Farside cover art

Farside

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Farside

By: Ben Bova
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
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About this listen

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 Adventure Science Fiction Space Exploration Space Opera

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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)
All stars
Most relevant  

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Kinda. This was not the best book in the series, and the main plot elements have been seen before.

What does Stefan Rudnicki bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

Stefan Rudnicki is a very excellent narrator and certainly brings many of the characters to life in a way that would not happen otherwise.

Do you think Farside needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Not really.

Any additional comments?

This novel felt like it had a lot of padding, and could easily have been half as long. That said, the setting of the story, Farside Observatory, is excellent and intriguing, and the book could've been better if it dealt more with this, rather than the usual politics and nano machines plots we see so often from the Grand Tour novels.

Take me to the Moon...

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Ben bova and stefan rudnicki is there any better combo? Great story and performance always a pleasure to listen to

great stuff

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Yet again a brilliant book by Ben Bova. Left the reader in suspense right to the end.

Great book. A space- based whodunit

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Off the peg, cut-out characters in a slow paced story set on the moon. If you're looking for some action there is about ten minutes of it in the last half hour. Stefan Rudnicki does a good job though, as usual.

So pedestrian

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What’s essentially a workplace drama on the moon with a story that is interesting enough. Yet the author leers over every female character in such a way that it’s just creepy. A woman is described as “Bosomy, and friendly. Especially after a couple of drinks.”
I don’t have a problem with a character thinking that if it’s in the story, but the narration mentioned what every female character’s boobs were like, and that ruined a perfectly passable sci fi, as we are confronted with this kind of horny male id who is telling us the story…

Also, there are some incredibly lazy national stereotypes throughout, which feel a bit icky too.

Flawed by being a bit, er… pervy.

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