Voyagers II: Alien within [Paperback]

A radio signal from a source near Jupiter announces to the scientists of this world that we are not alone. An intelligent extraterrestrial species is going to make a close fly-by to earth in a hyperbolic orbit of the sun that will allow one opportunity, and one opportunity only, to examine the starship, its occupants and its technology. In Voyager, the first novel of this trilogy, Keith Stoner, the American member of a joint US-Soviet mission to study the alien's ship, chose to stay aboard with the frozen alien's body. Knowing the rocket would rapidly move beyond the earth's ability to rescue him, he turned off his spacesuit's heaters and elected to flash freeze his body in the frigid temperatures of interplanetary space.

As Voyagers II opens, Keith Stoner awakes 18 years later in the laboratories of Vanguard Industries, the largest corporation on earth. Beyond all expectations, earth developed the technology to effect a rescue and somehow managed to revive his long frozen body from a state of suspended animation. His friend and erstwhile lover, Jo Camerata, using every resource at her disposal, has scrambled to the top of the industrial world. She is the President of Vanguard and her husband, Everett Nielsen, is the Chairman of the Board. Vanguard appears to be in control of the vast knowledge and technology that the alien and the spaceship have to offer and intends to keep it and use it for its own financial gain. However, Stoner, who has an unexplainable mental link with the alien intends to explore earth and ensure the technology is offered openly to a needy and unseemly venal world destined to encounter one global disaster after another.

When I reviewed Voyagers some months ago, I criticized Bova for taking a melodramatic, soap opera approach to the development of the relationships between the characters in the story. The men were portrayed as either heroes or wimps and the chauvinism with which he allowed his male characters to treat the females was simply beyond outrageous. Unfortunately, this weakness continues in Voyagers II and sinks to even lower lows. His dialogue is wooden and terribly contrived - not a great deal more realistic than one might expect from the humorous mangled English subtitle translations of Japanese B movies. The maniacal primary motivation for the evildoers of the novel seems to be world domination in a style that is not quite as subtle as the overlords of James Bond's arch-foe SMERSH.

Despite its glaring apparent weaknesses, Bova has nevertheless created a provoking tale of the possible effects of a close encounter of the third kind on world politics, religion, relationships, science, culture and mainstream life in the USA. The overwhelming need to use such advances in technology for the betterment of the world is obviously uppermost in Bova's mind and still makes Voyagers II an interesting read - if not one with an abundance of literary values. Which is certainly a shame! It isn't without merit but, as a novel, it's a bit of a disappointment.

Recommended, but only barely.

Paul Weiss

I read this book when i was still in High School a number of years ago, but still the distinctness of the book lingers on in my memory. I enjoyed Sci-Fi before i read this book, and after? Well writing reviews and looking every where for Ben Bova. I enjoyed the book because it focused not only on what could be, what what in actual fact is. The Vanguard coorporation if my memory serves, reflects metaphorically with the way our world is now. It moved me from being being "a simple fish in the waters of life" to being aware of my environment, being aware that there is more than what meets the eye. The technology described in the book was, to me, fantastic, so fantastic that it tantalised the senses and made me want to go out and study science and make that technology possible. I have in my life only read three Ben Bova book, not by any chance by choice, but simply because where i am they are hard to find. Orion, another throughly enjoyable book, shares the same mystisism with Voyager 11, and also displays our Theological dispositions. Voyager 11, displayed the Alien that is within our very midst and the human potential that has only just begun to be tapped. Definitely one of the best books i have ever read. I question and because i cannot find the answer, i search. Thanks Ben..

While I didn't enjoy this sequel as much as the first book in the series, dwelling as it does on the darker side of political and corporate game playing, it was still an interesting read as the author presents one possible scenario of how humanity could use the gifts from an advanced culture. Another interesting rendition of the age old fight of good vs evil - and there is plenty of the latter.