It's Wednesday and time once again to address what I've been reading in the realm of short science fiction. The book I'm going through is an anthology, edited by the late Gardner Dozois: The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventeenth Annual Collection...covering short stories and novellas published in the year 1999. The tale I'm about to discuss might be termed a novella, and maybe just a long short story (or a short long story). In any event, here's my reaction to it...
MOUNT OLYMPUS by Ben Bova
Ben Bova is one of those old-school hard science fiction writers who, like Robert Heinlein before him, envisioned what the emerging travel-to and exploration-of neighboring worlds in our solar system would be like in the years ahead of us. You can learn a lot about astronomy and space travel from this particular story, which presents a fictional scenario about what it would be like to be on Mars, fly a specially-designed plane onto the surface of its massive, long-dormant volcano Olympus Mons, and then set out down into its caldera. The story, written in plain language without some of those obnoxious literary pretensions I see in other writers, also seeks to be inclusive with the mission's crew, from different parts of the world and with their own special stories, motivations and concerns. I found myself liking these people and rooting for them, much in the way I would for a Star Trek episode and its characters. I wonder if Bova included some of those appearing in this story in any other material he wrote. I liked Mount Olympus and wish there were more stories in the anthology like it...
Next week: more about short science fiction from '99...
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