Anticlimactic

I kept waiting for the big reveal the twist I wasn't expecting. Instead it's a long set up for the other books. Hopefully they deliver.

5 persone l'hanno trovata utile

Not bad

I love Ben Bova books. That being said, this one is just OK. It is a decent story and good science. I thoroughly enjoyed it but it is not one of his best. I would still recommend is as Ben Bova, at his worst, is still fanatastic.

4 persone l'hanno trovata utile

Political 'thriller' passing for science fiction

First, I have read and enjoyed many Ben Bova novels and his favorite narrator, Stefan Rudnicki, is always an attraction but not even he can save this one. The story has promise and the science is interesting but the story reads like the first novel of a high school student. Certainly, the main character displays all the political, emotional, and romantic sophistication of a 16 year old. An assistant professor of astronomy at an unnamed university he is drawn into politics as the science advisor of a first run senate candidate. There he encounters murder, corruption, and 'politics' while helping his candidate promote a new form of efficient, green energy using local coal. (No mention of how burning coal can be good for the environment.) The novel is populated by cardboard characters - heroes and villains - who are hard to care about or take seriously. Had it not been free I would have felt I had wasted my money.

2 persone l'hanno trovata utile

Unrealistic Characters and No Climax or Twist

The whole book is just a long, slow lead up to nothing. The actual happenings just seemed so unnatural and all the characters were practically interchangeable, if they have any personality all.

At first I thought this book must have been written 50 years ago, with all the outdated male-female relations. I kept expecting the men to refer to the woman as “Dames.” I did eventually realize this was a more modern book, based on the fact that everyone started banging each other randomly regardless of marital status.

The main character is supposedly motivated by being a bullied nerd in high school. Yyet he was actually friends with the bully and sleeps with girl after girl who are each described as “cheerleader” looks including his high school sweetheart. And he still finds some way to whine about whichever girl isn’t actively banging him at the moment. Don’t forget he’s recently widowed from the love of his life, cause the main character completely forgets.

Then I got to the point where the Republican candidate was losing the primary because the other candidate was more conservative. His solution, come out as pro-choice. Ben Bova thinks being for abortion would be a winning issue among the ultra-conservative PRIMARY voters.

Good Story, Mostly Good Performance

I thoroughly enjoyed Power Play except for one thing. The performer mispronounced Tycho Brahe every time he said it.

NOT VERY GOOD

This book, and the next in this series will be as
far as I go in this series. It isn't like his great
collection of syfy work (where Bova is one of the
greatest).
This book and the next are very political and boring.
I love Bova's other works and eventually will
listen to them all.

Good, but…

A solid story but the main character was hard to care about. Don’t know when this was written but the relationships between men and women are in the 60s and simple caricatures even for that time. Not much science fiction here either. A weak crime drama. I finished this book but won’t be going on. Too bad I was looking forward to a good Ben Bova series.

Not really SciFi

This is a great book and I enjoyed it - well, after all - the legendary Ben Bova! He’s a true writer’s writer.

So it may sound contradictory that I gave it 4 stars for story, but ONLY because I was expecting science fiction. If it had been true science fiction it would definitely be 5 stars. I’d characterize this as a political thriller, not as science fiction, but it IS a truly excellent political thriller…

Characters F, plot B-

The characters feel like cardboard cut-outs that the author is moving around. In particular, the male-female relating feels like its entirely from the author's imagination, like he's never actually hung out with women. It's like reading a novel written by a bright adolescent virgin.

The central character, Jake Ross, is completely pathetic. He has an inferiority complex, fawns over women who treat him like dirt, and is completely unassertive. The only charming character in the book is a hoodlum named Monster. I'm hoping that Monster will wack Jake and put him out of his misery.

On the bright side, the author weaves a reasonably workman-like plot, with a decent degree of dramatic tension. Enough to keep me reading, despite my disgust with most of the characters.

My recommendation is to try this if you're looking for some literary junk-food. Keep your expectations low.

Thebook was too slow and lacked enough plot line.

Way to slow and not enough of a plot line . Should have been a short story