If I had to sum up Ben Bova’s Farside in a phrase, "space opera, beach-read porn" would probably work. I should’ve known better than to read it, of course; 1994's virtual-reality morality play Death Dream was straight fluff to me at 18, and I let myself get suckered into one of Bova's Mars novels for a couple dozen pages before checking out. At its core, his mammoth oeuvre—Bova's Wikipedia page will blow your ever-loving, Star Trek stoned mind, yo—seems to stretch the skin-deep concept fiction of Michael Crichton through various far-flung sci-fi wormholes. High, just out of reach concepts are hung on characterizations so transparent and thin that they make Isaac Asimov's fantasias look like Anton Chekhov’s by comparison. Blame it on circumstance: I'd just joined a new library, didn't have much time to spend there but was desperate to read something new, pickings were slim, and there Farside sat, horrible photo-impressionist sleeve beckoning me to sup on mass-market trash with little to no value.
