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Mark and Gerry's Science Fiction Reviews, continued
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Drops of Jupiter Everywhere
REVIEW of JUPITER by Ben Bova
and some related Jupiter stories
reviewed by Gerry
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Ben Bova's fictional tour of our solar system moves on to Jupiter in his most recent novel, Jupiter (published 2001). Related books by Bova include Mars, Return to Mars, and Venus (link to Venus review). While Jupiter revolves around a different time, place, and characters, the fictional universe is fundamentally the same, and references are made to "events" and "discoveries" from the earlier novels now and then.
The story-telling pattern in Jupiter is the same as in the other books as well. The central character goes on one of the first missions to a planet, and his character must grow in order to survive and help others. Other commonalities found in these books: Simple life forms are everywhere. Intelligent life is probable. An older authoritarian person who appears to be bad is actually good. A secondary character who appears to be good (and harmless) is bad (and dangerous).
This story takes place at an unspecified time in the future. As last seen in the book Venus, Earth was in a mess, with out of control environmental problems and wars breaking out. By the start of Jupiter, there is once more peace on Earth, but at the price of many personal freedoms. The major religions now rule, with different religions dominating in the various regions of the globe (and incredibly, they don't have interregional conflicts). The main character in Jupiter is Grant Archer, who is both religious and a scientist, so he feels caught between those two antagonistic groups. Archer is sent by the dominant and very powerful American religious group, the New Morality, to spy on scientists at a space station orbiting Jupiter. Simple life has been found on Jupiter's moons, and in Jupiter's clouds. The New Morality has no problems with simple lifeforms; however, they fear the scientists are secretly trying to prove the existence of intelligent life in Jupiter's oceans. The discovery of intelligent, non-humanoid life would contradict the scripture (Man in God's image), and, as such, could not be tolerated. In addition to sending Archer as a spy, the New Morality may or may not have sent other spies. Archer's loyalties are not clear, not even to himself.
It's not giving a way much to note that in Jupiter, there is intellligent, enormous Leviathan-style life in Jupiter's oceans. Aside from the main story, which is told from Grant's perspective, many chapters are devoted to a side story, told from the perspective of one of the alien creatures. The question is whether the two species will actually discover each other, and also whether the humans can survive their highly dangerous mission to Jupiter.
Some interesting science fiction ideas do pop up during the story. For example, at one point, there is a description of the different layers of Jupiter, under its clouds. First, an ocean of water, ammonia, and sulfur compounds. Then, liquified molecular hydrogen. Then, solid metallic hydrogen. Then, liquified helium. Finally, a rocky core. It'll be fascinating to see someday, when more data is available, how well this does or doesn't match the real makeup of Jupiter. Another topic of sf interest is the ship used on the mission to Jupiter. Aside from needing multiple, extra sturdy hulls, the inside of the ship contains viscous liquid, to help with the pressures (it's a nice idea, though it's extremely hard to believe that the ship could withstand Jupiter's pressures). The crew is immersed in the perfluorocarbon liquid, and they inhale the liquid, which provides O2 and removes CO2. The crew also has implants, and their implants can be connected to all the ships sensors, so that they can sense all that the ship senses, and mentally control the ships functions. This is a version of the living ship concept, seen in other books also, where the ship is mechanical, but is "living" since its "brain" comes from those linked with the ship. Another sf topic in Jupiter is enhancing intelligence of gorillas (and adding speech), and communicating with dolphins - all part of their research in non-human type thought and communication. And then there's all the Jovian lifeforms, among the more fantastic elements of the story.
As with all of Bova's books, Jupiter is easy reading. The characters are not very deep, and a little stereotypical, similar to his other recent books. However, a minor mystery was handled better here - it was harder than usual to guess the identity of the seemingly good yet really bad character(s) - and side character motives and actions were a shade less predictable than expected.
In Jupiter, some non-intelligent lifeforms living in the clouds are called Clarke's Medusas in honor of Arthur C. Clarke's fictional creatures in his short story from 1971, titled "A Meeting With Medusa". This story can be found as part of a collection of 18 of Arthur C. Clarke's short stories, The Wind From the Sun (stories of the space age). I highly recommend reading this collection of Clarke's excellent stories. You will find that many of the science fiction ideas - so novel then - look very familiar now from many other stories, movies, and tv shows. Another story of note in this collection was one from 1962: "The Shining Ones". In that story, enormous intelligent squid are discovered in Earth's oceans, and they communicate with each other using glowing pictures and patterns on their skins. This is similar to the communication method used by the Leviathan like creatures in Jupiter.
In summary, Bova's novel provides a light, entertaining space adventure, and has a sprinkling of thought provoking science fiction ideas, along with some more fantastic and less credible ideas. I wish it contained a bibliography at the end, to provide more information about current knowledge and speculation about Jupiter - but it doesn't. (Most science fiction authors do not include a bibliography - but when they do, it's appreciated. Two welcome examples are the bibliography in Michael Crichton's Timeline, and an excellent one in C. Pelligrino and G. Zebrowski's The Killing Star). To remedy that, I've included a couple of suggested web sites below, with recent information about Jupiter and its moons.
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Related Jupiter websites, for real information about Jupiter, and some great images of Jupiter and its moons:
The Galileo spacecraft provides images of Jupiter and its moons:
(plus other related links for Jupiter info can be found at nasa's galileo site)
The Cassini probe, heading to Saturn, does a flyby of Jupiter:
A recent report, on how Jupiter's moons possess food for life:
also, back to fiction, B. Bova plans another Jupiter story, and asteroid stories:
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