Farside

By: Ben Bova

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Farside, the side of the moon that never faces Earth, is the ideal location for an astronomical observatory. It is also the setting for a tangled web of politics, personal ambition, love, jealousy, and murder.

Telescopes on Earth have detected an Earth-sized planet circling a star some 30 light-years away. Now the race is on to get pictures of that distant world, photographs and spectra that show whether or not the planet is truly like Earth - and if it bears life. Farside observatory will have the largest optical telescope in the solar system as well as a vast array of radio antennas, the most sensitive radio telescope possible, insulated from the interference of Earth’s radio chatter by a thousand kilometers of the moon’s solid body.

Building Farside is a complex, often dangerous task. On the airless surface of the moon, under constant bombardment by hard radiation and in-falling micrometeoroids, builders must work in cumbersome spacesuits and use robotic machines as much as possible. Breakdowns - mechanical and emotional - are commonplace. Accidents happen, some of them fatal. But what they ultimately find will stun everyone, and the human race will never be the same.

©2013 Ben Bova (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc

Critic reviews

"I believe that by far the science fiction author who will have the greatest effect on the science fiction world, and the world as a whole, is Ben Bova." (Ray Bradbury)

not up to Ben Bova's normal standard of writing

What did you love best about Farside?

The story plot was good somewhat unusual story excellent performance

Has Farside turned you off from other books in this genre?

No I like this kind of story

Which scene was your favorite?

none really

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

no was glad when it was over

Any additional comments?

This is NOT Ben Bova's typical writing I have a feeling he wrote it when he was 15 and just published it without rereading it . The story is good but the huge plot holes and just poor writing spoil the book. there are things that just do not make sense he puts things out that don't make sense and later in the book makes some poor expiation about them. like he was too lazy to go back and fix the original writing. An example of a plot hole. There was a "nano" hole in an air lock that depressurized a compartment that was at least a hundred meters wide come on !! Even normal leakage would be more then that . a nano hole would not even be noticed. If this was the only example I could could ignore it, but sadly its not.

Bova continues with excellence!

My wife and I have loved listening to the Grand Tour series by Ben Bova! In this novel, he presents a believable and scientifically respectable story of the far side of the moon. His characters are multidimensional, and he makes you care about them. The personal interactions and motivations of his characters are often explained by including their unexpressed thoughts. This novel sets the scene for a new sub-series called the Star Quest Trilogy or the New Earth Series (based on the name of the next book.

The reading by Stefan Rudniki is easy to listen to and carries just the right amount and kind of passion for each character. He does a great job here, as he has done in all the other stories that I gave heard him read!

Entertaining and enjoyable. Looking forward to listening to the next in the series: New Earth.

Clever Plot

Well written and thought provoking about how human nature is always the same no matter how advanced we think we have become. The audio version is particularly good. Give it a shot.

Frustrating

Bland characters and methodical writing aren't helped by the narrator. You can tell who the bad guys are right away, but it's really hard to sympathize with the characters.

I would say it was the science that was frustrating, but it's not really science but more basic logical contradictions that puzzle me. (minor spoilers) - It doesn't matter what caused a leak in a spacesuit, airlock or fuel line, the effects would be the same. When someone can't breath suddenly that means he must have lost air pressure, right? But the suit had half its air left, so why couldn't he breath? It just doesn't make any sense. That's like saying "nanobots pulled the trigger to fire the gun, but the bullet never left the barrel, but the guy died of a gunshot wound anyway". In fact they mention several times how slow the leaks were, which means the pressure loss should be detected before there was a real problem. The same could be said for all instances, it just doesn't make any sense.

And what normal functioning person would take their eyes off someone that was part of the plot against the whole station, someone that kidnapped a person and stole a shuttle, someone that you backed into a corner where he would have to face punishment for his actions, and someone that you had just punched in the face and knocked unconscious for a minute.

This book was interesting in that it seemed like a documentary what life might be like on a moon base in the future, but failed as an interesting work of fiction.

If You Like 1950s Sci Fi...

It is hard to believe that this novel was written in the present era. At one point, the lead character, in a space suit out on the Moon's surface, asks one of his assistants to go inside and get him a camera. Right. Like in a century from now (or whenever the near-ish future date is) that there's not going to be a camera in his suit - or retina, or...There are several similar instances which reveal a poorly conceived future setting (a pad of paper, conveniently found in a desk drawer, on a limited-supply Moon outpost? Riiiight. Even today, the average N American only picks up a pen every few weeks) etc etc. Then there is the dialogue. It's not just cliché-ridden and cringeworthy, it's also frighteningly dated with regard to the sayings people use and rife with cultural references that are already decades past. MAYBE the author intended to use phrases so old that many of today's 20-somethings wouldn't even know what they meant - just so the book would come off as authentic classic sci-fi from another era. Sort of like what SM Stirling did with his Mars & Venus 'Sky People' alternative reality books a few years back. I sure hope so. The alternative - that Bova meant this to be a modern, credible science fiction novel - is scary to contemplate.

Didn’t get past chapter 6

Sorry, but explaining away a r@pe as ok because the guy was afraid of being shot down is disgusting. Then saying a positive attitude will make it all just go away, instead of the soul crushing thing that it actually is; is reprehensible at best.

Slow-moving then Rushed

This felt like it could have been a really great sci-fi who-done-it, but it wasn't. The overall plot was great but the story really seemed to drag for a while in the middle and then suddenly rush to an unsatisfactory end.

Narrators really make or break stories like this and unfortunately this narrator didn't do it for me.

It's a pity as the story had all my favourite elements and the makings of a riveting book.

Lazy writing. Had promise.

Not Bova’s best work. Writing seemed lazy and character development could have been better. Cool idea for a story, just not well executed.

Reads Like 1953 and not in a Good Way

OMG! I just listened to two hours of Farside by Ben Bova. I'm going to quit it and try to return it to Audible. I don't cry "sexist" at most books, but this is the most sexist piece of drivel I've ever read. It seems like it was written in 1953 rather than 2013. Add to the fact that 1/2 of the book so far has a female POV character and it's narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. He's a good narrator, but a very poor choice for this book. He has a very deep voice and can't do women well at all. UGH!