Neptune: The Outer Planets Trilogy, Book 2

Following on from "Uranus" Ben Bova's "Neptune" is an interesting installment in the Outer Planets phase of the Grand Tour series contemporary with the discovery of New Earth in the Sirius system. It is considerably shorter than usual for a book in this series and it has only a single thread of action, very likely because the author became a victim of Coronavirus.

I'm making allowances for the fact that this book was, sadly published posthumously. I am sure Ben Bova could have put more polish and detail into it, had he had time. As the adventure stands, it reads like a Golden Age SF book, an expedition to frozen oceans on the planet Neptune, to try to find a lost explorer. The premise is rather let down on the flight by characterisation. However, a female Hungarian landowner is in charge of the finances, which is a deft touch. Really, we needed more people to keep some interesting interactions moving.The proto-monsters under the sea are nicely written. And a good bit of the tale takes place there, not once but twice. Because having done what they needed to do, the expedition heads home, only to be instructed to go back and do it all over again. This does feel like padding as nothing new gets introduced. I could even imagine this part was inserted by a ghostwriter, saying "we have half a book length, and Ben is gone, so now what do I do?"By all means read Neptune, but I've enjoyed other Bova books more - Mars and Jupiter particularly.I read an e-ARC from Fresh Fiction. This is an unbiased review.