Ben Bova - Able One.txt
Able One
Unabridged 9 hrs and 8 mins
By Ben Bova
Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki
Audible Release Date 02-02-10
Not all favorable reviews of an author I have enjoyed in the past. Have not listened yet, but will put it in my queue based on his past books. 'me'
When a nuclear missile launched by a rogue North Korean faction explodes in space, the resulting shock wave destroys most of the world's satellites, throwing global communication into chaos. U.S. military satellites, designed to withstand such an assault, show that two more missiles are sitting on launch pads in North Korea, ready to be deployed. Faced with the threat of a thermonuclear attack, the United States has only one possible defense: Able One.
ABL-1, or Able One, is a modified 747 fitted with a high powered laser able to knock out missiles in flight. But both the laser's technology and the jet's crew is untested. What was originally a training flight with a skeleton crew turns into a desperate race to destroy the two remaining nukes. Will Able One's experimental technology be enough to prevent World War III - especially when it becomes clear that a saboteur is on board?
From Publishers Weekly
Hugo-winner Bova (The Green Trap) combines cutting-edge science and geopolitics in a fast-paced but flimsy near-future technothriller. When a rogue faction of the North Korean army detonates a nuclear missile in space, an electromagnetic shockwave takes out numerous satellites and cripples communications worldwide. Fearing another attack, the U.S. military launches ABL-1, a powerful but untested 747-mounted laser that should be able to destroy a missile in flight. The effort will be a baptism in fire for the skeleton crew, one of whom may be a saboteur. Meanwhile, the president struggles to respond to the crisis without starting a world war. The tense atmosphere, swiftly unfolding plot, and scientific details do little to hide a host of meaningless subplots and shallow characters, resulting in a Clancyesque tale that lacks the power and focus of Bova's better and better-known hard SF. (Feb.)
From Booklist
Instead of another expression of the space futurism that has lately preoccupied him, six-time Hugo-winner Bova here gives us a near-future technothriller. The North Koreans explode a hefty nuclear weapon in space, producing an electromagnetic pulse, a crisis, and the dire need for a counterweapon, which exists in the form of Able One, a 747 mounting a missile-killing laser. But many components of Able One are untested, the crew is a long way from fully trained, and there may be a saboteur aboard. The sum total of those familiar thriller tropes is a well-above-average page-turner. --Roland Green
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