The Sam Gunn Omnibus - by Ben Bova (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

A hero without peer or scruples, Sam Gunn has a nose for trouble, money, and women--though not necessarily in that order. A man with the ego (and stature) of a Napoleon, the business acumen of a P. T. Barnum, and the raging hormones of a teenage boy, Sam is the finest astronaut NASA ever trained... and dumped.

More than money and women, Sam Gunn loves justice. Whether he's suing the Pope, helping twin sisters entangled in the virtual sex trade, or on trial for his life on charges of interplanetary genocide, you can be sure of one thing: this is one space jockey who'll meet every challenge with a smile on his lips, an ace up his sleeve...and a weapon in his pocket.

This Omnibus presents all of the tales of Sam Gunn to date, including three never before collected in book form. Here is the entire chronicle of Sam Gunn, trailblazer and scoundrel, as he scams his way from one end of the Solar System to the other, giving bold new meaning to the term venture capitalist.

Review Quotes

"By far the science fiction author who will have the greatest effect on the science fiction world, and the world as a whole, is Ben Bova." --Ray Bradbury

"Lovers of SF romance and adventure will welcome Hugo-winner Ben Bova's The Sam Gunn Omnibus, which collects all the tales featuring his iconoclastic astronaut hero." --Publishers Weekly

"Bova has ambitiously and deftly created a three-in-one narrative that satisfies any and all readerly desires to see the life of his signature rogue assembled into coherent form.... Bova has successfully added to the storehouse of a particularly American folklore. Sam Gunn is Mike Fink and Paul Bunyan (although their opposite in size), Rockefeller and Carnegie, Sam Slick and Penrod, the plucky protagonists from Horatio Alger and the irreverent ones from Mark Twain. His exploits...are new manifestations of an eternal archetype in the American psyche." --SciFi Weekly

"Done with an engaging degree of humour. Sam's boundless energy is quite endearing. More importantly, behind it all there is Bova's grand design laid out....This old-fashioned, yet likeable, volume is a great encapsulation of Bova's writings over the past thirty years or so. Written in a style likely to appeal to fans of Heinlein or possibly John Varley, it can perhaps be seen as an entertaining alternate history these days. A lot of fun." --SFFWorld.com

About the Author

Ben Bova (1932-2020) was the author of more than a hundred works of science fact and fiction, including Able One, Transhuman, Orion, the Star Quest Trilogy, and the Grand Tour novels, including Titan, winner of John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the year. His many honors include the Isaac Asimov Memorial Award in 1996, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation in 2005, and the Robert A. Heinlein Award "for his outstanding body of work in the field of literature" in 2008.

Dr. Bova was President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past president of Science Fiction Writers of America, and a former editor of Analog and former fiction editor of Omni. As an editor, he won science fiction's Hugo Award six times. His writings predicted the Space Race of the 1960s, virtual reality, human cloning, the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), electronic book publishing, and much more.

In addition to his literary achievements, Bova worked for Project Vanguard, America's first artificial satellite program, and for Avco Everett Research Laboratory, the company that created the heat shields for Apollo 11, helping the NASA astronauts land on the moon. He also taught science fiction at Harvard University and at New York City's Hayden Planetarium and worked with such filmmakers as George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry.