Voyagers

Physicist and former astronaut Keith Stoner's research station picks up a signal from Jupiter's orbit. He is convinced it is a spacecraft whatever the doubts of others and he plans to meet it, personally. But he has to deal with jealous rivals in the science community not to mention government officials quick to stamp top secret on anything with a possible defense edge, especially in the Cold War of 1981, and the actual details of how to meet this craft in deep space, should it turn out to indeed be a spacecraft.

Science fiction master Ben Bova turns in a compelling nuts-and-bolts story of science fiction that delivers on his "what if?" concept. What is in the orbit of Jupiter (now heading toward Earth)? Can it be dangerous? Is it initial contact from aliens despite the slow trip through light years of emopty space? Is it, as Keir Dullea would say, "something wonderful"?

Great book. I polished off the last 100 pages in one sitting. Always a big Bova fan, this is one of the most appealing of his stories to me.

While written in a fairly light-weight manner with shallow characters, this first contact novel maintains a steady pace throughout as the plot develops and provides an interesting snapshot of how it was in the 1980's. The Space Shuttle is in service and an equivalent of the Hubble Telescope is being commissioned - and used to photograph what appears to be an alien space probe orbiting Jupiter, tentatively identified as the source of what appears to be an artificial radio signal.

I liked the scene setting extras prior to each chapter - they were very effective. The introductory quote from Lee Durbridge "Either we are alone or we are not; either way is mind boggling" underlines why we have spent so much time and money on SETI - and why books such as this can appeal. While we still don't know whether we are alone or not, I'm looking forward to reading the sequels to Ben Bova's idea of how we may find out. We may have come a long way technically and politically since the 80's, but we haven't sent a crewed space ship any further afield than low Earth orbit since then. Sadly the challenges of sending a crewed space ship to or beyond the moon are at least equal to what they were in the 80's...