THE WEATHERMAKERS
by Ben Bova
No storm centers over this one as we can calmly predict that it will be one of the science fiction smasheroos of the year. Combining excitement, adventure, plausibility, and technical knowledge with a flair for storytelling, Mr. Bova takes us into the not-so-distant future as Jeremy Thornton visits the Climatology Division of the Weather Bureau and meets young meteorologist Ted Marrett for the first time. Ted is a headstrong young genius who has just worked out a method of long range statistical forecasts but he is running headlong into the willful pride of dept. head Dr. Rossman; he proves his predictions and further demonstrates that he can exercise weather control (an absolutely banned concept). Ted is ousted but he and Jeremy team up to start a new company, Aeolus Research, Inc. They now must face the bureaucratic sabotage of Rossman until a threatened drought becomes a crisis Rossman can't handle. The drought is ended through Ted's manipulations but the battle's only begun and it will take a no less spectacular feat than stopping a hurricane to convince Congress of the feasibility of weather control. The machinations of governmental agencies are only too clearly depicted—at one point the Armed Services tries to divert the research into a weather-as-weapon security category. But Marrett's single-minded stubbornness—"He not only thinks he can control the weather, he thinks he owns it"—consistently triumphs as his friends watch, half angry, half awed. Excellent.