Book Review: Voyagers IV: The Return

Star traveler Keith Stoner and his family return to Earth in the ancient alien ship that once held Stoner in cryonic freeze decades before.   When he rejoined the human race the first time, the technology of the alien ship had ushered in a new age of enlightenment for the human race.   Now, however, no trace of Stoner's previous visit to his home planet can be found and not one of the technological advancements--"gifts from the stars"--is evident.   Instead, Stoner finds an alternate Earth, one controlled by ultra-conservative religious groups.  In the case of the USA, it's the New Morality. 

At the same time, engineer Raoul Tavalera arrives home after six years aboard the Goddard Habitat orbiting Saturn.  There, he had fallen in love with the project's fiery administrator, Holly Lane.   Tavalera returns to an Earth as alien to him as it is to Stoner and he quickly longs to return to Holly, but he finds himself under the thumb of the New Morality.  They have pervaded, and in fact invaded, American government, schools, even private homes, all in the name of unifying the nation under Christ.

Meanwhile, rumblings of nuclear war stir Stoner into action.   After Tavalera is recruited to work for the New Morality, he encouters Stoner and for a time, becomes the star travelers human contact.   However, what Stoner and Tavalera do not realize is that key players in the New Morality are setting a trap for Stoner using an international summit of the world's three largest nuclear powers--USA, China, and Iran. 

Dr. Bova does a fair job in crossing his own universes here, despite the lack of explanation as to how it happened.   Readers of his Grand Tour series will recognize the New Morality which is omnipresent in each story from that series. In The Return, however, the story merely eludes to the possibility that "somehow" this must be an alternate Earth than what Stoner left a century before to continue his exploration of the cosmos.  

Also, the character of Stoner's wife, Jo Camerata, is nearly irrelevant to the story, relegated to a "nervous-Nellie" who spends her time inconsistently warning and chiding her husband and children about interfering in human evolution yet not exactly stepping in to prevent it.   In Voyagers II, Camerata had been a fierce, bold captain of industry with the temerity to manage an entire corporation while surviving the insane machinations of her conniving, murderous husband.

All told, The Return is a decent ending to the series despite the aforementioned issues.   Bova's flawed, human characters are well developed even if Stoner's family is not.  The story and pacing make for a definite page turner.