Venus
Ben Bova picked his villains well for this fast-paced, popcorn-and-Milk- Duds matinee: Topping the playbill is our sister planet, Venus itself, which  Bova matter-of-factly describes as "the most hellish place in the solar system."  Sci-fi authors (Bova included) have all but colonized Mars by now, but few have  boldly gone to the aluminum-melting, sulfuric-acid-soaked surface of the Morning  Star. Venus proves a mighty, unthinking antagonist indeed--frustrating the  efforts of sickly but likable rich kid Van Humphries to land there and recover  the remains of his older brother Alex, who died two years earlier on another  ill-fated mission.Van gets pushed back and forth between the book's two lesser villains--his mean  old cuss of a father, Martin Humphries, who's posted the $10 billion Venus Prize  to the first person to return Alex's body, and Lars Fuchs, a belligerent  asteroid miner and Martin's arch-nemesis, who's also decided to make a go at the  purse.Characterizations ride coach on this high-adventure flight, but remember that  we're talking about Ben Bova here. It's hard to dispute the master's choices as  you're following Van's well-researched, thrills-and-chills descent through  Venus's pressure-cooker atmosphere. With solid science, a palatable  environmental message (how could you resist commenting on greenhouse gases in a  book like this?), and an inspiring character arc for unlikely hero Van,Venusdelivers guilt-free, man-against-nature SF in a tight, page-turning  package.--Paul Hughes