Tuesday, May 26, 2009

The Sam Gunn Omnibus, by Ben Bova

This book is a science fiction and adventure novel. It collects all the tales about Sam Gunn that have ever been written and ties them together with the story of a reporter collecting them. Sam Gunn was an adventurer and womanizer who died just before the start of the novel. A reporter who lives on the moon named Jade decides to collect stories about Sam. She interviews people, both friends and enemies, who were involved in Sam's life. Throughout the course of the novel, Sam emerges as likable, reckless, and disrespectful of authority. The individual stories are roughly chronological in order.

I had mixed feelings about this book. It started off as enjoyable, but quickly became much more tedious. It was action packed and funny, especially during the stories about Sam. The story about Jade was also fairly well developed. However, many of the stories were too predictable, and the book in general was too focused on lust. The novel is by no means hardcore science fiction, as the book focuses on the characters and their exploits rather than on science or discovery. The novel is more of an adventure novel that happens to be set in a not so distant future. For people who have read some of the Sam Gunn stories and enjoyed them, this book is recommended. If you are interested in a science fiction story in general, this book is probably not for you
This book has strong language and sexual references.

Reviewer Age:15
Royersford, PA United States