My favorites A collection of short stories

This collection of fourteen short stories covers a wide spectrum of sf tales that Bova considers his favorites. The most powerful story is "Inspiration," in which a time traveler goes to Linz, Austria in 1896, where he meets a young H.G. Wells, a teen-aged Albert Einstein, and a six-year-old boy whom he knows he cannot save, though he knows who the boy will become. The spiritually moving "Sepulcher" tells of an alien artifact that can see deep into human souls, and the morality tale of "Angel's Gift" looks at a president who makes a deal to save his soul. Ranging from a humorous story about the origins of fantastic literature in "Scheherazade and the Storytellers" to a charming tale of love and duty in a sequel to the film classic Casablanca to a piratical tale of a Flying Dutchman in the asteroid belt, this book is the work of a gifted storyteller putting on a grand display of his versatility. Bova's fans will rejoice at this collection, and newcomers will find it a great introduction to the works of one of the grandmasters of science fiction.

Though the 14 stories in this collection represent Bova's personal favorites out of the more than 100 stories he has published, even his die-hard fans will be disappointed to find that none hold a candle to the ingenuity of his best novels, among them the long-running Grand Tour series. Bova's use of historical figures is clunky at best and off-putting at worst, as in "The Great Moon Hoax, or, A Princess for Mars," which recasts the assassination of JFK, and "Inspiration," which blames a young Hitler's abusive mother for his future evils. He inverts expectations in "We'll Always Have Paris," a sequel of sorts to Casablanca, but his gimmicky twist adds little to the story. Bova's satire can also be heavy-handed: in "The Supersonic Zeppelin," about a helium-powered aircraft, the government agency responsible for the craft's creation is the Transportational and Urban Renewal Department, or TURD. Some of Bova's other self-indulgent flourishes are similarly groan-inducing, as when, in "Scheherazade and the Storytellers," he names a storyteller "Haroun-el-Ahson" after writer Harlan Ellison. New introductions to each story add little to the experience. Based on this volume, it's clear Bova does better when he gives his imagination more room to explore. Agent: Eleanor Wood, Spectrum Literary. (Oct.)