Synopses & Reviews
Astronaut Keith Stoner, member of a joint U.S.-Soviet mission to capture an alien ship that had entered the solar system, was trapped alone aboard the alien spacecraft. But he didnt die, he lay frozen in deep sleep for fifteen years, kept alive by alien biotechnology.
Now Keith Stoner is something more than just a man. While asleep he was inoculated with virus-sized machines designed to repair his body, expand his brain, and let him live forever. Stoner also carries the knowledge and memories of the being whose body was enshrined in the alien craft. He now knows of many different intelligent races who destroyed themselves, battering themselves to death on the stony problems of war, famine, runaway population, and ill-planned technological breakthroughs.
Keith Stoner fears for mankind, and he will do everything in his power—his extensive, alien-enhanced power—to preserve humanity into the future.
Review
"Bova handles it all with a plot and style that keeps you turning the pages."--
U.P.I."Taut, thrilling...highly recommended."--Candace Smith, Booklist
"...rip roaring science fiction...tightly constructed and fast moving."--Science Fiction Chronicle
Synopsis
Keith Stoner lay frozen in an alien spacecraft for fifteen long years; during that time he came to be something more than just an astronaut, just a man. Stoner became partly alien hismelf--merged with an alien intelligence embodied in the nanotechnology that lived inside Stoner's body.
The alien whose tomb that spacecraft was, brought humanity both a blessing and a deadly peril. The technology now the control of Vanguard Industries has changed the face of the earth. The technology that lives in Stoner's bloodstream will change mankind forever.
There are powerful leaders, both corporate and political, who are becoming aware of Keith Stoner and the power he seems to control. They want that power for themselves, and will do anything to gain it. Nothing Stoner can say or do will convince these ruthless men and women that the power they seek may destroy them utterly.
About the Author
Born in Philadelphia,
Ben Bova worked as a newspaper reporter, a technical editor for Project Vanguard (the first American satellite program), and a science writer and marketing manager for Avco Everett Research Laboratory, before being appointed editor of
Analog, one of the leading science fiction magazines, in 1971. After leaving
Analog in 1978, he continued his editorial work in science fiction, serving as fiction editor of
Omni for several years and editing a number of anthologies and lines of books, including the "Ben Bova Presents" series for Tor. He has won science fiction's Hugo Award for Best Editor six times.
A published SF author from the late 1950s onward, Bova is one of the field's leading writers of "hard SF," science fiction based on plausible science and engineering. Among his dozens of novels are Millennium, The Kinsman Saga, Colony, Orion, Peacekeepers, Privateers, and the Voyagers series. Much of his recent work, including Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, The Precipice, and The Rock Rats, falls into the continuity he calls "The Grand Tour," a large-scale saga of the near-future exploration and development of our solar system.
A President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past president of Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, in 2001 Dr. Bova was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He lives in Naples, Florida, with his wife, the well-known literary agent Barbara Bova.