Well developed characters have never been Bova's strong suit. But he makes up for it with his extremely competent mainstream sci fi themes, and solid grounding of his science in current knowledge.. I liked the Leviathans - massive creatures who in some ways resemble the microscopic Volvox of earth, with specialized cells, and reproducing by budding. Yet, unlike Volvox, the Leviathans may be intelligent... I have to start off by saying I read this as a stand-alone, which I was assured would be fine, and I don't feel like that impacted my reading experience. I never really found myself confused as far as the storyline, as a lot of hard sci-fi just puts you in the world, and Bova did a decent job explaining the backstory, so I can't fault my disappointment on simply skipping the prior titles. I just was immensely disappointed. It started just adequately and then fell off a cliff. I was tempted to quit about 30 pages in, but trudged on and what should be a nice distraction from the world, just became tedious work. I wouldn't say the book was bad, I would say it just definitely was not for me.
What do You think about Leviathans Of Jupiter (2011)?
I've been reading Ben Bova for ages and I'm always back for more!
—zanewestover
Interesting from start to finish. Great end for evil character.
—dyshkant
