SF. Pretty good story of scientific outpost at Jupiter that must try to do their work while the religious fanatics at home want to dismantle any scientific efforts that go against scripture.

Bova, Ben. Jupiter. Tor, 2000. Grand Tour 9.
Jupiter is the first of two books in Ben Bova’s Grand Tour series that are set in the Jovian system. The Americas are dominated by a fundamentalist sect called the New Morality that dominates the International Astronomical Agency which funds interplanetary exploration. Our protagonist, Grant Archer, is a graduate student in astrophysics doing his year of public service for the church on a station orbiting Jupiter, where none of the scientists are working in his field. Instead, they are working in secret to develop a shuttle to explore the oceans of Jupiter. The station is rife with intrigue. Grant has been ordered to spy on his fellow scientists. As usual in this series, Bova does well at integrating scientific speculation into a thriller plot. His prose style and character descriptions are competent, but they are not as original as the other elements of the story. 4 stars. ( )

After the first 8 books in The Grand Tour ([b:Mars|267282|Mars (The Grand Tour, #4)|Ben Bova|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1173282407i/267282._SY75_.jpg|1932635] in particular), [b:Jupiter|267334|Jupiter (The Grand Tour, #9)|Ben Bova|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442052818i/267334._SY75_.jpg|293541] feels a bit odd at the start. We're not building up to the eventual discovery of life--the fact that there's life on Jupiter is presented fait accompli in the first chapters. And not only life... intelligent life (or so is claimed). Jupiter isn't really about the discovery of life or even really about the idea of life on a research station around Jupiter.

What Jupiter is really about the conflict between religion and science as humanity continues to expand outwards into the solar system. The New Morality controls the politics of the Earth and is doing everything it can to control the solar system. In doing so, they send Grant Archer--a believer and an astrophysicist--to spy on what in the world is going on far out in the dark reaches of the solar system. There's conflict between science and religion, both on the large scale with the New Morality and the small scale within Grant himself, especially as he begins to settle in and befriend those living on Jupiter station.

The other core of the book is a mission into the oceans of Jupiter itself. It's a strange but plausible feeling bit of technology, wherein the explorers are immersed in perfluorocarbon (an oxygen-rich liquid they can breath while allowing for much higher pressures) with implanted electrodes that allow them to connect directly to their ship and feel what it 'feels'. We're getting further into the future and from the science of today, but everything still feels reasonable enough (even life in the clouds of Jupiter...) to put Jupiter square into the realm of near future hard sci fi. Overall, very cool.

The weakest parts of the story are a combination of side plots that don't really go anywhere and characters that seem to have no ability to say no. For the former, this could very well be the beginnings of what might bring uplifted gorillas or dolphins to the Grand Tour universe and I full expected them to be used on the mission at the very least... but nothing. In the case of the latter, there are several replacements to the very dangerous Jupiter atmospheric missions (which have already claimed lives) and... it doesn't seem like anyone chosen can say no. I don't really get it. It's just not even mentioned.

Overall, I enjoyed the story. I do like the less political, more sciency stories of the Grand Tour (although none of them--this included--avoid politics entirely). I'm curious to see what will happen a handful of books from now when we get to [b:Leviathans of Jupiter|8730311|Leviathans of Jupiter (The Grand Tour, #14)|Ben Bova|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1316130496i/8730311._SY75_.jpg|13574702].

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Old school SF: scientists explore Jupiter, looking for life. ( )

So Underwhelming

Where to begin? I was bored. The characters were unengaging, the science mediocre, the psychology unrealistic, and the plot didn't move forward. I kept waiting for something to happen- and I had to wait for most of the book. This is the first Bova I've read, and I am now unlikely to read anything else of his.

The sad thing is that it could have been so much better. Alien intelligent life on Jupiter is a great premise. But when you write well, you build up to it, creating mystery. The answer of intelligent life is given in the first section of the book- so I give nothing away other than what Bova gave away when I say that, yes, there is intelligent life on Jupiter. That is what the characters are searching the entire book for, hoping against hope to find, sacrificing life and limb to discover.

But perhaps the book is about character development after all, and not the plot? Not so. For the second great premise of the book is a future world controlled by fundamentalists of all stripes, and, in the US, by the Religious Right. Great idea. I'm intrigued. But it quickly becomes apparent that Bova just hates religious types. There is not a round character in the bunch. He appears to only be aware of conservative Christians as caricatures, and even Grant, the main character with religious doubts and a commitment to science, does not come across as believable. I am a science teacher, and also a Christian. And I have *never* heard in real life the kind of things coming out of the mouths of Bova's religious characters. They speak exactly like what Hollywood thinks Christians talk like, without actually an awareness of the Bible that they supposedly follow.

I am personally very much against fundamentalist agendas, of any sort. I would love a novel that actually dealt with a future world where they had taken over, with them as real people, and not robotic automatons. I would love a book that dealt with their ruling, rather than leaving it only as a plot device to get us to Jupiter. And I would love a book that explored intelligent life on Jupiter. Sadly, that is not this book. But for the latter desire, see the excellent Wheelers, published only a year before Bova's Jupiter, which displays some excellent imagination as it considers alien civilizations. ( )