The Return: Book IV of Voyagers (Voyagers (Tor Hardcover)) [Hardcover]

Ben Bova (Author)

Book Description

Series: Voyagers (Tor Hardcover) | Publication Date: August 4, 2009

In the 1980s, an alien starship visited Earth. While investigating what appeared to be a sarcophagus bearing the preserved body of its builder, astronaut Keith Stoner was trapped and cryogenically frozen. After his body was eventually returned to Earth and revived, Stoner discovered that he had acquired alien powers. Using these new powers, he built a new starship and left Earth.

Now, after more than a century of exploring the stars, Keith Stoner returns to find that the world he has come back to does not match the one he left. The planet is suffering the consequences of disastrous greenhouse flooding. Most nations have been taken over by ultraconservative religion-based governments, such as the New Morality in the United States. With population ballooning and resources running out, Earth is heading for nuclear war. Stoner, the star voyager, wants to save Earth’s people. But first he must save himself from the frightened and ambitious zealots who want to destroy this stranger—and the terrifying message he brings from the stars.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Venerable SF author Bova returns to his Voyagers series after nearly two decades with this clumsy mashup of wildly different universes. Relativistic star flight has somehow catapulted Keith Stoner, Jo Camerata and their children, Cathy and Rick, to a parallel universe. Bova fans will recognize the setting of the Grand Tour series (most recently 2008's Mars Life), but to Keith and Jo, it is alien and seems to be doomed by environmental and cultural issues. Leaving his family to secretly tour the Earth, Keith finds a willing ally in engineer Tavalera, but their joint efforts to prevent human extinction are opposed by the shortsighted and authoritarian New Morality government. Bova's decision to merge two unrelated sets of books is baffling, and Keith's arrogant machinations transform the Grand Tour universe in ways that its fans are unlikely to appreciate. (Aug.)
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Review

This fourth volume in the Voyagers series displays Hugo Award winner Bova's consummate ability to tell an absorbing tale about two men, each with a mission to free his world from blind dogma and orchestrated tyranny. The author's outspoken philosophy provides food for thought for his many fans and readers who enjoy hard sf. --Library Journal --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (August 4, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765309254
• ISBN-13: 978-0765309259
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,144,928 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worldlines shift at near lightspeed!, November 16, 2009

By 

Lloyd McDaniel "UNCA, Bookman in PC" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Return: Book IV of Voyagers (Voyagers (Tor Hardcover)) (Hardcover)

I loved this. I didn't think I was going to at the beginning, it had been so long from the originals.
As I read further though I began to enjoy the delicate skewering of the politicos the tree huggers, the religious nuts....
Nobody does it like Bova!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars interesting cautionary science fiction, August 8, 2009

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Return: Book IV of Voyagers (Voyagers (Tor Hardcover)) (Hardcover)

Astronaut Keith Stoner was part of an American-Russian space venture when the alien starship arrived. He became trapped inside; frozen for almost two decades and never time merged with the alien technology. Found drifting, he was brought back to earth where he was revived. However, Keith knew he no longer was human and did not belong so he built a starship based on the alien side of him and left the planet with his Jo Camerata to explore the cosmos.

Over a hundred years later, he comes home but now understands how profound Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again" is. He and his mate Jo (accompanied by their children Cathy and Rick) recognize nothing. Mankind is killing the planet with the greenhouse effect rapidly turning the orb into a neo-Venus and the extreme conservatives hold power with a strict rigid iron fist while ignoring the consequences of doing nothing to save humanity's goring the planet. Keith leaves his family in orbit to do some surveillance, but except for the odd underground rebel, mankind's reign seems through

The fourth Stoner tale (see VOYAGERS, THE ALIEN WITHIN and STAR BROTHERS) is an interesting cautionary science fiction thriller that warns readers to take global warming seriously and kick out demagogues before it is too late; sort of homage to Zager and Evans' "In the year 2525". The story line is fast-paced as Keith and Jo are in for a rude awakening re the earth starting with the melted polar cap and that his knowledge of history does not match the official records of the planet he orbits. However, this earth he finds is never adequately explained in regards to how he and his family got there and why Ben Bova chose THE RETURN to take place where it does as the blending seems disjointed to fans of the author who will recognize early on references to the Goddard project on Saturn.

Harriet Klausner

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Saving Humanity, October 18, 2010

By 

Arthur W. Jordin (Smyrna, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Return: Book IV of Voyagers (Mass Market Paperback)

The Return (2009) is the fourth SF novel in the Voyagers series, following Star Brothers. The initial volume is this series is Voyagers.

In the previous volume, a nanotechnology plague was released into the population. The Star Brothers were spread to protect against the Horror. Then Stoner and his family flew to the stars.

In this novel, Keith Stoner has come home again from the stars with his wife and two children. But home has changed while they were gone. In fact, they seem to have slipped between timelines.

Raoul Tavalera has also come home again -- without his sweetheart Holly -- and it too has changed. His family is still there, but society has devolved into tyranny.

Angelique Dupre was born as Aretha Deevers in a tent city in Georgia. She changed her name after joining the Sisters of the Savior, a New Morality order.

In this story, twenty-two years ago, a starship entered the system and was tracked to the vicinity of Jupiter. Then it disappeared, but recently emitted messages from Earth orbit to scientists around the world. Naturally, the politicians, military chiefs and religious leaders suppressed these messages.

Keith is getting impatient with the political intransigence. His wife Jo tries to calm him down, but Keith is determined to contact leading scientists. He starts tinkering with the aurora borealis.

Raoul has recently returned from the Goddard habitat near Titan. He thought life back on Earth would be exciting, but finds it to be rather dull. The New Morality keeps interfering with his life.

Raoul finds his homecoming party to be a flop. People keep eyeing the surveillance scanners in the corners and talking low. When he takes his Mom out to the back yard, the scanners mounted on poles seem to watching them and she keeps watching them.

When Raoul asks about the Northern Lights shining overhead, nobody wants to talk about it. The police ask people to stay indoors at nights because of the emergency, but none know what the emergency is. His questions get him a free ride to a New Morality building in the west.

Raoul finds himself working for Sister Angelique. She discusses the Northern Lights with him. She mentions that the authorities fear that the public will see this expansion of the aurora as a sign of the coming of the end of the world. She wants him to help her investigate the situation.

Shortly thereafter, Raoul finds himself having a conversation with Keith in the starship. The surveillance cameras record him sitting quietly in his chair for many minutes. Angelique asks what he was doing and he tells her about Stoner.

From then on, Raoul becomes the middle man between the New Morality and Stoner. Keith appears several time near Raoul and is even recorded by the omnipresent cameras. Angelique takes Raoul to many meetings within the New Morality and with national politicians.

This tale links the Voyagers trilogy with the Planet series. But now the trilogy has a fourth volume. One wonders if the Orion stories will be linked as well.

This novel seem to conclude the Voyagers series, but maybe not the end of the Planet sequence. Leviathans of Jupiter appears to belong to that series. Read and enjoy!

Recommended for Bova fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of highly advanced technology, political intrigue, and good Samaritans.

-Arthur W. Jordin