Customer Reviews

Moonwar

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I shall write of both "Moonrise" and "Moonwar."

These are the stories of Moonbase, a permanent lunar settlement built by an American corporation in the mid-21st century. These tales chronicle the political and societal tension wrought by unpopular scientific endeavors, and the unforeseen consequences thereof. The books portray a future wherein a new fascism creeps across the entire globe, embraced by a superstitious public, and at dire odds with the free-thinking scientists living on the Moon--men and women who journeyed there to escape the shackles of Earthside ignorance and fear. You will find intrigue, betrayal, villainy, sexual bartering, rugged individualism, and even love within these books' pages.

But Ben Bova's vocabulary is disappointing. His dialog is often uninspired and even predictable. His narrative, his pacing, his exposition, his character development, and even his plot development are all very Saturday matinee. Even worse, his understanding of relationships is shallow.

But what gets these books off the ground and keeps the reader till their last pages is Ben Bova's love of space exploration. The man fervently believes that space exploration will benefit all of mankind, and not just the bureaucrats or big business. When Ben Bova describes an exclusively astronomical scene, his passion is undeniable. In the first book, there's a scene wherein an 18-year-old walks upon the lunar surface for the first time, and it borders on epiphanous. Ben Bova brings the Moon's unique beauty into sharp focus; sometimes, you can actually feel the regolith beneath your boots. It's this passion, I believe, that makes these books worth reading--in spite of their shortfalls.

Moonbase has expanded, and now is host to over two thousand employees and researchers. Doug Stavenger lives on Moonbase as Earth is too dangerous for him because the Luddite extreemist factions are out to kill anyone who uses nanotechnology.

The UN is determined to stamp out use of Nanotechnology on the surface, but thier ulterior motives are to gain controll of Nanotechnology for use as they see fit.

Moonwar is a bit predictable, and the 'bad guys' are just way too disfunctional as people to have attained the positions of power in government they have achieved. The 'New Morality' which is quickly gripping the world in a theocracy, opposes nanotechnology, and will use Murder and terrorism to attain thier goals.

Soon, forces culminate into a battle at Moonbase, those in Moonbase thwarting two different attacks and flushing out suicide bombers. It's a bit too easy for them though.

Overall, a nice book if you've read the first one, but not as realistic as it could be, and not very beliveable.

While Ben Bova's premise and plot is interesting enough in its own right that I actually finished this book (Moonwar), it was not a satisfying reading experience. The characters were very flat and predictable good guy/bad guy stock characters from the movie seriel and melodrama traditions. The only almost complex character was Bam, the good hearted assassin, and even here the plot falters trying to make sense of his place in the story. When Doug tells him, in essence, 'sure you cut my thoat and tried to kill me, but I sense that we could be friends', the reader wants to say 'WHAT?'. It makes one wonder about the hero's grip on things. And the dialoge generally is laughable. One could imagine these lines in an old Flash Gordon film. Over the top with a straight face. I found it hard to take.

MOONWAR exemplifies Ben Bova at both his best and his worst. As a sci-fi thriller, it is near first-rate. Moonbase continues to face resistance from Earth's nano-Luddites-religious fanatics who fear the nano-tech used to sustain the luna colony-and from U.N. Secretary General Georges Faure, who has an agenda of his own. Bova keeps the action and suspense rolling, as the hero of both this and the previous Moonbase novel, Doug Stavenger, struggles to counter these overwhelming odds. Bova proves something of a master of page-turning suspense, keeping his reader on the edge of the seat. Unfortunately, Bova seldom develops his characters beyond anything more than the bare bones, one-dimensional heroes and villains in whom it is very difficult to invest emotionally, even when their lives are on the line. Faure remains a moustache twirling villain throughout the novel when he could well have been developed into a complex figure of real politick. Stavenger proves a near Christ-like entity, finding himself resurrected again and again thanks to the nano-bugs introduced into his system in the previous novel. Worse is Killifer, a vindictive former Moonbase employee, who becomes so monstrous in his actions that he rivals Greg Masterson, Doug's ludicrously evil half-brother from MOONRISE. It is frustrating that a writer with such a great sense of pace and suspense should indulge again and again in such unsatisfying plot devices. As a prose stylist, Bova has his strengths-terse and immediate at times, lavishly descriptive at others-but weaknesses, as well. His physical description of characters especially-laden with tried and stale observations-almost always make me wince. One female character is "vigorous and feisty" with "steel-gray eyes," another has "Texas cheerleader's looks," another is a "petit brunette with video-star looks." On the other hand, Bova's descriptions of the luna surface and of Moonbase's infrastructure are often masterful and enthralling, though there is more of both in the first novel than the second. Both Moonbase titles are quick, decent reads, but lack the sense of real wonder that Bova captures in his Mars novels.

I am a big fan of Bova's work. However, this book was easy to put down.It never grabs the reader. The story is okay, but not great. It's pleasant enough. One complaint is that there are too many characters to keep track of, many in a walk-on appearance. Bova can do better.

The more I read in this, the better Heinlein's Moon is a Harsh Mistress looked. Whatever Bova may know about nanotechnology,politics,politicians or military strategy, he didn't show much of it here; the nanos are no more than unseen little guys that work magic (at one point the hero gets his throat cut by a professional assassin, and survives thanks to the nanos in his body. Sure.), the politicians show no cleverness in manipulating the media, and the military types are devastatingly unsoldierly. The character building doesn't come off too well either, when you consider that one of the protagonist's love interests is raped and murdered (or murdered and raped, it's not completely clear--which gives you an idea of what the good guys are up against here) while he watches, but after a momentary shock, our hero forthrightly goes on about his business, mentioning her once or twice in passing. the characters are simplistically drawn, the science and technology are almost invisible, and worst of all, the story has some serious lags--particularly between the failure of the first assault and the mounting of the second, during which characters scurry around, but nothing important to the main plot happens. Bova's always readable, but I didn't see much effort put into this.

I enjoyed Bova's Mars and Moonrise, but found this a huge disappointment. The characterisation is so one-dimentional and stereotypical that after the first few chapters, I was too busy playing "spot the cliche" to get into the story. As soon as we get the description of the chief baddy - the (non-American of course!) "smarmy" "pudgy", "pear-shaped" secretary general of the UN, who sports a villain's moustache and is blatently sexist to boot, I was wondering when he would say "curses, foiled again!". When Ms "Tart with a heart" Elgin trots out the old "got to give some head to get ahead" adage, I'm afraid I groaned out load. Bova's feminist and anti-racist agenda is admirable of course, but when it is rammed down the reader's throat at the expense of any decent plot, it just becomes hard to stomach. For the undemanding reader, Bova certainly pulls all the right strings - there's a fair dose of action and tension here, but I fear that the more discerning reader will find that Moonwar insults the intelligence on more than one occasion. I dunno, maybe I've just been spoiled, having read some excellent Iain Banks sci-fi recently?

"Moonrise", the prequel to "Moonwar" was less than compelling reading - the conception of a workable, and non-government funded, lunar base wasn't enough to back up a plot about the rigors of lunar exploration and the addition of a culture war between foes and friends of the futuristic "nanotechnology" didn't help. Nanotechnology, in which miniature robots either build or demolish in any situation, sparked a war between futuristic visionaries and irredeemably fundamentalist holy-warriors modeled on the Taliban. Bova never hid where he stood on that issue, even though the technology itself remained too vague and exotic - as if his miniature robots existed only to soothe over the technological hurdles that one would expect to confront in building offworld bases and spaceships, light off a Kulturkampf and reveal the hypocrisy of those who piously rail against the technology while secretly exploiting it for themeselves. Gratuitous muder and rape are tossed in in case the greed, insatiable lust for power and pious right-wing extremism aren't enough to make the case for the villains any clearer. The nanite-controversy could have been it's own book. Instead, it provides a mere backdrop to some story about the efforts to build (or destroy) the Stavenger lunar station.

In "Moonwar", Bova eschews the longer time-frame that robbed "Moonrise" of a coherent plot - we get a single generation of heroes, even though they're no more sympathetic than those of the earlier book. A power-mad UN Secretary General (a surprise given the book's all but avowed left leanings) is determined to claim the Stavenger Lunar station by any means neccesary, even if that means hooking up with the resurgent crazed fundamentalists who oppose the moonbase as a symbol of nanotechnology. Called nano-luddites (I would have suggested "Tehnololiban" "dot-com-eKazes" or "Mech-Governites"), these suicide warriors are aimed at the moonbase like smartbombs. But Bova - after two books - has failed to create heroes (targest) worth identifying with. We're supposed to decry the evil UN and it's French-Canadian head (damned Quebecer, the book rails, but it's not up there with stock cold-war labels), but I was never sure why I should bother. The bright line between piety and science seems to infect all the books I've read by Bova (besides "Moonrise", I've read the two Mars novels) like the nanites. "Moonwar" suffers this infection worst of all.

I am astonished that anyone could give this 5 stars! Come on guys; are you really classing this politically-correct, stereotypical pot-boiler up there with Dune, 2001, Consider Phlebas etc? Moonwar has a very strong "made-for-TV" feel to it and amounts to little more than Dallas or Dynasty in space. The undemanding little yarn may keep you mildly interested for a few hours, but where's the depth or the meaning? I'm afraid I cannot recommend Moonwar, because I truely believe Sci-fi should be more visionary than this.

As a disclaimer for my review, I'll mention that I'm trying to read all of the Grand Tour (17ish) books in their chronological order - which is not the order they were written in. Moonwar is the seventh book in the chronological order and the 2nd book of the mini "Moon" series, preceded by Moonbase.

Taking place eight years after the end of Moonbase, Moonwar follows the ongoing exploits of an industrial and research base on the moon as it strives for independence from increasingly hostile Earth governments. Georges Faure has come to power as the director general of the UN and beneath his charismatic exterior, Faure hides his meglomanic side which is intent on consolidating power within the hands of the UN and turning it into a global dictatorship under his control. Faure plans to use other mega-corporations and the fears of a growing fundamentalist religious movement, The New Morality, to force Moonbase to surrender to the UN and give up their nanomachines, which are vital to life on the moon. Faced with both political maneuvering and an outright invasion, the leaders of Moonbase will face an uphill battle for independence, or even survival.

Moonwar brings out some of Bova's best and worst characteristics. In the area of best is his ability to write good sci-fi thrillers. Frankly, the last 70 pages of Moonwar fell into the category of "can't put it down" for me and I found myself staying up way too late on a week night trying to finish the last few chapters. The book as a whole is well paced and seldom hits slow spots and descriptions of the moon, Moonbase and other technical aspects are usually well done. The use of the moon's harsh atmospheric condition is also used well throughout the book. In Moonwar, I also found the protagonists (primarily Doug Stravenger and his family and friends) more likable than in many of the other Grand Tour novels that I've read so far. Having more sympathetic protagonists helped build tension and add a human element to a pretty straight forward "good guys vs bad guys" novel.

On the other hand, Bova falls into his usual list of low points here. Faure as the antagonist is so over the top as to be unbelievable. While the written description of Faure refers to him as brilliant, he seems anything but. As other reviews have pointed out, Faure is quite transparent and there's no way he could have obtained the political power he has. Without trying to call down Godwin's Law, Faure could be a mirror image of Hitler (with an equally silly moustache). We're also hit with the usual Bova bludgeon of cardboard romance and stereotypical female characters. Edith, a TV news reporter, is allowed to go with the UN forces on the first invasion of Moonbase after sleeping with Faure. Edith even talks about the Body Tax...she has to give some head to get ahead. She ends up gaining access to Moonbase and, after spending one night in Doug's bed, they fall in love. In another section of the book, the head of state of the Kiribati Islands, one of Moonbase's few Earth-bound allies, sleeps with a political enemy to gain access to his pillow talk (because we all know that after sex men who have set about decades of delicate political manipulation and planning will reveal all their secrets to a woman who's motives they suspect). This stuff just left me shaking my head and wondering if Bova really sees the world this way, or if he's just writing for what he thinks of as the stereotypical sci-fi male geek.

My other gripe is the use of nanomachines as a plot device. Faure's basis for the attack on Moonbase is that Moonbase is using nanomachines in spite of a UN resolution (signed under pressure from the New Morality by all nations on Earth) banning their use. We know that there are two types of nanomachines; Gobblers, which break things down on an atomic level, and Builders, which, well, build things. Beyond that though, we really have no idea what nanomachines can and can't do. We know from the Moonwar and Moonbase that they can be used to heal (Doug is saved from fatal situations in both books by nanomachines) and can be used to fight disease and aging, but that's it. In the end, the nanomachines felt like an application of Dues Ex Machina - being used whenever Bova needed a reason to move the plot along in one way or another. Need a device to disable UN troopers? Nanomachines! Need a device to turn a mass driver being used to catapult payloads around close Earth orbit into a beam weapon capable of disarming a nuclear missile? Nanomachines!

In the end, the thriller elements of Moonbase are great and the pacing is strong. However, there are enough eye-rolling moments of "romanticism" and moustache-twisting cartoon villainy that I kept getting knocked out of the flow of the book.