From Publishers Weekly
With its macho posturing and stereotypical characters, including devious Japanese, Hugo-winner Bova's third book in his Asteroid Wars trilogy (after 2002's The Rock Rats and 2001's The Precipice) could just as well have been written in the 1950s as today. Megalomaniac entrepreneur Martin Humphries of Humphries Space Systems has much to be pleased about on both the business and personal level: he has survived his battle with Astro Corporation's Dan Randolph and the luscious Amanda has divorced asteroid prospector Lars Fuchs to marry him. Then the Yamagata Corporation, a new player in the economy of asteroid mining, plunges the two companies into a bloody space-war and consolidates their assets in the power vacuum while Fuchs seeks vengeance on Humphries. The framing story, about an alien artifact that is both salvation and punishment for Humphries, puts a thick icing of morality on top of a series of predictable cliffhanger episodes involving violence, suffering and death. Short chapters, expository lumps and multiple, rapidly shifting perspectives on the action make for a jerky read. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
The concluding volume of the Asteroid Wars is vintage Bova, with intrigues, hardware, and action all applied lavishly to a fast-moving story. The focus is on what is becoming a death duel between Pancho Lane and Martin Humphries, and at stake in the battle are the "lives, freedom, and sacred honor" of the entire human population of the asteroid belt, not to mention all the resources that that population can make available. The Yamagata ought to have a hyena on their corporate seal to accurately reflect their ethics, and gifted space pirate Lars Fuchs has so many scores to settle that everybody spends much time trying not to turn their backs or life-support systems on him. At the end, Bova serves up enough resolution to satisfy most readers but also enough uncertainty about just where the human race is going to stay in space, and who it is going to meet, to prime readers for further explorations by one of the writing and editing deans of hard sf. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
"...full of ingenious action, capably handled... Bova maintains suspense."


Book Description
When corporations go to war, standard business practice goes out the window. Astro Corporation is led by indomitable Texan Pancho Lane, Humphries Space Systems by the rich and ruthless Martin Humphries, and their fight is over nothing less than resources of the Asteroid Belt itself. As fighting escalates, the lines between commerce and politics, boardroom and bedroom, blur--and the keys to victory will include physics, nanotechnology, and cold hard cash.

As they fight it out, the lives of thousands of innocents hang in the balance, including the rock rats who make their living off the asteroids, and the inhabitants of Selene City on Earth's moon. As if matters weren't complicated enough, the shadowy Yamagata corporation sets its sights on taking advantage of other people's quarrels, and space pirate Lars Fuchs decides it's time to make good on his own personal vendetta.

It's a breakneck finale that can end only in earth's salvation--or the annihilation of all that humankind has ever accomplished in space.



About the Author
Born in Philadelphia, Ben Bova worked as a newspaper reporter, a technical editor for Project Vanguard (the first American satellite program), and a science writer and marketing manager for Avco Everett Research Laboratory, before being appointed editor of Analog, one of the leading science fiction magazines, in 1971. After leaving Analog in 1978, he continued his editorial work in science fiction, serving as fiction editor of Omni for several years and editing a number of anthologies and lines of books, including the "Ben Bova Presents" series for Tor. He has won science fiction's Hugo Award for Best Editor six times.

A published SF author from the late 1950s onward, Bova is one of the field's leading writers of "hard SF," science fiction based on plausible science and engineering. Among his dozens of novels are Millennium, The Kinsman Saga, Colony, Orion, Peacekeepers, Privateers, and the Voyagers series. Much of his recent work, including Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, The Precipice, and The Rock Rats, falls into the continuity he calls "The Grand Tour," a large-scale saga of the near-future exploration and development of our solar system.

A President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past president of Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, in 2001 Dr. Bova was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He lives in Naples, Florida, with his wife, the well-known literary agent Barbara Bova.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
The Silent War, the thrilling conclusion to Ben Bova's Asteroid Wars trilogy (The Precipice and The Rock Rats), concludes the epic story of power-hungry corporations battling for supremacy of the Asteroid Belt and also fills in significant gaps in Bova's much larger Grand Tour masterwork.

Martin Humphries, the unscrupulous head of Humphries Space System, is the richest man in the universe. A sinister mix of Genghis Khan and Hugh Hefner, Humphries will do anything to gain complete control of the Belt -- and that includes blackmail, murder, and, if he's provoked, all-out war. His nemesis, Pancho Lane, CEO of Astro Corporation, is just as determined to stop Humphries in his Machiavellian power play. Unbeknownst to the two executives is a third shadow player -- Yamagata Corporation. While the two giant corporations battle it out to the death, Yamagata is quietly building a base on the moon and is hiring out mercenaries (and spies) to fight on both sides of the war.

Devoted fans of the Grand Tour saga (Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, et al.) will categorize The Silent War -- and the Asteroid Wars trilogy -- as classic Bova. Set in a technophilic universe where humanity's survival goes hand-in-hand with its ability to colonize the solar system, this incredibly fast-paced novel is powered by the author's ability to craft a wide variety of realistic characters that readers can't help but empathize with. All the familiar players are here -- Humphries, Lane, Amanda Cunningham, Lars Fuchs, Doug Scavenger, even Sam Gunn -- and the bombshells that are dropped in this novel are nothing short of extraordinary. Paul Goat Allen

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"When corporations go to war, standard business practice goes out the window. Astro Corporation is led by indomitable Texan Pancho Lane, Humphries Space Systems by the rich and ruthless Martin Humphries, and their fight is over nothing less than resources of the Asteroid Belt itself. As fighting escalates, the lines between commerce and politics, boardroom and bedroom, blur - and the keys to victory will include physics, nanotechnology, and cold, hard cash." As they fight it out, the lives of thousands of innocents hang in the balance, including the rock rats, who make their living off the asteroids, and the inhabitants of Selene City on Earth's moon. As if matters weren't complicated enough, the shadowy Yamagata corporation sets its sights on taking advantage of other people's quarrels, and space pirate Lars Fuchs decides it's time to make good on his own personal vendetta.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

With its macho posturing and stereotypical characters, including devious Japanese, Hugo-winner Bova's third book in his Asteroid Wars trilogy (after 2002's The Rock Rats and 2001's The Precipice) could just as well have been written in the 1950s as today. Megalomaniac entrepreneur Martin Humphries of Humphries Space Systems has much to be pleased about on both the business and personal level: he has survived his battle with Astro Corporation's Dan Randolph and the luscious Amanda has divorced asteroid prospector Lars Fuchs to marry him. Then the Yamagata Corporation, a new player in the economy of asteroid mining, plunges the two companies into a bloody space-war and consolidates their assets in the power vacuum while Fuchs seeks vengeance on Humphries. The framing story, about an alien artifact that is both salvation and punishment for Humphries, puts a thick icing of morality on top of a series of predictable cliffhanger episodes involving violence, suffering and death. Short chapters, expository lumps and multiple, rapidly shifting perspectives on the action make for a jerky read. Agent, Barbara Bova. (May 13) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The war to possess the vast resources of the Asteroid Belt reaches its breakneck conclusion as corporate space tycoon Martin Humphries of Humphries Space Systems battles the embittered Pancho Lane, owner of Astro Corporation. When a third force, the elusive Yamagata Corporation, enters the fray, fugitive Lars Fuchs takes advantage of the political and economic confusion to seek personal vengeance on Humphries-regardless of the cost. Veteran hard sf author Bova completes his fast-paced tale of ambition and greed in outer space with a grand finale that contains elements of classic tragedy as well as high adventure and space opera. Together with its predecessors (The Precipice; The Rock Rats), this novel belongs in most sf collections. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews