Pluto

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Hugo Award winner Ben Bova and Les Johnson complete Bova's Outer Planets series, a Grand Tour (Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto) of the human settled solar system, with a final encounter on Pluto.

Major Larry Randall has been called to Pluto to retrieve Dr. Aaron Mikelson. Mikelson, no longer human after a horrific accident, is now melded to an AI. His enhanced senses have detected an alien artifact on Pluto’s surface, and he's not leaving without it.

Transferred to the research vessel studying Pluto, Randall and the other scientists are stumped as to the artifact's purpose and origin. Looking for similar signs of aliens they make their way to Pluto's moon, Charon, where, buried deep under its icy surface, something stirs—and wakes.

Against a backdrop of unknown alien technology and potential interplanetary war, Mikelson’s inhuman ego and obsession will risk humanity by calling something unknown to our solar system.

The Outer Planets Trilogy

Uranus

Neptune

Pluto

Reviews

Praise for Ben Bova:

“Bova proves himself equal to the task of showing how adversity can temper character in unforeseen ways.” —The New York Times

“Bova gets better and better, combining plausible science with increasingly complex fiction.” —Daily News (Los Angeles)

“[Bova’s] excellence at combining hard science with believable characters and an attention-grabbing plot makes him one of the genre’s most accessible and entertaining storytellers.” —Library Journal

“An engaging introspection into tribes, humanity, and how much of academia is essentially tribal in nature.” —Booklist on Apes and Angels

“Impressive.” —Kirkus Reviews on Titan

“A guaranteed crowd-pleaser!” —Booklist on Mercury

About the Author

Ben Bova (1932-2020) was the author of more than a hundred works of science fact and fiction, including Able One, Transhuman, Orion, the Star Quest Trilogy, and the Grand Tour novels, including Titan, winner of John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the year. His many honors include the Isaac Asimov Memorial Award in 1996, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation in 2005, and the Robert A. Heinlein Award “for his outstanding body of work in the field of literature” in 2008.

Dr. Bova was President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past president of Science Fiction Writers of America, and a former editor of Analog and former fiction editor of Omni. As an editor, he won science fiction’s Hugo Award six times. His writings predicted the Space Race of the 1960s, virtual reality, human cloning, the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), electronic book publishing, and much more.

In addition to his literary achievements, Bova worked for Project Vanguard, America’s first artificial satellite program, and for Avco Everett Research Laboratory, the company that created the heat shields for Apollo 11, helping the NASA astronauts land on the moon. He also taught science fiction at Harvard University and at New York City’s Hayden Planetarium and worked with such filmmakers as George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry.

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Les Johnson is a physicist, author, and NASA technologist. He is an elected member of the International Academy of Astronautics, a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society and a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the National Space Society, and MENSA.

In his day job, Les leads the development of advanced, in-space spacecraft propulsion technologies at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, leading many of NASA’s efforts to develop solar sail propulsion for interplanetary and future interstellar travel. During his career at NASA, Les served as the Manager for the Space Science Programs and Projects Office, the In-Space Propulsion Technology Project, and the Interstellar Propulsion Research Project.

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Book Details

Imprint: Tor Books

Genre: Science Fiction

ISBN: 9781250296658

Page Count: 288

On Sale:

November 4, 2025

Books By Ben Bova