The Best of Bova, Vol. 1: Volume 1
About this audiobook
The first volume in a sterling collection of stories from legendary hard science fiction master Ben Bova
These are selected stories from Bova’s amazing career at the center of science fiction and space advocacy. He is the creator of the New York Times bestselling Grand Tour series, a six-time Hugo Award winner, and past president of the National Space Society. The very best of Ben Bova, these stories span the five decades of Bova’s incandescent career.
Here are tales of star-faring adventure, peril, and drama. Here are journeys into the mind-bending landscapes of virtual worlds and alternate realities. Here you’ll also find stories of humanity’s astounding future on Earth, on Mars, and in the solar system beyond—stories that always get the science right. And Bova’s gathering of deeply realized, totally human characters are the heroic, brave, tricky, sometimes dastardly engineers, astronauts, corporate magnates, politicians, and scientists who will make these futures possible—and those who often find that the problems of tomorrow are always linked to human values and human failings which are as timeless as the stars.
About the author
Ben Bova, scientist, multiple Hugo Award winner, and prolific science fiction author and editor, died on November 29, 2020, of complications from Covid-19 and a stroke. He was 88. Bova wrote more than a hundred books, edited some of science fiction’s best-known publications, and was president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for two terms 1990-1992 and was president of the National Space Society.He began his career in a way that, Tor.com said, “brought experience to the science fiction genre that few authors could match”: he was a technical editor for Project Vanguard, the U.S.‘s first effort to launch a satellite into space in 1958. Bova then was a science writer for Avco Everett Research Laboratory, which built the heat shields for the Apollo 11 module.Bova published his first novel, The Star Conquerors, in 1959, and followed up with dozens of others, as well as numerous short stories that appeared in, among other publications, Amazing Stories, Analog Science Fact and Fiction and Galaxy Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.In 1971, Bova became editor of Analog following the death of its longtime editor, John W. Campbell Jr. According to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Bova maintained the publication’s tendencies towards technological realism and Hard SF, “but considerably broadened its horizons.” While there, he published notable stories such as Joe Haldeman’s “Hero” (which became The Forever War) and earned the Hugo Award for Best Editor for numerous consecutive years before stepping down in 1977. He then became the first editor of Omni magazine, until leaving in 1982, and consulted on television shows such as The Starlost and Land of the Lost.Among other honors and awards, as noted by the SFWA, Bova was the Author Guest of Honor at Chicon 2000, the 58th Worldcon, was a lifetime achievement recipient from the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation, a Robert A. Heinlein Award winner, a Skylark recipient, and an inductee into the First Fandom Hall of Fame. In 1995, his story “Inspiration” was a Nebula finalist.Bova’s best-known works, Tor.com observed, involved “plausible sciences about humanity’s expansion into the universe, looking at how we might adapt to live in space with novels such as 1992’s Mars, about the first human expedition to the red planet. He followed that novel up with additional installments, forming the Grand Tour series, which explored all of the solar system’s major bodies.” The latest installment, Uranus, was published in July, and was scheduled to be the first of a trilogy. The second installment, Neptune, is scheduled for release next year
Stefan Rudnicki is an award winning audiobook narrator, director and producer. He was born in Poland and now resides in Studio City, California. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks and has participated in over a thousand as a writer, producer, or director. He is a recipient of multiple Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as a Grammy Award, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Ray Bradbury Award. He received AudioFile’s award for 2008 Best Voice in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Along with a cast of other narrators, Rudnicki has read a number of Orson Scott Card's best-selling science fiction novels. He worked extensively with many other science fiction authors, including David Weber and Ben Bova. In reviewing the twentieth anniversary edition audiobook of Card’s Ender's Game, Publishers Weekly stated, "Rudnicki, with his lulling, sonorous voice, does a fine job articulating Ender's inner struggle between the kind, peaceful boy he wants to be and the savage, violent actions he is frequently forced to take." Rudnicki is also a stage actor and director.
Vikas Adam is a classically trained actor with numerous credits in stage, film, commercials, and television, in addition to his over two hundred recorded audiobooks. He was an inaugural inductee into the Audible Narrator Hall of Fame.
Read by Paul Boehmer, Gabrielle de Cuir, Carrington MacDuffie, Stefan Rudnicki, Emily Janice Card, Ellen Datlow, Bob Duncan, Dan Jenkins, Richard Lim, Margie Moore, Scott Peterson, Tom Schiff, Mirron Willis, Judy Young, David Birney, Rosalyn Landor, and Arte Johnson
Orson Scott Card is best known for his science fiction novel Ender's Game and its many sequels that expand the Ender Universe into the far future and the near past. Those books are organized into the Ender Quintet, the five books that chronicle the life of Ender Wiggin; the Shadow Series, that follows on the novel Ender's Shadow and are set on Earth; and the Formic Wars series, written with co-author Aaron Johnston, that tells of the terrible first contact between humans and the alien "Buggers." Card has been a working writer since the 1970s. Beginning with dozens of plays and musical comedies produced in the 1960s and 70s, Card's first published fiction appeared in 1977--the short story "Gert Fram" in the July issue of The Ensign, and the novelette version of "Ender's Game" in the August issue of Analog. The novel-length version of Ender's Game, published in 1984 and continuously in print since then, became the basis of the 2013 film, starring Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, and Abigail Breslin. Card was born in Washington state, and grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s. Besides his writing, he runs occasional writers' workshops and directs plays. He frequently teaches writing and literature courses at Southern Virginia University. He is the author many science fiction and fantasy novels, including the American frontier fantasy series "The Tales of Alvin Maker" (beginning with Seventh Son), and stand-alone novels like Pastwatch and Hart's Hope. He has collaborated with his daughter Emily Card on a manga series, Laddertop. He has also written contemporary thrillers like Empire and historical novels like the monumental Saints and the religious novels Sarah and Rachel and Leah. Card's work also includes the Mithermages books (Lost Gate, Gate Thief), contemporary magical fantasy for readers both young and old. Card lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card. He and Kristine are the parents of five children and several grandchildren.
Harlan Ellison (1934-2018) wrote or edited 75 books and more than 1700 stories, essays, articles, and newspaper columns as well as two dozen teleplays and a dozen motion pictures. He won the Hugo award nine times, the Nebula award four times, the Bram Stoker award six times (including The Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996), the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America twice, the Georges Méliès fantasy film award twice, and was awarded the Silver Pen for Journalism by PEN, the international writer’s union.
Gabrielle de Cuir, an Audie and Earphones Award–winning narrator, has narrated over three hundred titles and specializes in fantasy, humor, and titles requiring extensive foreign language and accent skills. Her “velvet touch” as an actor’s director has earned her a special place in the audiobook world as the foremost producer for bestselling authors and celebrities.
Alex Hyde-White is an actor and a producer of two films and hundreds of audiobooks thru his label Punch Audio.
Jim Meskimen is an accomplished actor, impressionist, and voice artist whose work has been seen and heard for thirty years. He is a veteran of hundreds of TV and radio commercials for major clients, and he has appeared in many top TV shows and films. Jim's television appearances include the acclaimed British comedy-improv show Whose Line Is it, Anyway? as well as recurring roles on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, The Parkers, and the Parks and Recreation. As an impressionist, Jim's viral YouTube videos have entertained over two million viewers. His feature film debut was in Ron Howard's The Paper, and he went on to work on four subsequent films for Howard: the Oscar-nominated Apollo 13, The Grinch, Ed TV, and the Oscar-nominated Frost/Nixon. As a director of audiobooks, Jim has completed over five hundred hours of multicast audiobooks of the fiction work of L. Ron Hubbard for Galaxy Audio.
Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (1918–2014) was born in New York City and trained at the Yale School of Drama. An actor on stage, film, and television, he was also a narrator, voice-over artist, director, and award-winning producer. He is best remembered for his role as investigators on the TV shows 77 Sunset Strip and The FBI.
