Description:

From Publishers Weekly

Set in the same future universe as the author's asteroid series (The Silent War, etc.) and sharing such major players as the Yamagata Corporation and the religion of the New Morality, Hugo-winner Bova's well-plotted fourth planet novel (after 2003's Saturn) features a classic love triangle, backed by the occasional Greek chorus of scientific explanations. While astrobiologist Victor Molina and engineer Mance Bracknell (disguised as Dante Alexios) vie for the affections of Victor's wife, Lara Tierney Molina, Saito Yamagata attempts to create an efficient, inexpensive staging area on Mercury to send ships into deep space. Meanwhile, Bracknell schemes to exact revenge for his destroyed past. Ten years earlier, Bracknell's efforts to create another efficient, inexpensive method of launching spaceships called "The Sky Tower" was sabotaged by Bishop Danvers of the New Morality, as well as by Molina and Yamagata's son, Nobu. Millions of innocents died as a result. The moral questions raised by Bracknell's complicated retribution scenarios about the rights of victims for revenge and the immoral consequences of moral acts add depth to an otherwise standard tale of space adventure.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Bova's impressive series on human exploration of the Solar System (Venus, 2000; Jupiter, 2001; Saturn, 2003) turns to the planet nearest the Sun. Saito Yamagata wants to build power satellites around Mercury, engineer Dante Alexios has designs for them in hand, and biologist Victor Molina wants to explore Mercury's polar caps, where there may be water, for possible signs of life. Theocrat Bishop Danvers is looking over their shoulders, and visionary Mance Bracknell wants to avenge the sabotage of his power satellites years ago by in turn sabotaging the Mercury project. Their motivations bring the characters to life, and readers may also savor the complex and plausible hardware, and the lethal environment in which humans need it to have any chance of survival. Briskly paced into the bargain, this superior entry in one of the classic hard-sf sagas going is pretty much a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved