue with Leviathans of Jupiter is that once again the antagonist, this time played by Katherine Westfell, is just totally unbelievable. So overt and over the top that its hard to believe she would have reached the position she has. Despite being in line for the chairmanship of one of the most powerful government agencies on Earth, most of Westfell's schemes to topple the imagined threat of Grant Archer, fall apart in rapid succession and are so poorly thought out that a ten year old would see through them. Westfell's only motivation to gain the chairmanship of the IAA is that on her deathbed, her mother told her to "reach the top." We do get a glimpse at some of her hard-knocks early life, but as a motivator, it just doesn't ring true. Just a short list of Westfell's immediate crimes include:

1) Using a bio-engineered strain of rabies to force a protagonist to do her bidding.

2) Multiple counts of attempted murder.

3) Actual murder.

4) Bribery of practically everyone.

So we have this extremely powerful, ultra wealthy character with no motivation other than "mom said" committing a fairly long list of atrocities simply to climb one more rung up the power ladder? I didn't buy it.

However, beyond that character, Leviathan's of Jupiter was, for me, a total page turner. I read the entire book in a weekend (although that did include two, three hour plane rides) and stayed up late on a "school night" to finish it off. The Leviathan's continue to provide fascinating aliens, and the entire chain of fauna on Jupiter is well presented and makes me want to get out there on my own torch ship so I can see them for myself. Hopefully we'll get another sequel to what has become my favorite branch of the Grand Tour universe.

I have read quite a few of Bova's books. This one I did not finish. The plot was spelled out for the reader in an extremely simplistic manner. When the microbiologist referred to dolphins as fish I gave up.

Fresh off the high of reading Bova's, 'Mars Life', I jumped straight into reading Leviathans of Jupiter (being the only 'Grand Tour' book I hadn't read yet). Leviathans of Jupiter is a follow up to "Jupiter" and takes place about twenty years after the events of that novel. Right from the start Leviathans throws us into familiar and comfortable territory with a brief cameo from an old friend, and introduces his daughter, Deirdre, as the main protagonist of this new story.

I'll admit that while I do end up enjoying a lot of the characters from the Grand Tour series, one of the main things that keep me reading is to see the science of all our advancements in this somewhat realistic look at our not too distance future. One of the first things I noticed, and the book goes to great efforts to show us this as well, is the great size and luxury of the 'Australia', which is the fusion torch ship that our main protagonists head to Jupiter in. Chronologically speaking it is the most recent tale in the Grand Tour book, but I really felt that the scope of how big and luxurious the torch ship was really didn't seem realistic compared to the confined and harsh conditions most other Grand Tour books have presented us with. Of course it is possible that at this point in the timeline we have reached a stage where we are reaching the tipping point where space becomes easily habitable; and this is certainly possible given the use of nanotechnology and such.

ANYWAY!

Aboard the ship Australia, as it heads towards the research station at Jupiter, we are introduced to the other main characters of the book and while the four of them seem to become such close and trusted friends somewhat quickly I found their friendships kind of endearing. Throughout the book I don't know how deep we get into some of the characters, but the inclusion of the cyborg Dorn as one of the characters, his position as a trusted friend, and his role in the book really vindicated the character and I found myself liking him more than anyone else.

A lot of people have complained about the villains in some of Bovas recent books, and Katherine Westfall in this book is no exception. She was far too much of a cut-out villain, and reading about her and her scheming and her extreme paranoia became really frustrating (but thankfully nowhere near as frustrating as some of the characters in Mars Life), but really this was only downside to this book.

The story moves along at a nice pace, and although some parts seem to retread ground already covered in the earlier, "Jupiter", it is really intriguing reading about life aboard the station, and the hurdles the crew have to go through to be able to survive there, as well as launch into the oceans of Jupiter and to survive there.

At this stage I am a little unsure about the communications with Leviathan. In Jupiter I felt like the Leviathans were just so alien, I mean it is really impossible to try to imagine a creature that is kilometres in length, but in communicating with Leviathan and us seeing into Leviathans thoughts I felt that Leviathans thinking seemed almost -too human-; but that aside I think Bova does an excellent job at trying to present an intelligent species with their own way of life and belief system and way of doing things, as well as showing an ecosystem of predators and prey and life cycles.

The action was gripping, the protagonists endearing, and while closing off the book nicely Bova has definitely left the series open for another Jupiter novel which I really hope we get to see; as well as earlier in the book referring to the eventual voyage to Alpha Centauri which has been suggested in other Grand Tour books.

That said, I guess I should add a bit of a disclaimer: I am obviously a huge fan of the Grand Tour series, I have read them all a few times and just can't get enough of them, but if you haven't read any of the other books I am pretty confident that you could read this one, or any of them, on their own and appreciate them as a stand alone novel.

Oh the other thing was that in the book, the character of Grant Archer seems to refer to the New Morality as being almost history and no longer a powerful influence in American/World politics. I don't know if I missed something somewhere, but I don't believe this has been hinted at in any of the other books. Definitely not in Mars Life, and I don't think that occurs too far before Leviathans.

Anyway, I really enjoyed Leviathans of Jupiter. I read it over the course of two days, and just couldn't put it down until I finished it. Definitely recommend it.

Ben Bova's "Grand Tour" series has done much to make the wonders of our solar system available to a wider audience and this book continues the tradition. While the long prequel to the eventual manned mission into Jupiter's ocean is fairly predictable, with rather immature characters, I still enjoyed the book, with the tension slowly building as the four main characters work to find a means of establishing communication with the Leviathans, 20 years after first contact.

Interestingly, we still have very little idea about what lies beneath Jupiter's clouds - perhaps the current Juno Mission, launched in August 2011 may find that planet wide ocean or even Clarke's Medusas? Meanwhile, there's definitely room for another sequel about humanity's interaction with intelligent life in Jupiter's ocean.