For the next book in the Grand Tour series its Mercury. This is the story about the engineer Mance Bracknell, that constructed the space elevator a generation ago almost that was a failure and when it colapsed killed more than 4 million people.

The story jumps back and fourth between the present time and the past when they created the space elevator. I was not totally sure I would enjoy the book as much as this type of back and fourth book is not the best type for me. But when the plot thickens and you get drawn into the story it was hard to put down as usual.

The first part of the book starts at the new mercury base where Dante Alexios is working for corporate mogul, Saito Yamagata (a carryover character from previous Bova books), to harness energy from the sun on the planet. Little does Saito know that he is one of three people with a past connection…and that Dante Alexios is not really Dante Alexios, but Mance Bracknel. And he is out to get revenge for, what he thinks, the injustice of his exile from earth after the failure of the space elevator.

Secondly we have the Titan Alpha, it has touched down on the frigid surface of Saturn’s huge, smog-enshrouded moon Titan; unfortunately, though Alpha’s exploration of the surface proceeds as planned, the machine stubbornly refuses to communicate with its controllers or beam back information about what, if anything, it has discovered.

The initial part sets up the plot. The 4 people that Dante/Mance what to take revenge on, Victor Molina, a former friend, astrobiologist and colleague in the space elevator project and betrayer at his trial, Bishop Elliot Danvers, the New Morality representative who ratted out secrets of the project  and Saito Yamagata, who he thinks secretly ordered the elevator razed is no all at the Mercury base.

Then we swing back in time to when Mance and Victor created the Space Elevator. Mance was a talented engineer and the projectleader for the space elevator project near Quito, Ecuador. During the final construction of the elevator it was sabotage and brought down and caused the deaths of over 4 million people. Mance was quickly scapegoated in the courts and exiled from Earth.

We the follow Mance when he is sent into exile to the mining center on Ceres, in the Asteroid Belt. He then  picks up to work on a transport vessel. The vessel is attacked mercenaries from Yamagata corporation to silence the last witness of the sabotage of the space elevator. He then is able to escape and change his identity to Dante Alexios, a co worker on the vessel. This then leads to the current day, and the plot swings back to Mercury.

As i said, a bit slow in the beginning but when you get into the story it dam hard to put down.

You can find the book here on audible.