His latest novel, Moonwar, a sequel to Moonrise, continues the saga of a fledgling Moon colony under the leadership of the Stavenger family. In Moonwar the colony comes under attack for its "illegal" use of nanotechnology.
Bova's journey to the literary reaches of the Lunar realm began in his tenth grade class at South Philadelphia High School for Boys, "which was separated from South Philadelphia High School for Girls," he recalls, "by a barrier that became the model, I'm convinced, for the Berlin Wall years later, complete with the machine guns." English teacher George Paravicini coerced him to start writing for the school newspaper the day after he read Bova's first class essay. "I did and I loved it," says Bova, who worked on the school paper until he graduated, and then with friends started his own magazine -- "the first teen magazine in the country, in 1949."
When he was growing up Bova was interested in science, and at age 10 started going to the Fels Planetarium. "I became an habitué of the planetarium. That's how I got interested in astronomy and astronautics. Then I found there were stories about how wonderful it's going to be exploring the moon, the stars. I didn't really know it was called science fiction until much later."
Bova's first published book, a novel called The Star Conquerors, was a "real blood and thunder space opera," he admits. "I'd written an earlier novel nobody in the publishing industry wanted, about the first people to go to the moon based on an idea -- and I was writing in the Forties here -- that the Russians go to space before we do, put people in orbit and begin to build space stations. So the Americans launch a crash program to go to the moon before the Russians. The publishers never bought it. One publisher told me that with Senator Joseph McCarthy running around looking for Communists everywhere, a book saying the Russians were ahead of us in anything would bring down the wrath of the witch hunters. The Moon," he adds, "has been an early and consistent love."
Themes of Moonwar include the nature of war and the use of nanotechnology, molecular-sized machines that function as microscopic factories. Bova has read deeply on the history, theory and philosophy of war. "Growing up during World War II, military affairs impressed themselves very strongly upon me. And it occurred to me that nanotechnology could make living on the Moon much easier. Since in these stories we're dealing with an attempt to make a profit, anything that makes life easier is going to be tried. Also nanotechnology sort of stands for the difference between those who embrace technology and those who are afraid of it. Nanotechnology becomes a symbol dividing the Luddites and the Promethians."
It has been said that Bova sees the future as clearly as if it were outside his window. But Bova doesn't seem to think that's a big deal. "Anyone who understands what's happening in the laboratories can predict the future. If you can understand where science and technology are going, the future just falls out of that."
Bova is writing a sequel to his novel, Mars, but his next published work will be the nonfiction book, Immortality. "After looking over the research going on, I'm convinced this generation of humans -- at least in the industrialized world -- need not die from aging. That they could live forever. Or at least until they get tired and want to quit. Nobody's really thinking about the social problems this is going to raise. The book is one-half survey of the research and one-half a look into the future at the social implications."
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