The Precipice: The Asteroid Wars I Book

A popular US author and Hugo-winning editor, Ben Bova has written many, many SF books since his 1959 debut novel. In The Precipice, set several decades in the future, the human race is in the process of falling off the metaphorical "greenhouse cliff" as runaway global warming brings devastating floods and storms. Time for another look at that old SF dream of moving Earth's polluting industries into outer space and mining the inexhaustible wealth of the asteroids... Idealistic space industrialist Dan Randolph of Astro Manufacturing gets his chance when his amoral multibillionaire rival Humphries offers a fusion drive that will allow economical spaceflight to the asteroid belt. It's a setup, of course: Humphries wants Randolph to fail and Astro stock to plummet, ready for an easy buy-out. Meanwhile, despite the benefits of power satellites and a functioning Moon colony where miracles of nanotechnology are performed, Earth's rulers (European bureaucrats in unholy alliance with Chinese commies) are fanatically opposed to space development and invoke every tiresome regulation they can to hamper Randolph's project. Eventually our hero snaps, breaks all the rules, and heads for the Belt in an untried fusion craft with a small, trusted crew--little knowing that villainous Humphries, twirling his moustachios and probably stroking a white cat, has arranged a spot of sabotage. The Precipice is an exciting, fast-moving blend of hard SF and technothriller, if sometimes a shade too melodramatic for credibility. It's billed as book one of "The Asteroid Wars", and there's more to come. --David LangfordRead More