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THE AFTERMATH
by Ben Bova
Tor, August 2007
400 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 0765304147


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

THE AFTERMATH: BOOK FOUR OF THE ASTEROID WARS opens with the Zacharius family, a mining family, traveling to port. Victor, the father and captain, ends up fleeing pirates in order to distract them from his family. Victor hopes that this will protect his family even though he puts himself at risk.

Unfortunately this is not so. While his wife and children are flying out of control in space without hope of being rescued, Victor is able to begin a new life. While Victor does search for his family, he also spends the next several years out there in the galaxies in relative safety.

Meanwhile, cyborg Dorn and artist Elverda Apacheta are traveling through space trying to find as many remains of those spacers killed during the Asteroid Wars. Before rediscovering himself Dorn was once a ruthless commander with numerous battles and kills to his name. Now as a cyborg who has been transformed by an alien artifact, Dorn regrets his actions and provides burials as a means to satisfy his conscience.

Following Dorn and Elverda are men hired by Martin Humphries. Martin Humphries is a very wealthy industrialist who wants to stop and kill them. These men include Captain Kao Yuan and his second in command, Tamara Vishinsky. The altercation between Humphries and Dorn will result in events that will completely change the universe. While the Asteroid Wars had wide-flung consequences, this conflict will ultimately be larger.

THE AFTERMATH is the fourth book in the Asteroid Wars series. This series falls into the military science fiction sub-genre. As with many sub-genres, this book will only appeal to a select audience. Obviously Bova relies on his reputation and the previous books in the series to draw an audience. I must admit that I did not read the first three books in this series so this book lacked some of the appeal it might have had if I had read them.

THE AFTERMATH is complicated by too much action. There are multiple subplots and tangents that appear in this book, yet none of them are well developed. If Bova had focused on one or two of these storylines and fully developed them, this book would be much stronger.

In addition to the less than stellar plot development, none of the characters are well developed or all that interesting. The characters have potential but as none of them are fleshed out, it is impossible to determine whether their stories are worth reading. If Bova intended for this book to be a collection of space adventures and various missions that came about due to the Asteroid Wars, he needs to have set the book up differently. As the storyline he uses is not contusive to multiple plots, I found THE AFTERMATH disappointing.

Reviewed by Sarah Dudley, November 2007

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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