Humor seems a rare thing in science fiction; Bob Eggleton covers are nearly more common. In Laugh Lines, Baen is bringing the two together. Laugh Lines is a collection of Ben Bova‘s comic science fiction, which Baen is publishing in July as a 528-page, $24.00 hardcover. As Bova says in his introduction, “science fiction doesn’t have to be somber and serious all the time. There’s a humorous side to the future, just as there’s a humorous side to everything.… One of science fiction’s many wonderful attributes is its ability to make social commentary… [and] there’s no better way to make social commentary than through humor. You can skewer stuffed shirts and show the ridiculous side of life. You can make your points by making people laugh.”
To make his points, and make us laugh, Bova has collected two novels and six shorter works for this volume:
The Starcrossed (first published in 1975)
Cyberbooks (1989)
“Crisis of the Month” (1988)
“The Great Moon Hoax” (1996)
“The Supersonic Zeppelin” (1974)
“Vince’s Dragon” (1981)
“The Angel’s Gift” (1983)
“A Slight Miscalculation” (1981)