Empire Builders

Ben Bova

Macmillan, Mar 15, 1995 - Fiction - 416 pages

Dan Randolph never plays by the rules. A hell-raising maverick with no patience for fools, he is admired by his friends, feared by his enemies, and desired by the world's loveliest women. Acting as a twenty-first century privateer, Randolph broke the stranglehold on space exploration, and opened the solar system to all mankind, becoming one of the world's wealthiest men in the bargain. Now a greater crisis threatens humanity. An ecological catastrophe looms that will exterminate billions in a few short years if it continues unchecked. Randolph knows that only the combined energies of business and government can avert the disaster. But Earth's ruling elite wants to impose a virtual dictatorship on the planet, and bring the world's industrial giants to their knees. They set a trap to deprive Randolph of his fortune, baited with the beautiful politician who once was his lover. A wanted man, Randolph escapes into the Lunar underground, and engages in a daring plan to regain his empire and save the planet from certain destruction. But there are forces at work who intend to use the chaos for their own profit, and will stop at nothing to get their way. A daring tale of one man's struggle against overwhelming odds, EMPIRE BUILDERS is a stunning near-future thriller by one of the most acclaimed science fiction writers of our time.

What people are saying

Review: Empire Builders (Privateers #2)

User Review  - David - Goodreads

Pretty disappointed... Action was good but the idea that businesses can be nationalized without due process or compensation due to a technicality is pretty implausible. Also, the fact that a multi-billion dollar corporation had a single lawyer on payroll doesn't make much sense...

Review: Empire Builders (Privateers #2)

User Review  - Ty - Goodreads

Reading this book was a bit like going to a picnic to find that you two best friends won't be there, and they are only serving your third favorite beer. Yeah, it's free food, free beer, and better ...

Contents

• I: 1
• II: 5
• III: 9
• IV: 17
• V: 28
• VI: 34
• VII: 43
• VIII: 49
• IX: 62
• X: 67
• XI: 74
• XII: 83
• XIII: 94
• XIV: 102
• XV: 110
• XVI: 126
• XVII: 137
• XVIII: 142
• XIX: 150
• XX: 159
• XXI: 168
• XXII: 180
• XXIII: 190
• XXIV: 201
• XXV: 213
• XXVI: 222
• XXVII: 236
• XXVIII: 248
• XXIX: 258
• XXX: 266
• XXXI: 275
• XXXII: 283
• XXXIII: 298
• XXXIV: 311
• XXXV: 318
• XXXVI: 334
• XXXVII: 342
• XXXVIII: 354
• XXXIX: 361
• XL: 369
• XLI: 375
• XLII: 385
• XLIII: 395
• XLIV: 400

About the author

Born in Philadelphia, Ben Bova worked as a newspaper reporter, a technical editor for Project Vanguard (the first American satellite program), and a science writer and marketing manager for Avco Everett Research Laboratory, before being appointed editor of Analog, one of the leading science fiction magazines, in 1971. After leaving Analog in 1978, he continued his editorial work in science fiction, serving as fiction editor of Omni for several years and editing a number of anthologies and lines of books, including the "Ben Bova Presents" series for Tor. He has won science fiction's Hugo Award for Best Editor six times.

A published SF author from the late 1950s onward, Bova is one of the field's leading writers of "hard SF," science fiction based on plausible science and engineering. Among his dozens of novels are Millennium, The Kinsman Saga, Colony, Orion, Peacekeepers, Privateers, and the Voyagers series. Much of his recent work, including Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, The Precipice, and The Rock Rats, falls into the continuity he calls "The Grand Tour," a large-scale saga of the near-future exploration and development of our solar system.

A President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past president of Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, in 2001 Dr. Bova was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He lives in Naples, Florida, with his wife, the well-known literary agent Barbara Bova.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Empire Builders; The Grand Tour Series
• Author: Ben Bova
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Macmillan, 1995
• ISBN: 0812511654, 9780812511659
• Length: 416 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Science Fiction / General