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| View Larger Image | Powersat by Ben Bova
| | List Price: | $7.99 |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |  | |  | | Sales Rank: | 350859 | | Studio: | Tor Books |  | | Binding: | Mass Market Paperback | | Number Of Pages: | 448 | | Publication Date: | October 31, 2006 | | Publisher: | Tor Books |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS | Product Description
Two hundred thousand feet up, things go horribly wrong. An experimental low-orbit spaceplane breaks up on reentry, falling to earth over a trail hundreds of miles long. And it its wake is the beginning of the most important mission in the history of space. America needs energy, and Dan Randolph is determined to give it to them. He dreams of an array of geosynchronous powersats, satellites which gather solar energy and beam it to generators on Earth, freeing America from its addiction to fossil fuels and breaking the power of the oil cartels forever. But the wreck of the spaceplane has left his company, Astro Manufacturing, on the edge of bankruptcy. Worse, Dan discovers that the plane worked perfectly right up until the moment that saboteurs knocked it out of the sky. And whoever brought it down is willing and able to kill again to keep Astro grounded. Now Dan has to thread a dangerous maze. The visible threats are bad enough: Rival firms want to buy him out and take control of his dreams. His former lover wants to co-opt his unlimited-energy idea as a campaign plank for the candidate she’s grooming for the presidency. NASA and the FAA want to shut down his maverick firm. And his creditors are breathing down his neck. Making matters even more dangerous, an international organization of terrorists sees the powersat as a threat to their own oil-based power. And they’ve figured out how to use it as a weapon in their war against the West. A sweeping mix of space, murder, romance, politics, secrets, and betrayal, Powersat will take you to the edge of space and the dawning of a new world. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 16 reviews)
| Am I the first person to read this on a Kindle?  Ben Bova always spins a very enjoyable yarn. This one stretched things just a bit though. Another "double-damn" and my head would have exploded.
Another MAJOR problem with this book is the way it was laid out on my new #359 Kindle I just purchased from Amazon. Many times the 2-5 paragraph for a new chapter would come out of the blue and be at the end of the previous chapter. Then you "flip the page" and read the first paragraph, "Ohhhh, that's how it goes." Then you start reading the second paragraph and it picks up where it is supposed to.
June 16, 2008 | | Enjoyable thriller  Ben Bova at his typical good. This is another Dan Randolph thriller, written in 2005 to do some of the back story in the Grand Tour (Dan Randolph is the main character in Privateers and Empire Builders and appears in the first books the Asteroid Wars tetralogy). It also sets the stage for his off-and-on relationship with Jane Thornton Scanwell. It kept me reading, but the characters are shades of gray (better than solely black and white) but definitely not technicolor. An enjoyable confection, but not a meal. January 02, 2008 | | An excellent technothriller  I enjoyed this booke immensely. I thought that it was well researched and thought out. And, it applies to our modern times very well. All in all this book is a keeper. August 12, 2007 | | Sci-Fi Mystery  This is not a hardcore Sci-Fi novel as some may have been expecting. Instead it takes the reader on a murder mystery journey with the added suspense of the Powersat and its fate. I enjoyed this book as it kept me coming back for more. It's somewhat like a soap opera as it is very suspenseful and contains a mystery plot with some surprising twists. And of course, it provides a dash of hope for us cornucopia minded people. Fun Read...thanks Ben Bova! June 29, 2007 | | ZZZ - cliched and unimaginative  This tale is taken from the current headlines and is sort of the X prize meets the Global War on Terror meets the Energy Crisis. The main character, Dan Randolph, owns a company that is trying to develop a satellite that will provide essentially unlimited solar power to the United States and solve all of our energy problems. He is trying to develop a commercial space flight capability to make this economically viable. Along the way, an evil Arab oil man is trying to sabotage his efforts so that the US remains dependent on Middle East petroleum. In short, the story is pretty thin. This novel should not be classified as a sci-fi story, there are virtually no sci-fi elements (other than the space plane). It is really a rather ordinary thriller in disguise. Additionally, it is almost entirely character driven. The relationships between the characters largely drive the story. I found the characters to be cliched and I couldn't have cared less at the end about Dan Randolph. The whole `Mideast terrorist' plot line is so cliched and ridiculous that is an insult to the readers intelligence. Bova goes out of his way several times through the book to sympathize with the innocent, peace-loving Israelis. The `Middle Easterners' on the other hand are nothing more than nasty Muslim towelhead terrorists. I wonder if Bova is writing for Fox News about Islamofascists. Third, Mr. Bova's spin on the US dependence on `Middle Eastern' oil is simply sophomoric. His gross oversimplification of a potentially interesting plot thread makes the story seem childishly naive. Finally, Bova uses this story as a platform to expound his personal views on the necessity of the commercialization of space. This is definitely a `read once, then throw in the box in the attic to be forgotten' and not worth the $7.99 to buy it new. Lightweight, unimaginative fare. May 16, 2007 | |
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