cjh@csin.UUCP (04/02/84)
The people who are criticizing this story apparently missed the statement that
it's by Ben Bova, whose blanket enthusiasm for space may be questionable but
whose physics is likely to be solid (he was a [physical scientist] before he
was a writer). I also seem to recall that the objects being dodged were
bullets, not large projectiles, so they could reasonably be presumed to have
been fired level. (I recently discovered a 50's story which Bova may have been
thinking of: some explorers on Mars find a town in which the natives check an
elaborate chart before crossing the street, which turns out to be the path of a
moon one of them dubs "Bottomos".)
I also think it's dirty pool to call SPACE: 1999 ("marked down from 2001")
a "science fiction story" for the purpose of damning science in SF.