The Green Trap: A Thriller [Mass Market Paperback]

Oh, man, I wanted this book to work! It just starts falling apart from the get-go. When the main character's brother is killed, the coincidences just start piling on . . . and the main character never wonders out loud, "Who are these new people in my life?" His actions, as the novel unfolds, aren't credible and he's so passive as a protagonist that when the end of the novel comes around we feel nothing for how it turns out.

Bova has written (and continues to write) some of the best science fiction in the business. His Grand Tour Novels and short stories are unequalled. I HIGHLY recommend the Asteroid Wars novels, MERCURY and especially VENUS and JUPITER (which may even be his masterpieces). Bova is also a master of the short story and is a fine editor . . . but this book just doesn't work at all and I wish it did. I've read everything Bova has written in the last twenty years and this is the first time he's stumbled in a major way. I think THE GREEN TRAP is an attempt to move Bova into Michael Crichton's territory, but the book is full of unbelievable characters and political cliches.

The Green Trap is not one of Bova's best. If you're a fan of his, you might want to steer clear or wait until you can grab it from the library.

I think that the premise of the novel is quite good. Man finds technical solution to problem. Man is killed. Man's brother tries to find his killer. Beautiful spy helps or hinders...etc.

Bova kept promising some better intrigue and then failed to deliver. The relationship between the two main charachers just didn't ring true for me...it was shaky right from the start and time after time, they're actions didn't seem to follow "reality". The characters weren't really fleshed out that well either. I felt like broad strokes were used when a deeper character study would have been more satisfying.

The dialog was equally strained. Sometimes I felt as if I were reading a screenplay from a rank beginner. Additionally, some politically charged characters were introduced and it felt as if they were only there to provide the needed drama...almost covering up the fact that there wasn't enough drama with the already enlarged cast of characters.

Nice cover art, though.

When his brother claims to be on the trail of millions of dollars, college professor Paul Cochrane is tempted to laugh it off--research scientists aren't known for getting rich. But his brother insists and Paul agrees to visit him. When he arrives at his brother's office, however, Cochrane's brother is dead--murdered and his research missing. It's pretty clear that whatever project Cochrane's brother was working on really was important. It becomes even more clear when an oil billionaire sends a thug to demand the secrets--and offer a ten million dollar payment.

Cochrane hooks up with beautiful industrial spy Elena Sandoval and the two of them try to find the secret. Eventually Cochrane realizes that his brother had made a breakthrough. The cynobacteria he was working with had been modified to produce extra hydrogen. The dawn of a new economy, one based on hydrogen, seems at hand. But the oil billionaire is making record profits and isn't in a big hurry to let the secret out before he's ready. And he'll do whatever it takes to make sure Cochrane doesn't spread his brother's secret.

Author Ben Bova's THE GREEN TRAP could hardly be more timely in a world which has seen dramatic increases in energy prices and which is facing ever-higher levels of greenhouse gasses. Some solution is necessary but, with current technologies, hydrogen is not the answer. Hydrogen must first be produced, which absorbs more energy than it will eventually release (thanks to the law of entrophy). Bova's hypothesised genetically engineered cynobacteria will resolve this issue. Bova enhances his story with news clippings, discussing various approaches currently being explored that use renewable bio-energy sources.

THE GREEN TRAP deals with a very real set of issues, but the book is not without problems. First, the characters didn't have much depth. Cochrane lost his brother, fell in love, and had a chance at millions of dollars, but it was hard to get any sense of emotion out of it. The falling in love thing seemed undermotivated and the dialogue, and especially internal monologue was often clunky.

I also had some problems with the science. It's easy enough to believe that a cynobacteria could release hydrogen. After all, splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen is a major part of what cynobacteria do. But there needs to be an energy source. You can't just put bacteria in a pail of water, in the dark, and expect hydrogen. Presumable sunlight would be added as the energy source, but redesigning cars to flow the little bacteria into sunlight would be a lot rougher than the simple garage shop operation Bova described. Plus, the environmental risks of releasing a new cynobacteria without understanding how it would affect the environment when released in the wild is never discussed. Would the lakes and oceans be split into oxygen and hydrogen, leaving us a dry and dead planet. Finally, I think Bova cheated on the wrapup. I don't think that Cochrane's solution would really get around the patent problem.