Benjamin William Bova (born
November 8, 1932) is 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 (magazine), a past president of both the
National Space Society and the
Science Fiction Writers of America, and lives in
Florida". Bova worked as a technical writer for
Project Vanguard in the
1950s and later for the Avco
Everett Research Laboratory[6] in the
1960s when they did research in lasers and fluid dynamics. At Avco Everett he met
Arthur R. Kantrowitz (later of the
Foresight Institute). In
1972, Bova became editor of
Analog Science Fiction after
John W. Campbell's death in
1971. At
Analog, Bova won six
Hugo Awards for
Best Professional Editor. After leaving Analog in 1978, he went on to edit Omni during 1978–
1982. In
1974, he wrote the screenplay for an episode of the children's science-fiction television series
Land of the Lost entitled "
The Search".
Bova served as the science advisor for the failed television series
The Starlost, leaving in disgust after the airing of the first episode (
1973). His novel The
Starcrossed, loosely based on his experiences, featured a thinly veiled characterization of his friend and colleague
Harlan Ellison. Bova dedicated the novel to "
Cordwainer Bird", the pen name Harlan Ellison uses when he does not want to be associated with a television or film project. Bova holds the position of
President Emeritus of the National Space Society and served as
President of Science-fiction and
Fantasy Writers of
America (
SFWA) from
1990 to
1992. Bova went back to school in the
1980s, earning an
M.A. in communications in
1987 and a
Ed.D. (from
California Coast University) in
1996.
Bova has drawn on his experiences to create fact and fiction writings rich with references to spaceflight, lasers, artificial hearts, nanotechnology, environmentalism, fencing and martial arts, photography and artists.
As of 2010, Bova has written over 115 books – non-fiction as well as science fiction. In
2000, he attended the
58th World Science Fiction Convention (
Chicon 2000) as the
Author Guest of Honor.
Recently,
Hollywood has taken an interest in Bova's works because of his wealth of knowledge about science and about what the future may look like. In
2007, Stuber/
Parent Productions hired him as a consultant to provide insight into what the world may look like in the near future for their film
Repo Men (2010) starring
Jude Law and
Forest Whitaker; also in 2007 he provided consulting services to
Silver Pictures on the feature
adaptation of
Richard Morgan's novel
Altered Carbon. In 2007,
Velocity Management became
Ben Bova's literary manager.
THE DUELING MACHINE
...... is the solution to settling disputes without injury. After you and your opponent select weapons and environments you are injected into an artificial reality where you fight to the virtual death… but no one actually gets hurt. That is, until a warrior from the Kerak
Empire figures a way to execute real-world killings from within the machine. Now its inventor Dr. Leoh has to prevent his machine from becoming a tool of conquest. – The Dueling
Machine, written with
Myron R. Lewis, first appeared in the May,
1963 issue of
Analog Science Fact & Fiction.
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- published: 06 Dec 2014
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