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| View Larger Image | The Silent War: Book III of The Asteroid Wars (The Grand Tour; also Asteroid Wars) | Mass Market Paperbackby Ben Bova (Author)
| List Price: | $7.99 | |
| | Binding: | Mass Market Paperback | | Publisher: | Tor Science Fiction | | Page Count: | 432 Pages | | Publication Date: | February 01, 2005 | | Sales Rank: | 303,600rd |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
When corporations go to war, standard business practice goes out the window. Astro Corporation is led by indomitable Texan Pancho Lane, Humphries Space Systems by the rich and ruthless Martin Humphries, and their fight is over nothing less than resources of the Asteroid Belt itself. As fighting escalates, the lines between commerce and politics, boardroom and bedroom, blur--and the keys to victory will include physics, nanotechnology, and cold hard cash.As they fight it out, the lives of thousands of innocents hang in the balance, including the rock rats who make their living off the asteroids, and the inhabitants of Selene City on Earth's moon. As if matters weren't complicated enough, the shadowy Yamagata corporation sets its sights on taking advantage of other people's quarrels, and space pirate Lars Fuchs decides it's time to make good on his own personal vendetta.It's a breakneck finale that can end only in earth's salvation--or the annihilation of all that humankind has ever accomplished in space. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 16 reviews)
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Ben - you've done better! by J. Laydbak  2 Stars
November 03, 2009
The plot does not work for me. I do not believe that the head of an entire corporation is going to tour some strange place all alone, then get out by herself. I do not believe that someone as paranoid as Humphries isn't going to make sure there is a phone and food stocked in his panic room. I don't really buy the way the war played out. The entirety with Furch & Amanda was just ridiculous. If Furch wants to kill Humpheries, he surely didn't plan very well, didn't execute it, and should not have been able to just slip away. Un-be-liev-able!
The ending was atrocious. The rest of the plot was bad enough, but then it just runs into that absurdity of an ending and we're all supposed to believe it? I don't think so.
And what was that nonsense about the artifact? It had nothing to do with anything. The first and last chapters in italics had nothing to do with this book and does not make me want to read whatever next book is supposedly coming after it.
Add to this the wooden, one-dimensional characters that, honestly, I didn't like very much. Add to that, the fact that the story would jump rapidly from one scene to another but NOTHING would be added to the storyline. The story became boring as the plot wasn't progressing, just jumping to show "action."
Nope, did not like this at all. It started very well, but it ended poorly.
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Very immature SciFi by Jim R 2 Stars
February 16, 2009
I have to say the entire Asteroid Wars series and the Saturn/Titan books are very disappointing. They're filled with cardboard characters and illogical plots. None of the characters are likeable and gone are the exploration spirit in the Mars/Jupiter books. Here's some plot points making reading this book really painful:
1. The alien artifact: What's the point of introducing this big revelation? It has no relationship to the main plot at all.
2. The kidnap: Yes, we want to stay hidden when our enemies fight amoung themselves, but wait, let's grab the enemy's leader and show her our true intentions, she'll forget it afterwards. (NOT!)
3. The love: Pancho & Jack, where did that come from? It just jumps out of the blue.
4. The nano weapon: We only have one chance in hitting the enemy base with it, let's make the nanites only eat metals so that our enemy can stop it. After all this is just a diversion to get our robotic weapons platform online, but wait, didn't the platforms already come online, why do we need this diversion at all?
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Love him or Not, It's a Bova by G. Simms (Washington, DC United States)  4 Stars
September 03, 2008
I've been reading his stuff for quite a while, and more recently tried (someone unsuccessfully) to read all of his novels about the planets and the asteroid wars which, actually, form a continuous chain of events(and characters).
Readers who are A-type as I am should know that the series is not to be read in the order published; if you go by that, the characters who died before are suddenly alive again.
The 3rd installment of the asteroid wars takes place just before his novel Venus, but finishes off a trilogy; in some ways, this is the weakest of the 3 because the plot gets a bit repititious - and the characters are pretty well frozen in place. His descriptions start to get repititious as well.
But if you like his style (simple, right wing space opera out of the Heinlein tradition, but without the sense of satire), it's good summer reading.
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More Action in the Asteroid Belt by Jeffrey T. Munson (Dixon, IL)  5 Stars
February 27, 2008
The Asteroid Wars continue to rage in this third installment by Ben Bova.
Martin Humphries and Pancho Lane continue to battle it out over control of the asteroid belt and its tremendous mineral wealth. Humphries Space Systems and Astro Corporation continue to blast each other's ships into oblivion, and each side has hired mercenaries to combat the other. However, a new player has emerged in the war; Yamagata corporation. The Yamagata corporation has been silently watching as Astro and Humphries Space Systems battle each other. Then, when both are ready to collapse, Yamagata will zoom in and take full control of the belt. At least that's what the plan was.
Lars Fuchs continues to be a thorn in the side of Martin Humphries. After being exiled from Ceres, Fuchs has lead the life of a pirate; secretly destroying Martin Humphries' ships in the belt. However, Martin seems to have won the ultimate prize; Amanda, Lars' beloved wife, has divorced him and married Martin. She's even pregnant. But whose child is it, Martin's or Lars'? Sadly, Amanda dies in childbirth, leaving Martin with a handicapped son. Martin never bonds with the child, instead, he sends his new son to Connecticut to live.
Dorik Harbin is still on Humphries' payroll and is determined to find Lars. Lars has even tried to kill Martin in his own home. He sneaked into Martin's home in Selene and set fire to the entire compound. Martin managed to survive by hiding in a concealed fire-proof closet, but his house and many of his security team were destroyed. Pancho helped Lars escape by giving him one of Astro's new ships. But, Humphries has sent Harbin looking for him.
Meanwhile, Doug Stavenger's wife Edith has left Selene to fly to Ceres to report on the war. But, Harbin has chosen the same path to track Fuchs. Once at Ceres, Harbin demands that Fuchs be turned over to him. He is rebuffed and told that Fuchs is not there. Enraged, Harbin destroys the habitat surrounding Ceres. Meanwhile, Doug Stavenger has convened a meeting of Pancho, Humphries, and Yamagata in an effort to stop the war. Will he be successful, or will the Asteroid Wars continue to rage on?
This book is the best one of the series. The action is non-stop, and I enjoyed the way Bova expanded the storyline by adding the Yamagata corporation into the war. Of course, its still fun to watch Humphries and Pancho battle it out. Plus, the beginning and ending, which deals with an alien artifact, is good, too.
I give this book my highest recommendation. The action is fast-paced, and the character development is excellent. Will the Asteroid Wars finally come to an end, or will Pancho, Martin, and Yamagata continue to fight it out? Read this great book and find out!
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War Is Hell by Arthur W. Jordin (Smyrna, GA USA) 4 Stars
August 28, 2006
The Silent War (2004) is the third SF novel of the Asteroid Wars series, following The Rock Rats. In the previous volume, Lars Fuchs was caught in an ambush by HSS mercenaries, was returned to Ceres, and then was exiled by the Rock Rats. Amanda Cunningham divorced him and married Martin Humphries to keep Lars from being hurt by any HSS goons. But Amanda also has plans to implant an embryo fertilized by Lars within herself and to carry it to term.
In this novel, Yamagata Corporation is moving back into space ventures after years of rebuilding Japan. Saito Yamagata is leaving corporate management to his son Nobuhiko, but providing advice as requested. Saito has insisted that the corporation should remain in the background until their position is assured. Most of their efforts have been focused through Nairobi Industries, an African conglomerate with little overt experience in such ventures.
Covertly, Yamagata Corporation is picking off freighters from both Humphries Space Systems and Astro Manufacturing. Now each of these corporations blames the other for their losses. Martin Humphries and Pancho Lane are ready to make war of each other. The Humper is reestablishing the base on Vesta and equipping it with a dozen attack craft. Pancho is arming her freighters.
Lars Fuchs is unaware of most of these warlike preparations, but he is continuing his war against HSS. Dorik Harbin, commander of the HSS mercenaries, is still trying to lure him into a trap, but without luck. Still, Lars has learned about Amanda's pregnancy, but not about the heritage of the embryo.
Eight years after her marriage to Humphries, Amanda makes her first move in the long held plan to implant herself with the cryogenically preserved embryo of Lars and herself. She is supposedly carrying Humphries's baby and only Douglas Stavenger and Pancho Lane know that the embryo's heritage is quite different. She has even changed the DNA codes in Humphries's medical records to throw off suspicion of another paternity. Now if she can just carry the baby to term without the Old Humper learning of her duplicity.
The characters in this novel have well developed, but trite motivations. Of course, trite means commonplace and they are very common personality types. Especially Humphries, who learned early that his father cared nothing for him; now he is marking people notice him by force (mostly economic). Pancho is a white-hatted cowboy, out to do good in the world, but otherwise liable to play practical jokes and other highjinks. Lars Fuchs has been forced into a psychological corner by the Old Humper and differs greatly from his previous self-image. All are what they are due to circumstances beyond their control, just as are you and I.
The prologue and epilogue to this work occur six years after the body of this novel. An alien object, thought to be an artistic work, has been discovered and sold to Martin Humphries. Except for the discovering family and the initial security detail, no one else has seen the object. The results of viewing the object are variable, but profound.
This novel is the final volume in the Asteroids Wars series, but the consequences carry throughout the Grand Tour universe. Some of these effects have already reached publication in other works, most notably Venus, which is a direct sequel, although taking place over a decade after this volume. Others are still to come.
Recommended for Bova fans and for anyone else who enjoy tales of high adventure, technical warfare and naked slaughter.
-Arthur W. Jordin
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SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
| The Rock Rats (The Grand Tour; also Asteroid Wars)
by Ben Bova (Author)
Visionary space industrialist Dan Randolph is dead-but his protégé, pilot Pancho Barnes, now sits on the board of his conglomerate. She has her work cut out for her. For Randolph's rival Martin Humphries still wants to control Astro and still wants to drive independent asteroid miners like Lars Fuchs out of business. Humphries wants revenge against Pancho-ands, most of all, he wants his old flame Amanda, who has become Lars Fuchs's wife.
In the struggle over the incalculable wealth of...
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| The Aftermath: Book Four of The Asteroid Wars
by Ben Bova (Author)
In the wake of the Asteroid Wars that tore across the solar system, Victor Zacharius makes his living running the ore-carrier Syracuse. With his wife and two children he plies the Asteroid Belt, hauling whatever cargo can be found. When the Syracuse stumbles into the middle of a military attack on the habitat Chrysalis, Victor flees in a control pod to draw the attacker’s attention away from his family. Now, as his wife and children plunge into the far deeps of space, Victor has been rescued...
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| The Precipice (The Grand Tour; also Asteroid Wars)
by Ben Bova (Author)
Once, Dan Randolph was one of the richest men on Earth. Now the planet is spiraling into environmental disaster, with floods and earthquakes destroying the lives of millions. Randolph knows the energy and natural resources of space can save Earth's economy, but the price may be the loss of the only thing he has left--the company he founded, Astro Manufacturing.
Martin Humphries, fabulously wealthy heir of the Humphries Trust, also knows that space-based industry is the way of the future. But...
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| Mercury (The Grand Tour)
by Ben Bova (Author)
The planet closest to our Sun, Mercury is a rocky, barren, heat-scorched world. But there are those who hope to find wealth in its desolation.
Saito Yamagata thinks Mercury’s position makes it an ideal place to generate power to propel starships into deep space. Astrobiologist Victor Molina thinks the water at Mercury’s poles may harbor evidence of life. Bishop Elliot Danvers has been sent by the Earth-based “New Morality” to keep close tabs on Molina.
But all three of...
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| Moonwar
by Ben Bova (Author)
Ben Bova's extraordinary Moonbase Saga continues with a breathtaking near-future adventure rich in character and incident. The action begins seven years after the indomitable Stavenger family has realized its cherished dream of establishing a colony on the inhospitable lunar surface. Moonbase is now a thriving community under the leadership of Doug Stavenger, a marvel of scientific ahievement created and supported by nanotechnology: virus-size machines that can build, cure, and destroy. But...
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