I still recall where I first came across the name Ben Bova – it was in a short story (which impressed me hugely) called Stars, Won't You Hide Me, which was included in one of these door-stop sized collections of short SF stories.
I also know where I was when I learned of his death from COVID-related pneumonia/stroke – exactly where I am now, in my study, at my desk, in lockdown.

Ben's introduction to the collection at hand points at that he's published more than 1000 works of short fiction, nearly 150 novels, anthologies, plus books of non-fiction.
I don't think he expected this selection, called My Favorites, to be his final book, not from how he sounds.
But he points out that his stories are like his children, and that these are his favourite ones.

The book contains 14 stories, each with a short introduction by the author, and all published before. The introductions add something to most of the stories I felt, even if I'd have loved to get more background, more extra info. One piece of information that I would have found helpful would have been when these were originally written and/or published, it would definitely have helped to place them better, and appreciate them as products of the time, of where the world and he was at the time.

Still, this is an interesting and much varied selection, and I shall forgive him for not including Stars, Won't You Hide Me. He had a lot to choose from, and he knew them better than you or me.

Is this an essential book? No, not in my opinion. It is interesting, entertaining, but also something aimed at fans and completists I feel. Recommended within these caveats.

Below is a run-through of the stories in the book, with short capsule reviews. If this spoils your enjoyment of the book and you've already decided that you want a copy then stop now.

Monster Slayer
The story of Harry Twelvetoes, an Indian, builder with a head for heights and a mind for drink, finding his way in the world after being pushed off the reservation by white settlers. We follow him to the high frontier, constructing habitats in space to house the people fleeing the weather changes and raising sea levels (this is incidential to the story, though it is not cli-fi).

Muzhestvo
This story ties in with his Mars trilogy, with a Mars trainee, during his first time in Russia, being taken on a surprise ride/flight to look for Muzhestvo by 4 burly Russian instructors.
This one surprised me with it's ending – all the more so as I should have seen this coming from miles off, given the title. Great storytelling, evidently

We'll Always Have Paris
Casablanca tie-in/follow-up. Lost on me I'm afraid, I've never seen the film

The Great Moon Hoax, or, A Princess of Mars
So - Roswell is real, the Martians are here, and they are pacifist eco-freaks. And now someone needs to convince J. Kennedy to stop Apollo, to protect them.
As unrealistic as it is fun, with a great final throw-away surprise. Not Fredric Brown level, but I don't think that's what he was aiming for anyway!

Inspiration
A time traveller, trying to guide the development of the world through the right choices in some kind of multiverse, with the aim of ensuring humanity's survival (it does not look good in most time lines, unsurprisingly if you know humanity...). In this case by a young Albert Einstein being exposed to Lord Kelvin and H.G. Wells.
Neat. If this was longer then the world/universe structure would need more work, though - it felt barely sketched in here.

Scheherazade and the Storytellers
As the title suggests – a rendering of the backstory from 1001 Nights, with the Vizier hiring storytellers to aid Scheherazade, who then organise themselves and form a Guild (Scheherazade's Fables and Wonders Association, short SFWA) – it's all very entertaining, and very Pratchett (the story is from 2010, so we cannot exclude cross-pollination here). And I would not want to speculate who his fellow writers are that he portrayed in the story...

The Supersonic Zeppelin
The story of the SSZ, thought up as a ruse to avoid being laid off by a group of Engineers, and the political hype cycle and coat-tail riding that ensues.
Very entertaining, and I suspect all too realistic. I don't think a Supersonic Zeppelin was ever on the cards, though...

Mars Farts
We're going all Andy Weir here, with a crew of Astronauts stranded on Mars, McGuivering their way out of their predicament.
Cute.

The Man Who Hated Gravity
The Great Rolando, greatest of Trapeze artists, defying Gravity. And his fall, literally as well as figuratively, leaving him with a bionic leg and fighting Gravity, or that's what he thinks.
Weird, and weirdly affecting

Sepulcher
The solar system's richest man, and the solar system's most famous artist arrive at the asteroid on/in which an Alien Artefact has been dicovered.
Standard trope, with a rather soppy ending. Not my favourite here.

The Cafe Coup
A futile attempt to travel back in time and change the history of the 20th Century to keep the USA from being overrun by its own Barbarians in the future.
All to prescient – we are living in the future, it seems.

The Angel's Gift
A very different take on Watergate, with it being part of a deal Nixon made for his soul - with an Angel. I don't know what to say.

Waterbot
A man and his water-harvesting ship out in the Asteroid Belt. Their interactions start somewhere between 2001 and Dark Star, and then turn into something else entirely.
A rather enjoyable little tale!

Sam and the Flying Dutchman
A Sam Gunn story, one of many Bova has written. Somewhere between classic Gumshoe territory (although there are none here) and Golden Era SF adventures – full of derring-do, plot somersaults, and breathless action scenes.
Splendid, a fun read.

Afterword: 1491
A few thoughts on where humanity stands at this point in history, SF's part in charting a course into the future, and the parallels to the history leading up to Columbus' trip in 1491.
An interesting thought I find, even if some of the ramifications are not all that palatable to me.


Ben Bova died on 29th of November, aged 88. He was involved in science and high technology from the very beginning of the Space Age (he was technical editor on Project Vanguard!), and in his books combined romance and adventure with the highest degree of of scientific accuracy. He taught SF at Harvard University and at the Hayden Planetarium in NY City, he edited Omni and Analog magazine, and he received the Hugo Award 6 times. I shall miss his writing, and his optimism in humanity's future path.


More Ben Bova

Title: My Favorites
Author: Ben Bova
Series:
Series Number:
Reviewer: Markus
Reviewer URL: http://thierstein.net
Publisher: Black Stone Publishing
Publisher URL: http://www.blackstonepublishing.com
Publication Date: 13 Oct 2020
Review Date: 210117
ISBN: 9781094000923
Price: $24.99 (USD)
Pages: 338
Format: ePub
Topic: SF
Topic: Short Stories

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

Terrific old-school SF writing. Bova is a Master of writing short yet memorable stories and these are just a few, of varying ages. Solid writing.

Ben Bova has collected 12 of his short stories that he considers his favorites. They are a cross section of his fiction ranging from space adventures to the real reason behind Nixon's goof-up. There are some time-travel tales and a new twist on the ending of Casablanca. Interestingly, there was only one of the tales that I had read before, so I am very glad to have a chance to make my acquaintance with this collection. If you have not indulged in Ben Bova before, now is your chance. And if you have imbibed before, dive in and enjoy some more!

Thanks Netgalley for the chance to read this collection!

"My Favorites" is Ben Bova's handpicked collection of science fiction/ speculative fiction stories culled from decade upon decade of experience writing and editing. What really stands out in this collection is that the characters are ordinary down-to-earth folks like the Znative American construction worker who takes his skills up to the new space station or the water miner prospecting the asteroid belt with the most personable computer since Hal2000. We readers travel to Mars, to the moon, and back through time. Sometimes Bova re tells a classic like the ending for Casablanca or rearranges history. But, no matter what, the stories are easy to read, fun to explore, and simply great reads.

Disclaimer: I would like the author and publisher for providing a review copy of this book.

What scifi fan could turn down a chance to read a collection of short stories entitled "My Favorites" by a legendary author such as Ben Bova? Certainly not I. I was worried that I may have already read many of the stories in this collection, however, fortunately, most of the stories were new to me. This collection contains 14 stories that were originally published between 1974 and 2014. A self-selected collection of "favorite" stories sets a rather high level of expectation. And this collection certainly delivers. Many of the stories are gritty realistic pieces about the actual people who will eventually build space stations, mine asteroids, explore space, invent technology, etc along with more fanciful stories about those that try to improve the future through time travel to the past, and entertaining historical fiction. Some of the more memorable stories are about survival and discovery. Most contain a subtle macho sense of humor. Fortunately, to a long term fan, even the more recent stories read like classic Ben Bova, and even bring back that nostalgia of first discovering his fiction back in the day.

It is reassuring to me that Bova has published over 120 books and many short stories, since I want to read much more of his writing. This collection is an excellent introduction to the world of Ben Bova. I also recommend it to long time Bova fans.

I have not read any of this authors work before this anthology, and after this anthology I won’t be reading any of this authors work. I thought that never having read anything of his before I would enjoy getting a taste of his voice and style, I didn’t though. I mostly skimmer of skipped most of the stories altogether. I simply didn’t feel a connection to what he was writing about. I’m very glad that there is a lot of other people out there (from reading other people’s thoughts) that did like and connect with the stories in the anthology.

These stories just didn’t work for me. Nearly every single one seemed like a rip off of another story, film, or book.
A big fat meh.

My Favorites: A Collection of Short Stories by Ben Bova is a very highly recommended collection of fourteen of Bova's personal favorite short stories. All the stories in this collection have been previously published and for this compilation a brief introduction by Bova proceeds each story. Fans will be reminded why they have enjoyed Bova's writing for years and will appreciate and enjoy re-reading his favorite stories. New readers will enjoy this diverse introduction to Bova's writing and will likely be inspired to start reading his many novels and other short stories. As with all short story collections, some will resonate with individual readers more than others, but I though that over all it represents an excellent choice of diverse stories. This is a wonderful choice of stories by an award winning master writer.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Blackstone Publishing
The review will be posted on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

I normally have trouble reviewing anthologies but not this one. These are great! There is a lot of story building in these stories. I especially enjoyed Scheherazade and the Storytellers. I'm really not normally a fan of funny stories but there are a few in this set that I thought were very well written. I also hate cliffhangers and there are none here! Extra star for that alone.

If you enjoy short stories that are well told, this is the anthology for you!

This is a collection of short stories that the author wrote over many years and are his favorites (a few are mine also). He offers a brief introduction to each to provide some background for the plot. I highly recommend this book if you are a fan of Ben Bova or like science fiction/fantasy.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my nonfiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook  page.

Thanks to Netgalley for an E-ARC. A really solid collection of sci-fi short stories. An enjoyable read. I strongly recommend it

A solid collection from an excellent writer; A good variety and shows his range and his creativity. This is a safe bet for scifi and anthology fans. Good stuff.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

This collection of short stories, selected by the author as his personal favorites, features several standout stories, including the Nebula-nominated Inspiration, as well as Muzhestvo, a prequel short to his Mars series and Sam and the Flying Dutchman, a story in his well-loved SF/caper series featuring the intergalactic conman Sam Gunn. Several play with themes of alternate history, both in the fictional post-World War II Casablanca followup, We’ll Always Have Paris, and in his story about a well-meaning but ultimately futile attempt to avoid the horrors of that war and what came after, in The Cafe Coup. Three humorous stories, The Great Moon Hoax, Scheherazde and the Storytellers, and The Supersonic Zeppelin, poke good-natured fun at (respectively) alien invasions, the origins of SF/F, and government aerospace contracts while both maintaining and lampooning, the genre from which they sprang.

VERDICT: This collection has something for all SF readers. However, as good as these stories are, this is not an essential collection. All of these stories have been published previously, nearly all in The Best of Bova. However, Bova is one of the grandmasters of the field, and this collection reflects the breadth of his writing. Recommended for readers looking for an introduction to this author, and for libraries that do not have the more complete collection.

Short stories are not a favorite read of mine as they generally deal with one-dimensional characters. However, Ben Bova is a master of the short story. While the stories in this anthology were written early in his career, Bova added an accomplished writer’s editorial polish to them before including the stories in this book. I found them to be extremely well written and a joy to read.

Often, Lessor authors end short stories with cliff hangers intended to make you ponder and say ‘Wow’. But such stories leave me with a mystery or a puzzle that can’t be gladly resolved and leave me troubled. Life is already troubling and having more of it in my daily life is not what I want from my reading. I read science fiction to escape.

My favored short stories are those like the ones in Bova’s new book, My Favorites: An Anthology, as they entertain and are a perfect length for morning train commutes or doctor's office waits. Bova’s writings leave me feeling content at the story's conclusion.

My Favorites: An Anthology is a book of short science fiction stories that are a joy to read, provide an escape from daily stress, and are the perfect length for the frustrating waiting times in our daily lives.

My Favorites is a self-curated selection of stories from his illustrious career.
Personally, I love short stories in general. Immoral fiction that manages to fit a whole novel's worth of story building into (at most) a few dozen pages impresses me. Bova does exactly this with his stories. About a third of these are based around the vision of the future he created in his Asteroid Wars novels. Since he selected these himself, you can talk that he enjoys when his stories have humor along with a message.
While there are a few of these that I could take or leave, the ones that are good truly excel. My favorites are "Monster Slayer", "Sepulcher", and "Scheherazade and the Storytellers".
Monster Slayer is a story of falling and redemption set against a backdrop of the destruction of a way of life and the search for a future. I feel like this story was a science fiction look at how the strength inside one person can save a people.
Scheherazade and the Storytellers is a slightly tongue-in-cheek retelling of the legend of Scheherazade. It gives a possible explanation for how she could have come up with all her 1001 tales. Incidentally, it also shows the importance of collective bargaining.
My favorite though was Sepulcher. I am a logically minded person who has very specific ideas about art. Even so, the idea of a piece of alien art being a window into understanding the alien mind is fascinating and likely true. The reactions of the various characters in the story to the artwork discovered runs the gambit of human reaction to any great piece of art. A very well done story.
If you enjoy sci-fi or short stories, this collection will not only be worth picking up, it is one you will likely suggest to others.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read a pre-release copy of this book.

My Favorites by Ben Bova- A collection of Ben Bova's short stories is always welcome, but when the writer gets to pick and choose what he wants to represent as his favorites, it's pretty sure to please. Some of these outings stray from outright science fiction, like an imagined meeting with Rick from "Casablanca" after the war(We'll Always Have Paris), or Howard Hughes trying to convince President Kennedy not to push for a Moon landing because it might upset the Martians(The Great Moon Hoax), but there are others that conform to rigors of hard SF. Most of the stories have a feel-good vibe about them and are pleasant diversions from the relentless tension in today's space opera. They're enjoyable and go down easy. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

A collection of fourteen short stories, selected by the author, with a new introduction for each story.

There are stories on working in zero G, time travel, alternative history, bits of suspense, quite a lot of humour, and even some sci-fi-noir.

I particularly enjoyed the first story (Monster Slayer), which has a kind of "builders in space" grittiness. Not every story is that strong, with one being a tongue-in-cheek parody of a One Thousand And One Nights story, where all the storytellers are versions of Nova's sci-fi author friends. It's one of those things that is probably great fun for the author and said friends, but I found it rather tiresome.

The introductions never spoil the story that follows, and are a bit slight, not sure they add that much, but they are charming.

3.5 stars

Ben Bova has a long history of writing novels, most renown for his Grand Tour series leading around the moons and planets of the Solar system. But he has also a quite impressive list of short stories starting in the 1960s with the newest one published in 2014. As I've never read anything from this author, I welcomed this collection with 14 short stories and novelettes published between 1982 and 2014. Most of the stories are SF, with four of them set in his Grand Tour universe. But he also included time travel stories, fairy tales, and magical realism and one movie Tie-in from Casablanca. This leads to a pretty diverse collection. There was no really outstanding story in it for me, but most of them were amusing and entertaining with the exception of one time travel story "The Café Coup" which is an utterly disaster in my opinion.

This collection is not a must-have but I can certainly recommend it.

To appear October 13th 2020 by Blackstone Publishing.

<strong>Contents:</strong>
<ol>
<li>• ★★★+☆☆ • <strong>Monster Slayer</strong> • 2003 • Grand Tour short story • A Native American as construction worker in Earth's orbit • <a href="https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2020/05/06/monster-slayer-%e2%80%a2-2003-%e2%80%a2-grand-tour-short-story-by-ben-bova/">review </a></li>
<li>• ★★★+☆☆ • <strong>Muzhestvo</strong> • 1992 • Grand Tour short story •  A Native American having fun with cosmonauts in Kazakhstan • <a href="https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2020/05/07/muzhestvo-•-1992-•-sf-short-story-by-ben-bova">review </a></li>
<li>• ★★★☆☆ • <b>We'll always have Paris </b>• 2014 • Main Stream Short story • <a href="https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2020/05/08/well-always-have-paris-%e2%80%a2-2014-%e2%80%a2-main-stream-short-story-by-ben-bova/">review </a></li>
<li>• ★★★☆☆ • <b>The Great Moon Hoax, or, a Princess of Mars </b>• 1996 • Old Mars short story • <a href="https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2020/05/08/the-great-moon-hoax-or-a-princess-of-mars-•-1996-•-old-mars-short-story-by-ben-bova">review</a></li>
<li>• ★★☆☆☆ • <b>Inspiration </b>• 1994 • Time Travel short story • <a href="https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2020/05/09/inspiration-•-1994-•-time-travel-short-story-by-ben-bova">review</a></li>
<li>• ★★+☆☆☆ • <strong>Scheherazade and the Storytellers</strong> • 2010 • Fairy Tale short story • <a href="https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2020/05/11/scheherazade-and-the-storytellers-•-2010-•-fairy-tale-short-story-by-ben-bova">review</a></li>
<li>• ★★★☆☆ • <b>The Supersonic Zeppelin </b>• 2005 • Near Future SF novelette • <a href="https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/the-supersonic-zeppelin-•-2005-•-near-future-sf-novelette-by-ben-bova">review</a></li>
<li>• ★★★★☆ • <strong>Mars Farts </strong>• 2013 • Hard SF short story • <a href="https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2020/05/14/mars-farts-•-2013-•-hard-sf-short-story-by-ben-bova">review</a></li>
<li>• ★★★☆☆ • <b>The Man who hated Gravity </b>• 1989 • Near Future SF short story • <a href="https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2020/05/15/the-man-who-hated-gravity-•-1989-•-near-future-sf-short-story">review</a></li>
<li>• ★★★★☆ • <b>Sepulcher </b>• 1992 • SF novelette • <a href="https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2020/05/17/sepulcher-•-1992-•-sf-novelette-by-ben-bova">review</a></li>
<li>• ★☆☆☆☆ • <b>The Café Coup </b>• 1997 • Time Travel short story • review</li>
<li>• ★★☆☆☆ • <b>The Angel's Gift </b>• 1984 • Magical realism short story • <a href="https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2020/05/19/the-angels-gift-•-1984-•-magical-realism-short-story-by-ben-bova">review</a></li>
<li>• ★★★☆☆ • <b>Waterbot </b>• 2008 • Grand Tour<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>novelette • <a href="https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2020/05/19/water-bot-•-2008-•-grand-tour-novelette-by-ben-bova">review</a></li>
<li>• ★★★☆☆ • <b>Sam and the flying Dutchman </b>• 2003 • Grand Tour novelette • <a href="https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2020/05/19/sam-and-the-flying-dutchman-•-2003-•-grand-tour-novelette-by-ben-bova">review</a></li>
</ol>

As a Ben Bova fan, this book does not disappoint. I enjoyed reading Bova's short stories. I've only read his novels in the past and was fun to read these stories.