Ben Bova
Ben Bova
Benjamin William "Ben" Bovais an American author of more than 120 works of science fact and fiction, six-time winner of the Hugo Award, a former editor of Analog Magazine, a former editorial director of Omni, a past president of both the National Space Society and the Science Fiction Writers of America. He currently lives in Florida...
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth8 November 1932
being-yourself law space
Up here [in space], you're free. Really free, for the first time in your life. All the laws and rules and prejudices they've been dumping on you all your life . . . they're all down there. Up here it's a new start. You can be yourself and do your own thing . . . and nobody can tell you different.
fun years magazines
Omni is not a science magazine. It is a magazine about the future...Omni was sui generis. Although there were plenty of science magazines over the years...Omni was the first magazine to slant all its pieces toward the future. It was fun to read and gorgeous to look at.
moon thinking two
I think it's perfectly OK to exploit the moon. Largely for two reasons: there's no life there, and it is close enough and rich enough in resources to be economically useful to Earth. In the final analysis, everything we do in space, if it does not help the people of Earth, all the people, it's not going to happen.
military moon race
A new space race has begun, and most Americans are not even aware of it. This race is not [about] political prestige or military power. This new race involves the whole human species in a contest against time.
strong stars sea
The Old Ones knew that life is not rare, but precious; not fragile, but vulnerable. Life is as deep as the seas in which it was born, as strong as the mountains that give it shelter, as universal as the stars themselves.
people bullets red
Red tape has killed more people than bullets...
israel oil long
As long as we're tied to Middle Eastern oil we're tied to Middle Eastern politics. We're hostages to the terrorists and nutcases who want to wipe out Israel and the United States because we support Israel.
suicide independent america
The problem is that Americans would like to be independent of the rest of the world ... Except the world ain't that way. Trying to be independent of the rest of the world is to commit suicide.
sex teenager people
My first published novel was written for teenagers, and there were rules laid down by the publisher: no sex, no smoking, no swearing. I blew up entire solar systems, I consigned billions of people to horrible death; they didn't seem to mind that at all. But no hanky-panky.
believe writing add
In science there is a dictum: don't add an experiment to an experiment. Don't make things unnecessarily complicated. In writing fiction, the more fantastic the tale, the plainer the prose should be. Don't ask your readers to admire your words when you want them to believe your story.
understanding working-it evidence
When I started understanding how science works, it occurred to me that there just is no evidence that there is a God.
danger dare exchange learned lesson nuclear sudden vast
We have, I think, come through the big danger of a vast and sudden exchange of nuclear weapons, ... And I think the lesson we've learned is, if you have nuclear weapons, you probably don't dare use them.
believe writing stories
Don't ask your readers to admire your words when you want them to believe your story.
numbers poor increase
Feeding the starving poor only increases their number.