This book is a mess. Somehow it manages to be overly complicated and entirely predictable at the same time.

Martin Humphries, an evil, 100 year-old multi-gazillionaire who lives on the moon, has offered a $10 billion reward for anyone who can retrieve his beloved son Alex's remains from the surface of Venus. Alex crashed while trying to be the first person to penetrate Venus's clouds. Humphries' other son, Van (who must be the most pathetic, sickly, whiny, wimpy, lazy protagonist ever), takes up the offer when Humphries' cuts off his allowance. Van spends the whole book trying to figure out his father's agenda, while trying to stay alive in an utterly hostile environment and trying to beat Lars Fuchs (his father's life-long arch-rival, natch) to Alex's crash site. Throw in some clones, biotechnology, and every single cliche you have ever read in any genre, and you've got the idea.

The only good thing about this book is Bova's imagining of Venus. It really is worth the reading for his descriptions of both the clouds and surface of Venus. Bova has made a lot of what little we know about Venus, and those descriptions are wildly imaginative and compelling. But otherwise, this is one book that can easily be skipped.