We begin this one with a shocking revelation in the first sentence: Sam Gunn, that entrepreneurial maverick of many a Ben Bova story, the space industrialist who happens to be in the right place at the right time a lot, is dead.
If you have read the many short stories or The Sam Gunn Omnibus (2007), you may know what a well-liked character he was. Bastion of the pages of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (beginning in October 1983) and then Omni, Amazing and Analog (1989-2015), Sam sailed merrily around the Solar System causing havoc, doing a deal and selling the American way to all-and-sundry. He was often the epitome of the American dream, buying low, selling high and making enough profit to finance the next project. I guess that in some ways he was the Donald Trump of the Spaceways, albeit perhaps more honourable and much more likeable, taking capitalism to the stars.
Such a death obviously leaves a vacuum, into which steps Sam Gunn Junior, who until his father’s death never knew who Sam Gunn Senior was. This revelation, followed soon by the death of his mother, leads Sam Jr. to leave the rural homestead and try and make his way in the world – or rather Solar System.
Junior goes to the head offices to claim his inheritance, where he meets Frederick Mohammed Malone, Sam Gunn Senior’s friend and co-owner. Malone shows Jr. that Dad was holding together a company near bankruptcy. Junior is a bit naïve but under the tutelage of Malone soon manages to overcome many obstacles – re-starting a bankrupt business, building a museum on Mars, setting up an insurance scheme for the mineworkers near Ceres in the Asteroid Belt, for example – to continue in the manner his Dad used to.
Such challenges are not without difficulties, however, and in this case Junior’s nemesis is his father’s old enemy Pierre D’Argent, President of Rockledge Enterprises, who does everything he can to stop Junior succeeding. Much of the book is therefore about how Junior deals with these situations.
In dealing with these challenges, what this also allows us to do, of course, is get one of Ben’s condensed tours of the Solar System – see also his Solar System/Grand Tour books. Here (through Junior) we go from Earth to the Moon (Selene), Mars, the Asteroid Belt, Saturn and Jupiter – and see the Solar System through the eyes of someone to whom this is new. It’s not always pretty, but it does create that sense of wonder.
Such characters and situations seem light-years away from the millennial SF of today. They are perhaps simpler and less subtle, more straightforward and perhaps more fun to those who have perhaps been reading Ben’s stories of Sam Gunn for nearly 40 years. Consequently, the novel may not be liked by everyone, but I think that this is where the strength of Ben’s book lies.
The plot moves along at such a pace and with such good humour that the reader is inclined to forgive the odd plot-hole (how quickly does Sam take over his father’s business?) and convenient contrivances (women fall at his feet, things happen rather too opportunely at times) that occur as you go along. Reading this book, you pretty much know what you’re going to get, but frankly you don’t mind that.
The book is also a rallying call to that old adage that if you work hard you will get your just rewards, which I suspect is part of its appeal. Sam Jr. begins at a low level but through hard work and good ideas manages to make his way and turn a profit, which many readers will like. Seeing how he does it is part of the fun, even when the characterisation is a bit cliched.
In summary then, Sam Gunn Jr is a romp, a lovingly-written, entertaining gem of an SF novel that takes the old ideals of a capitalist Space Race culture, builds them big and then builds them bigger. Whilst the world in reality has moved on to a place where people such as Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bozos may be leading the way, Sam Gunn Jr shows us that it is OK to have a little fun with the ideas as well.
What is sad is that there are elements in this novel that are clearly setting things up for future novels. With Ben’s death it seems that we’ll never know how the bigger picture is resolved. However, Sam Gunn Jr. leaves us in a situation where more stories of “Junior” could be written – and if written by the right hands, I’d be happy to read more.
If this is Ben’s last swan-song – and it is being mentioned as Ben’s last complete novel, as he died of COVID-related pneumonia in November 2020 – then it’s not a bad one to finish on. I’m pleased to say that at the end I finished with a smile – which I am sure is what Ben would’ve wanted.
Sam Gunn Jr. by Ben Bova
Published by Blackstone Publishing, March 2022
ISBN: 978-1094000893
362 pages
Review by Mark Yon
