on't be fooled by the innocent twinkle that rises in the morning sky.
Venus is the Inferno: Its pressure-cooker atmosphere and slow rotation under
the hot sun keep surface temperatures near 450 degrees Celsius.
Venus is perdition, swathed in hurricane-speed storms of virulent acid.
Venus is hell.
No one knows this better than Van Humphries, the weak and unloved second son of
rapacious conglomerate head Martin Humphries. When his beloved brother,
Alex, died on a doomed expedition to Earth's torrid sister planet, Van
lost part of himself. So Martin's announcement of a $10 billion reward for
Alex's recovered remains, together with a sudden end to Van's stipend, jolts
Van into unaccustomed action. He mounts his own Venus mission.
Van's irresolution and lack of training, combined with a banshee captain imposed by his interfering father, make Van feel like a third wheel on his
own ship. But things change drastically as he and his crew enter Venus's acid-cloud
atmosphere and discover bizarre microorganisms living there. This galaxy-rocking discovery turns calamitous as the crew realizes these creatures are
eating the hull. They fights in vain to save the ship, and end up having to
try a dangerous transfer to the other ship vying for the
prize--the Lucifer, run by Lars Fuchs, the sworn enemy of Van's
father.
Enjoying the chance to humble his enemy's son, Fuchs plays Van against the Lucifer's cutthroat crew, letting them think he's a spy in order to draw out a mutiny
plot. The uprising leaves the Lucifer short-handed, however, and Fuchs is
forced to depend on Van. As the
mission runs out of time, Van finds himself piloting Fuchs's specially
rigged shuttle into infernal canyons strewn with the wreckage of his
brother's ship, wondering whether anyone can make it out of hell
alive.
The hostile world next door
One way to facilitate character development in the course of
a novel is to start out with a remarkably weak, almost pathetic, character,
then thrust him into situations that will inevitably require him to find
courage and resourcefulness. Feeble playboy wannabe Van
Humphries certainly falls into this category; his initial unattractiveness
is offset mainly by the repulsiveness of his father and the sanctity of his
dead brother. As if encumbered by Van's limitations, author Ben Bova bolsters his
automatic hero-making machine by carefully eliminating--by tragic death or
illness--anyone more self-possessed than the protagonist.
Many of the secondary characters in Venus are colorful and fun to
read about: Captain Duchamp, the efficient martinet, for example, or
Bahadur, the fiery instigator aboard Lucifer. They come and go like
phosphorescent flames, leaving flickering afterimages on the mind's eye. Their
vibrancy reflects badly on the pallid survivors, but seems fitting in a
story of a world whose very surface glows with incandescence. Fuchs is the
most complex and evocative, and his grudging, mutual-need relationship with
Van has interesting textures.
Though the book shows signs of being written quickly (for example, two
distinct areas on Van's cramped ship are described as "the only place"
where a group can gather), its narrative is lively and richly spiced by
Venus's naturally terrifying atmosphere and landscape. In fact the
experience of descending deeper into the hellhole is the main reason to read
this book. Perhaps Van's weakness is an asset
here: Readers can all the more easily displace him and make the journey
themselves into the hostile and deadly world next door.
From the beginning, nearby Mars has excited the imagination. But I think
Venus--so exotic, so dangerous--is much more compelling, its perils more
vitally real than many an invented hostile planet. Bova has handled the
allure of Venus just right.
-- Mark
ob Lewis possesses phenomenal abilities, powers that have altered
and compromised his closest relationships. Capable of reading or altering
the thoughts, wills and memories of any human, Rob has chosen to
keep these abilities a secret. Even his wife, Julianne, is in the
dark; though she knew once, her reaction was so frightening to Rob that he
made her forget.
His only confidante is Edwin Barbarossa, a close friend inextricably linked to his secret. Edwin shares a splinter of Rob's power,
but instead of being able to read minds, he is immortal. Isolated from the
rest of humanity by their unique abilities and separated by a great
distance--Edwin lives on a lunar base, Rob in Washington, D.C.--the two conduct an intense dialog via coded e-mail about the nature of their
secret and who--if anyone--should know about it.
Before they come to any agreement, events take the choice out of their hands.
Julianne becomes suspicious when Rob rescues her from a violent assault.
Worse, Ed is the sole survivor of a horrific space accident, which places
him under intense public scrutiny. A media feeding frenzy erupts, with
opportunists and scientists flocking either to champion Ed's cause or to blame him
for the accident. Meanwhile, Rob must face his greatest terror: the
revelation of his secret and the destruction of his carefully constructed
life with his wife and children.
A grim perspective on goodness
In Doors of Death and Life, Brenda Clough picks up Rob Lewis
and his story seven years after the events in her earlier novel, How Like a
God. In the interval, Rob has been living an idealized middle-class
life, one he guards with paranoid ferocity. This novel is largely concerned
with lies and their consequences. Ed, who makes claims to greater honesty, contrasts Rob, with his willingness to lie to anyone. However,
neither man's approach works. Full public disclosure of their
abilities will destroy everything Rob values. However, Ed's tactic of
partial truthfulness endangers them too.
The story threads this moral minefield neatly, resolving little but
revealing to both men--and readers--that the mere fact of their
difference is inherently dangerous. This makes for a disturbing thematic
undercurrent: Clough says, essentially, that honesty is not always the best
policy and sometimes it is better to stay in the closet. In Doors of
Death and Life, precious few people are trustworthy, and the so-called
"good guys" do evil things to protect themselves from the wicked and jealous
majority. Clough does attempt to redeem this bleak view by having her
characters grow and mature, but the overall tone is
dark and pessimistic.
That said, Doors of Death and Life has plenty of assets.
Though a sequel, it has considerable strength as a stand-alone novel, and readers
should not feel they have to have read How Like a God to enjoy it. The
slick combination of fantasy and near-future SF, along with dialog that is current and colloquial, make this book original and appealing.
Secret identity issues have been well chewed over in comic books, and I didn't like Rob or Ed all that much. Even so, the uniqueness of their problems hooked me at points.
-- A.M.
on't be fooled by the innocent twinkle that rises in the morning sky.
Venus is the Inferno: Its pressure-cooker atmosphere and slow rotation under
the hot sun keep surface temperatures near 450 degrees Celsius.
Venus is perdition, swathed in hurricane-speed storms of virulent acid.
Venus is hell.
ob Lewis possesses phenomenal abilities, powers that have altered
and compromised his closest relationships. Capable of reading or altering
the thoughts, wills and memories of any human, Rob has chosen to
keep these abilities a secret. Even his wife, Julianne, is in the
dark; though she knew once, her reaction was so frightening to Rob that he
made her forget.