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Exiles #3
End of Exile
Linc leaves his spaceship companions to seek the author of their outdated commandments and receive advice on the community's pressing problems of survival
214 pages, Hardcover
First published August 29, 1975
3 people are currently reading
107 people want to read
About the author
Ben Bova
713 books1,026 followersBen Bova was born on November 8, 1932 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1953, while attending Temple University, he married Rosa Cucinotta, they had a son and a daughter. He would later divorce Rosa in 1974. In that same year he married Barbara Berson Rose.
Bova was an avid fencer and organized Avco Everett's fencing club. He was an environmentalist, but rejected Luddism.
Bova was a technical writer for Project Vanguard and later for Avco Everett in the 1960s when they did research in lasers and fluid dynamics. It was there that he met Arthur R. Kantrowitz later of the Foresight Institute.
In 1971 he became editor of Analog Science Fiction after John W. Campbell's death. After leaving Analog, 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 was the science advisor for the failed television series The Starlost, leaving in disgust after the airing of the first episode. His novel The Starcrossed was loosely based on his experiences and featured a thinly veiled characterization of his friend and colleague Harlan Ellison. He 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 was the President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past President of Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
Bova went back to school in the 1980s, earning an M.A. in communications in 1987 and a Ph.D. in 1996.
Bova has drawn on these meetings and experiences to create fact and fiction writings rich with references to spaceflight, lasers, artificial hearts, nanotechnology, environmentalism, fencing and martial arts, photography and artists.
Bova was the author of over a hundred and fifteen books, non-fiction as well as science fiction. In 2000, he was the Author Guest of Honor at the 58th World Science Fiction Convention (Chicon 2000).
Hollywood has started to take an interest in Bova's works once again, in addition to his wealth of knowledge about science and what the future may look like. In 2007, he was hired as a consultant by both Stuber/Parent Productions to provide insight into what the world is to look like in the near future for their upcoming film "Repossession Mambo" (released as "Repo Men") starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker and by Silver Pictures in which he provided consulting services on the feature adaptation of Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon".
http://us.macmillan.com/author/benbova
Bova was an avid fencer and organized Avco Everett's fencing club. He was an environmentalist, but rejected Luddism.
Bova was a technical writer for Project Vanguard and later for Avco Everett in the 1960s when they did research in lasers and fluid dynamics. It was there that he met Arthur R. Kantrowitz later of the Foresight Institute.
In 1971 he became editor of Analog Science Fiction after John W. Campbell's death. After leaving Analog, 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 was the science advisor for the failed television series The Starlost, leaving in disgust after the airing of the first episode. His novel The Starcrossed was loosely based on his experiences and featured a thinly veiled characterization of his friend and colleague Harlan Ellison. He 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 was the President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past President of Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
Bova went back to school in the 1980s, earning an M.A. in communications in 1987 and a Ph.D. in 1996.
Bova has drawn on these meetings and experiences to create fact and fiction writings rich with references to spaceflight, lasers, artificial hearts, nanotechnology, environmentalism, fencing and martial arts, photography and artists.
Bova was the author of over a hundred and fifteen books, non-fiction as well as science fiction. In 2000, he was the Author Guest of Honor at the 58th World Science Fiction Convention (Chicon 2000).
Hollywood has started to take an interest in Bova's works once again, in addition to his wealth of knowledge about science and what the future may look like. In 2007, he was hired as a consultant by both Stuber/Parent Productions to provide insight into what the world is to look like in the near future for their upcoming film "Repossession Mambo" (released as "Repo Men") starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker and by Silver Pictures in which he provided consulting services on the feature adaptation of Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon".
http://us.macmillan.com/author/benbova
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
August 15, 2023
An apt ending to the trilogy featuring similar plot elements to both of the first two stories. Conceptually and technically similar to some early Star Trek episodes as well, I thought.
I enjoyed the ideas in the series more than the characters and their dramas.
I enjoyed the ideas in the series more than the characters and their dramas.
September 1, 2012
I'm sure I wouldn't rate this book so highly now. However, being a series that launched me into science-fiction genre, I have to give credit where it is due.
October 2, 2020
Do not recommend. This is Bova at his worst. I trudged through it because I’m a completionist and couldn’t stop 2/3 through a series.
April 30, 2021
3.5 stars, rounded up b/c audio book (especially since it was on the audible plus catalog, so I didn't have to buy it).
April 1, 2022
My payoff for making it through the first two books! Extra star for nostalgia; this is one of the first scifi books I read as a kid and it made a huge impression on me. Looking back I am sure I identified with the hero, the young engineer whose talents no one respected but ended up saving everyone's lives. Also it's just a fun mix of sci-fi story and adventure.
What makes this book really good though is the setting in a lapsed civilization. It's almost a post-apocalyptic novel, the way society has regressed to superstition and loss of technology. Remarkably this came out the same year as High-Rise but the two books don't have much in common other than the setting.
This book would make an excellent TV serial. Particularly if Magda and Monel were fleshed out and given more depth as characters. The biggest weakness of the book is the hacky writing; Bova is really not a very good prose stylist. But imagine Expanse-like production values, it'd be terrific.
What makes this book really good though is the setting in a lapsed civilization. It's almost a post-apocalyptic novel, the way society has regressed to superstition and loss of technology. Remarkably this came out the same year as High-Rise but the two books don't have much in common other than the setting.
This book would make an excellent TV serial. Particularly if Magda and Monel were fleshed out and given more depth as characters. The biggest weakness of the book is the hacky writing; Bova is really not a very good prose stylist. But imagine Expanse-like production values, it'd be terrific.
September 30, 2020
This could have been so good... but... spoilers ahead...
It's all too bad since otherwise Bova created an interesting series with each book entirely different from the others but still linked together. This last one doesn't even contain the casual 70s sexism and racism.
It's all too bad since otherwise Bova created an interesting series with each book entirely different from the others but still linked together. This last one doesn't even contain the casual 70s sexism and racism.
August 19, 2023
I was a bit disappointed with this third book. Like the second book, no one from the second book is still around in this book. I expected that to be the case, but I was confused with what seemed like a ship full of very uneducated people. The people left on the ship were the genetic offspring of some of the best and brightest the ship had to offer, so what was happening? When Linc decides to go find some answers, he discovers that the person that "made them" was living in a part of the ship with no gravity so his heart will not have to work too hard and he can stay alive. He is appalled at how "ignorant" Linc is and how he has failed the kids he left behind. Setting up robots to raise them and educate them. One might ask why he did not set up a way to monitor and ensure things didn't break down. They finally make it to the planet that the ship, in book two, found and are transported to the new planet. That is where this book ends. I wanted to know how life would be for them and how they would start over on a new planet.
January 11, 2024
The trilogy started weak, the middle book was great. This is good but not great. I don’t like apocalyptic stories, I think I’m just optimistic. I’m not giving the story away, the very first sentence makes it clear. The story is not bad, but the characters are pretty one-dimensional, and there are too many unanswered questions. There are several inconsistencies compared to the previous story, and there are a number of things not very believable. I didn’t like the ending - it makes the survival very unlikely. And I was hoping to see how a large group of educated specialists tackle the problem of settling a new planet, rather than a bunch of barely literate people being delivered to one. Still, not a bad story, I was just hoping for something better.
August 15, 2025
Available English translation read
A ship once exiled from Earth is breaking down, and only a few youth survive on superstitions and the words of a priestess - but when Linc decides to break the rules and seek answers, he finds instead not just their origins and purpose, but the destination to their parentage's original mission close at hand. Bova wraps up his mildly compelling trilogy with a predictable but satisfying story, its use of science fiction tropes and foreboding forming a decent enough experience. Will Linc's choice to question their ways bring salvation...or ruin?
A ship once exiled from Earth is breaking down, and only a few youth survive on superstitions and the words of a priestess - but when Linc decides to break the rules and seek answers, he finds instead not just their origins and purpose, but the destination to their parentage's original mission close at hand. Bova wraps up his mildly compelling trilogy with a predictable but satisfying story, its use of science fiction tropes and foreboding forming a decent enough experience. Will Linc's choice to question their ways bring salvation...or ruin?
August 3, 2024
The best part of the trilogy in my opinion but it still has its issues. The human conflict in this book was better than the previous two in my opinion, less of a romantic conflict and more about power itself.
The main character rediscovering the ship and its mission were also interesting.
That being said, some of the abilities of the protagonist and plot points required the suspension of disbelief part of my brain to go into overdrive.
The main character rediscovering the ship and its mission were also interesting.
That being said, some of the abilities of the protagonist and plot points required the suspension of disbelief part of my brain to go into overdrive.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 3, 2024
This 3rd book in the Exile trilogy is only faintly linked to the first two; an unspecified amount of time has passed and the only point of reference is the ship itself.
That said, the relationships, social structures, conflicts, etc. are very well written, and the narration by Stefan Rudnicki is, as always, superb.
That said, the relationships, social structures, conflicts, etc. are very well written, and the narration by Stefan Rudnicki is, as always, superb.
January 22, 2021
A good ending to the trilogy.
The ship is on its last legs. Children who have been left on their own have inherited the ship. Will they be able to get to the planet of their destination?
Not quite as good as remembered but still not a bad read.
The ship is on its last legs. Children who have been left on their own have inherited the ship. Will they be able to get to the planet of their destination?
Not quite as good as remembered but still not a bad read.
September 6, 2019
1.5 stars, well that was dumb.
April 16, 2020
I read this many years ago when I was a children's librarian. I am a big fan of science fiction for youth. I thoroughly enjoyed this third in the trilogy and its exciting conclusion.
March 29, 2021
“We have a problem,” Linc said in the time-honored words of custom.
After 40+ years I’ve revisited one of the first science fiction books I read (and the last time that I told my parents the plot of what I was reading). Why did I start with the third book of the trilogy? That’s what my local library branch had on their shelf. It stands on its own, though, since for a while the main characters, all born since the second book ended, know nothing of what happened in the first two books. We discover the true nature of their world along with them. I could be mistaking the feeling of nostalgia for insight, but there’s a greater sense of wonder in this book than in the first two.
That said, it seems Bova was in a hurry to finish off this trilogy and get to some other project. Midway through the book one of the characters describes in abbreviated fashion dramatic events that by all rights could have filled a book of their own the size of this slim volume, which would then have been #4. While Bova doesn’t unduly rush most of the book, the ending is simplified by what you could call a machina ex machina, an anomalous piece of fantasy technology out of place in what has hitherto been fairly hard sf.
Why was this the last time I related the plot of a book I read to my parents? I was caught up in a thrilling adventure and didn’t think to criticize anyone other than the obvious villain, while my parents realized what a monster a certain character was who was introduced late in the book. Now that I’m a parent myself I agree with them, but at the time I didn’t appreciate my take on the characters being questioned by people who hadn’t even read the book.
March 3, 2013
Nice. I started to read this book in the bathtub and stayed in there for two hours until I finished the novel. Bova's work is a very good example of how a thin book of 200 pages manages to thrill the reader with a fast pace, few, but very well depicted protagonists and a story that unites soft and hard Science Fiction in a successful way. Add a skilled writing, an indicated love story and amiable characters and you have all the ingredients of book that will stay in your mind. The only thing one could criticize is that the setting of the generation starship is not really inventive and really, really close to Brian W. Aldiss' classic 'Non-Stop'. But I wouldn't consider it as a simple clone and definitely recommend this eventually underestimated book to every friend of SF. As 'End of Exile' is the third book of a trilogy, I will definitely try the first two novels.
July 4, 2010
I have to give this five stars simply because of my memory of being awed and inspired by the plot. It absolutely would not hold up now, with all the wildly imaginative fiction and TV series out there (Fringe, Lost, Battlestar Galactica). But in my teens, I remember being completely enthralled at the description of the little society that the young descendants of Earth's exiles created aboard their dying spacecraft.
Want to read
March 3, 2011We own this as an omnibus of the trilogy: Exiles Trilogy
January 14, 2015
These three books, made me a big fan of Ben Bova.
January 23, 2016
Good ending to this SiFi trilogy. Nice quick and easy read. Recommended
December 5, 2024
Very very dated.
November 24, 2023
Duration: 5:01:37
September 21, 2008
The whole exiles trilogy is just plain good classic science fiction
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews