www.msereno1970.com Male, 39, Married. Ivrea, Italy

‘Blackman’ is a hard-boiled detective story that takes place a century from now, in a future different from the one depicted in Takeshi Kovacs trilogy....

What we are, like we act, what we do and accomplish in our lifetime is due to the capabilities we acquires from the culture we are born and soaked or it is related to our genes and we can’t do anything to change our “wiring”.
This is the main theme of the book. Morgan gives us his answer with a truly remarkable and riveting book.

Not an easy writing, especially at the beginning, when the author is binding together the different parts of the storyline. But it you are patient and endure the effort of surviving the first chapters you’ll be rewarded with an awesome SF novel.

...the fabric Bova's novels are made with is being stretched too much and begins to tear apart.

As for Terry Brooks (who merged the ‘Knight of the Word’ series with ‘Shannara’) Ben Bova is doing pretty much the same with ‘Voyagers’ and ‘The Grand Tour’.

The novel deals with former 20th century Astronaut Keith Stoner, now endowed with the god-like powers he owes to the alien technology he and his family are able to master, meets with the characters of the Grand Tour Novels at the end of the 21st century.
But this is no longer the world Keith and his family left more than a century before.

Even though the “trick” Bova uses to mix the two different storylines is kind of remarkable this new book appears to me as not as exciting as the previous novels of both the series.

There is lack of action: all along the novel almost nothing happens, furthermore some characters are just sketched leaving the reader with the feeling that something during the reading is missing.

The end of the book leaves (would you expect anything else?) some room for a further sequel…..

Money is money, no surprise, but I’d rather prefer to read something new from Bova genius…..

Ringil is a gay hero that survives telling story of his past battles in exchange of board and lodging in a small village Inn.

Archeth is a lesbian half blood virago, that lives at the court of the emperor

Egar is a former mercenary from the steppe and also an outcast Clan Chief.

With this three characters Morgan destroys the classical cliches of fantasy genre creating a new astounding novel in the fashion of his previous SF works!!

By far the better fantasy novel I've read in the last years!!

P.S.
When Ringil asks about the origin of dwenda's powers he gets a typical SF answer.... just a few words....
is this simply a joke by Morgan or something more?
I hope we'll find it in the upcoming second book of the trilogy

The adventures of Jamie Waterman, the half-Navaho astronaut, continue on Earth and Mars.
This time he deals with the psalm-singing zealots of the New Morality movement who are rapidly taking over American government and its economy after the effects of global warning seriously hit the US (and the rest of the world, as well) and who are willing to shut down the entire Mars Program that strongly conflicts with their beliefs.

In the meantime, outstanding discoveries are made on the surface of Mars…..

This is the latest of Ben Bova’s ‘Grand Tour’ of Solar System novels and the author refers to the plot and characters already built in his previous works with, to my opinion, a certain lack on imaginative strength.

The book is, anyway, worth reading even though Bova can write better novels.

A big mistakes about timeline is to be reported: somewhere in the books the story is reported to happen in the 2050s (and this is in accordance with the timeline of the whole Grand Tour Novels), elsewhere the author mistakenly refers to the 2090s.

This is another five-starred SF novel by Vernor Vinge, really a book deserving a deep reading.

Basic idea is the same of 'Fire upon the Sky': but in this case the novel develops 20 thousands years before, but still 8,000 years ahead from now: Human race has spread in hundreds of stars evolving in different cultures in various star systems where some of them have developed incredible technical capabilities, while other ones have gone back to a barbarian pre-industrial level after a ‘Fall’ period due to war or plagues and other ones are flourishing again, returning to advanced levels thanks (also) to eavesdropping and steal of technology…..

One of the more advanced cultures is the one of Qeng Ho, a trading, space-faring civilization that spans all over the 'Human space' (a tiny portion of the galaxy with a radius of about 400 light years) using their huge ramships traveling at a significant portion of the speed of light (FTL travels are not possible within the Human Space....) trading their know-how and hoping for even newest and richest deals with the cultures they encounter.

But this time they have met a bite too big to chew: the Emergents, a ruthless human civilization they face in orbit around Arachna….

Even though some ideas come from the SF universe developed by Poul Anderson (and the author indirectly recognizes it, acknowledging his memory at the beginning of the book), I consider this as one of the best SF books I ever read: the plot is as complex and even more riveting than ‘fire Upon the Sky’.

The book is in English so I'm going to give my comment in English....

The book deals with the idea of a manned flight to Mars. Convincing explanations on why, how and when reach the red planet are provided throughout the book. The final chapter deals with the fascinating idea of terraforming Mars in a far future. An insight on NASA money-wasting management is also provided.

A riveting reading for people interested in space exploration and in technical details about astronautic development.

P.S.
No Italian version is available, as far as I know....