The Pilgrim Fathers sail from an overcrowded Plymouth across the Atlantic Ocean via some gravity field anomaly to the planet America to set up a human colony there. Unfortunately they find the planet hostile to humans and already inhabited by wolfcats (Native Americans) and primitive ape-like creatures (black slaves). Can the various different cultures coexist peacefully?

I do enjoy Ben Bova's crisp narrative style and the characters are strong. And human, all too human. ( )

I never found Ben Bova very engrossing, and this is not one of his popular works. The premise, to my understanding, is that if the top predator on a planet is eliminated by human action, then some mystical force will still provide the humans with resistance. Unengaging. ( )

As usual, Bova adds the human element to this sci-fi thriller. Yes, it looks and feels a lot like the movie, "Avatar" and has the same moral lesson to be learned from the conundrum proposed. Also, the evil religious bishop reappears as in other Bova novels. I liked this one. It made me, as a reader, consider the answers to the hard questions. ( )

Earth is bursting with 17 billion people and the inevitable friction between that many people. A way out is presented to a lucky few who go off to colonise an alien plant around a distant star sponsored by the church. But the planet is inhospitable with unbreathable atmosphere and living creatures. The only hope is to terraform, but at the cost of wiping out all life on the planet. To help in the process, the scientists implant some of the higher order wildlife with devices that enable people to control the actions of the alien creatures. But they discover that they are not dumb brutes and the result is a struggle between the leaders of the mission and the scientists as to whether they should terraform, return to Earth or pursue some other course of action. Although written in the early 1970s, there are some parallels with the present situation. This is a good read, but not Ben Bova's best. ( )