The Return
Book IV of Voyagers
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
From the six-time Hugo Award-winning author of the Voyagers series comes the next installment, book four, Ben Bova's The Return
In the 1980s, an alien starship visited Earth. While investigating what appeared to be a sarcophagus bearing the preserved body of its builder, astronaut Keith Stoner was trapped and cryogenically frozen. After his body was eventually returned to Earth and revived, Stoner discovered that he had acquired alien powers. Using these new powers, he built a new starship and left Earth.
Now, after more than a century of exploring the stars, Keith Stoner returns to find that the world he has come back to does not match the one he left. The planet is suffering the consequences of disastrous greenhouse flooding. Most nations have been taken over by ultraconservative religion-based governments, such as the New Morality in the United States. With population ballooning and resources running out, Earth is heading for nuclear war. Stoner, the star voyager, wants to save Earth's people. But first he must save himself from the frightened and ambitious zealots who want to destroy this stranger—and the terrifying message he brings from the stars.
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PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Venerable SF author Bova returns to his Voyagers series after nearly two decades with this clumsy mashup of wildly different universes. Relativistic star flight has somehow catapulted Keith Stoner, Jo Camerata and their children, Cathy and Rick, to a parallel universe. Bova fans will recognize the setting of the Grand Tour series (most recently 2008's Mars Life), but to Keith and Jo, it is alien and seems to be doomed by environmental and cultural issues. Leaving his family to secretly tour the Earth, Keith finds a willing ally in engineer Tavalera, but their joint efforts to prevent human extinction are opposed by the shortsighted and authoritarian New Morality government. Bova's decision to merge two unrelated sets of books is baffling, and Keith's arrogant machinations transform the Grand Tour universe in ways that its fans are unlikely to appreciate.