Earth by Ben Bova

[Rodders]

I saw this for pre order on the Forbidden Planet website and thought it looked interesting.

"A wave of lethal gamma radiation is expanding from the core of the Milky Way galaxy at the speed of light, killing everything in its path. The countdown to when the death wave will reach Earth and the rest of the solar system is at two thousand years.
Humans were helped by the Predecessors, who provided shielding generators that can protect the solar system. In return, the Predecessors asked humankind’s help to save other intelligent species that are in danger of being annihilated.
But what of Earth? With the Death Wave no longer a threat to humanity, humans have spread out and colonised all the worlds of the solar system.
The technology of the Predecessors has made Earth a paradise, at least on the surface. But a policy of exiling discontented young people to the outer planets and asteroid mines has led to a deep divide between the new worlds and the home world, and those tensions are about to explode into open war."

 

[Vince W]

Is this part of Bova's Grand Tour series?

 

[Rodders]

I don’t think so. The blurb suggests it’s set quite a ways into the future.

 

[Vince W]

Still. I like Bova so I'll have to pick it up. Thanks.

 

[Danny McG]

Is this part of Bova's Grand Tour series?

Some sources suggest it is, in particular there are Goodreads reviews of advance copies (planned release is next week) where the reviewers express surprise at finding the book is part of a series that's been running since the eighties.

Screenshot from Amazon:-

 

[Vince W]

Nothing wrong with it being part of a series that started in the 80s. I think I prefer it that way.

 

[Rodders]

I really enjoyed what I have read so far of the Grand Tour so I'll pick up a copy. (I might even finish the series for my reading goals for 2020.)

 

[Robert Zwilling]

What did anyone think about the story Earth? If you take out the human element as an essential part of the story, it would seem that Ben Bova was panning progress and prosperity on the planet Earth. He has written over a hundred books, 24 in this series alone, ironic that he would write a final story (or are there more to come) back on Earth where it all began and portray it as a boring bribe infested place. He wrote about a lot of things wonderful or otherwise happening in the stars and after a lifetime of imagining, looking out over the current Earthscape, one might wonder what he is thinking about nowadays.

In the story, Earth, he kept the number of topics (there are hundreds of things to go on about) to a minimum and repeatedly repeated some of the topics just in case one was having trouble connecting them to current day life. The other day a local radio announcer threw out the idea that children who listen to their parents strongly dictate orders to a speaker box robot with no thankyous or pleases, might not be getting a good idea of how the world is suppose to work.

The story has fancier settings but still similar to Zardoz in the lack of understanding of how anything works. The idea that Earthlings are all set to run all the interstellar places they rescued from destruction as mindless consumers to feed the Earth's grand business world model seems to be not so distant from the way developed countries have rescued the underdeveloped countries from sure destruction, if they continued their ancient ways. And now expect them to buy themselves into everlasting debt as a sign of gratitude. He also seemed to be saying the line between documentaries and propaganda has become a very wide grey zone where instead of just showing us something, they are now designed to transform our minds for the advancement of the state.