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A review by graff_fuller
Apes and Angels by Ben Bova
4.0
3.5 Stars - this is a slightly better book than the previous book in this series (Death Wave). I enjoyed them both, but they both have flaws. I gave it 3.5 Stars, with a 3 Star Goodreads rating.
This is NOT a direct sequel to the previous book, though it happens shortly (narrative wise) afterwards. This book has a completely different cast of characters.
This is a Science Fiction book with a Space Opera specific genre...which deals with a lot of moral and ethical issues throughout the book. The previous novel, Death Wave was a Science Fiction book with a Thriller narrative.
Throughout this book, I kept thinking about the Prime Directive, from Star Trek. Not even in Star Trek are they able to follow this as thoroughly as they should. Most all the captains and others have broken the Prime Directive to save a civilization. They always had their reasons, but it is a VERY high bar.
WIthin this book, the main protagonist is fighting for the civilization that he has found. He is a "lone wolf", not really involved in the day to day discoveries upon the planets that they have been sent to. Their mission is to find a way to place protective machines in place on the the planets that inhabit intellegint lives (to protect them from the Gamma Rays that are going to destroy all life on these planets in the next 200-400 years.
These scientists have a noble mission, but on each planet, our main protagonist (who is incredibly brilliant) is able to descover "something" new...and in doing so, becomes more cavalier and starts to take more risks.
He starts to do things that are not moral or ethical under the directive that he's been given, but it is all for the greater good of the species...but since they are a pre-Warp society, they know NOTHING about anything outside their town or area that they live.
It was frustrating to follow this story. I kept saying, "don't do that", but things just kept getting worse and worse, so that he'd HAVE to step in and do the thing that he wasn't suppose to do.
Don't ask permission, but ask forgiveness. Ugh.
By the end of the book, I was not sure that what they eventually did was actually good. I feel that they may have upset the "natural" balance that had been put into place. It will be interesting to see what the next book, Survival will have to say about this.
This is NOT a direct sequel to the previous book, though it happens shortly (narrative wise) afterwards. This book has a completely different cast of characters.
This is a Science Fiction book with a Space Opera specific genre...which deals with a lot of moral and ethical issues throughout the book. The previous novel, Death Wave was a Science Fiction book with a Thriller narrative.
Throughout this book, I kept thinking about the Prime Directive, from Star Trek. Not even in Star Trek are they able to follow this as thoroughly as they should. Most all the captains and others have broken the Prime Directive to save a civilization. They always had their reasons, but it is a VERY high bar.
WIthin this book, the main protagonist is fighting for the civilization that he has found. He is a "lone wolf", not really involved in the day to day discoveries upon the planets that they have been sent to. Their mission is to find a way to place protective machines in place on the the planets that inhabit intellegint lives (to protect them from the Gamma Rays that are going to destroy all life on these planets in the next 200-400 years.
These scientists have a noble mission, but on each planet, our main protagonist (who is incredibly brilliant) is able to descover "something" new...and in doing so, becomes more cavalier and starts to take more risks.
He starts to do things that are not moral or ethical under the directive that he's been given, but it is all for the greater good of the species...but since they are a pre-Warp society, they know NOTHING about anything outside their town or area that they live.
It was frustrating to follow this story. I kept saying, "don't do that", but things just kept getting worse and worse, so that he'd HAVE to step in and do the thing that he wasn't suppose to do.
Don't ask permission, but ask forgiveness. Ugh.
By the end of the book, I was not sure that what they eventually did was actually good. I feel that they may have upset the "natural" balance that had been put into place. It will be interesting to see what the next book, Survival will have to say about this.