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The Rock Rats is the second part of Ben Bova's new hard
SF series The Asteroid Wars (the first part was The
Precipice). The story continues to follow the development of
mining of the asteroid belt by independent prospectors known as
rock rats. In this book the chief protagonists of the last book,
Lars Fuchs and Martin Humphries, are still battling to see who will
control the vast amount of mineral wealth in the belt. Martin
Humphries is trying to crush all opposition to his company, HSS,
while Lars Fuchs is championing the cause of the independent rock
rats. Throw in competition for the same woman and a bit of space
piracy and you have the story.
This book is even more of a thriller than the previous one, the
physics and general life descriptions take a back seat to the
rivalry between the two main protagonists. In many ways this book
is not as good as The Precipice but it introduces some
concepts that will probably get built on in the third book of the
series. The book does seem to describe a plausible future universe
with large numbers of independent prospectors hunting the asteroids
for a strike big enough to retire on and the big companies trying
to take over the area. In many ways this is much lie the
exploration and exploitation of the United States and is a good
model for the Belt.
Overall, not a bad book, but not really satisfying, it seems
like more of a filler between The Precipice and what comes
next. The story does seem a little slow at times and not a great
deal changes from the start of the book and the end.
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