Ben Bova, revered in the science fiction community for his work as an author, an editor, and a scientist, passed away this past weekend at the age of 88.
First announced on social media by his family and later confirmed by sources, Bova passed away primarily due to COVID-related pneumonia. The former president of both the Science Fiction Writers of America guild and the National Space Society, Bova wrote over 200 works of fact and fiction, including over 100 sci-fi books. He was a six-time Hugo Award winner, and the former editor of Analog and Omni Magazine.
Kathryn Brusco, Bova’s niece by marriage, first shared the news on Twitter; later, Bova’s son Ken provided a proper eulogy on Bova’s website. In it, he said:
“It is a common wish to visit the future and report back to the present; to time travel. Ben Bova was that time traveler; his books and short stories: the journals from the future. In his various writings, Dr. Ben Bova predicted — years before they happened: the race to the Moon during the 1960s, satellites using the Sun to power the Earth’s technologies, the discovery of organic compounds in interstellar space, virtual reality and the internet, human cloning, the struggle to relieve the world of nuclear weapons, humans living on Mars, stem cell therapy, the discovery of ice and water on the Moon, electronic book publishing, robot police, and sex in space.
“While he experimented with some fantasy works (his Orion series is a good example) most of his novels were science fiction: no stories of a rocket’s roar in empty space (where sound cannot travel). He believed that a reader should feel, immersed in one of his books and short stories, that you were walking on the rusty, rock strewn surface of Mars, enduring the planet’s light pull on your cheeks, and tasting the stale air in your suit helmet. Newton’s Laws were not suggestions.”
Bova’s family will be making memorial and in-memoriam donation arrangements soon; please visit Bova’s website to stay updated on further details.
