The Rock Rats

Ben Bova (1932-2020) was the author of more than a hundred works of science fact and fiction, including Able One, Transhuman, Orion, the Star Quest Trilogy, and the Grand Tour novels, including Titan, winner of John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the year. His many honors include the Isaac Asimov Memorial Award in 1996, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation in 2005, and the Robert A. Heinlein Award “for his outstanding body of work in the field of literature” in 2008.

Dr. Bova was President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past president of Science Fiction Writers of America, and a former editor of Analog and former fiction editor of Omni. As an editor, he won science fiction’s Hugo Award six times. His writings predicted the Space Race of the 1960s, virtual reality, human cloning, the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), electronic book publishing, and much more.

In addition to his literary achievements, Bova worked for Project Vanguard, America’s first artificial satellite program, and for Avco Everett Research Laboratory, the company that created the heat shields for Apollo 11, helping the NASA astronauts land on the moon. He also taught science fiction at Harvard University and at New York City’s Hayden Planetarium and worked with such filmmakers as George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry.

Amanda Karr is an award-winning actress and director. In addition to television appearances on The Guardian and Days of Our Lives, Amanda has played Zelda Fitzgerald in the critically acclaimed musical Tender. On audio, she can be heard as the voice of Ender's cyber-friend, Jane, and as Pancho Lane in Ben Bova's Planet series.

Ira Claffey has narrated or co-narrated numerous audio titles from Macmillan Audio.  His work includes Rock Rats,and several tiles in the American Presidents Series: Thomas Jefferson, Rutherford B. Hayes, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Quincy Adams, Grover Cleveland, James Madison, and Theodore Roosevelt.  Of Claffey’s narration of Theodore Roosevelt, AudioFile magazine has said, “Ira Claffey's passionate but cultivated voice is the perfect medium in which to join two men of refinement.”