[IID]⇒ PDF Free Variable Star Robert A Heinlein Spider Robinson 9780765313126 Books

Variable Star Robert A Heinlein Spider Robinson 9780765313126 Books

Download As PDF : Variable Star Robert A Heinlein Spider Robinson 9780765313126 Books

Variable Star Robert A Heinlein Spider Robinson 9780765313126 Books

It started out like a Heinlein Juvie much as I grew up on. He quickly ran out of the master's plot material and the book dragged on forever on an interminable interstellar flight scheduled for 20 years, truncated to less than half that and retaining the feel of 20 years. I couldn't be bothered to keep the characters straight and was glad for the Deus Ex Machina ending only because thanks heavens it was an ending and I could stop.

One positive. From the future history standpoint he had a very succinct 1 page synopsis of the "War on Terror" and it's likely aftermath. It was thoughtful and I fear accurate but not worth reading the entire book for.


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Variable Star Robert A Heinlein Spider Robinson 9780765313126 Books Reviews

I loved heinlein's juvies. This started out seeming like a nice hybrid of a few of them. But the longer I try to read it I feel like that guy in A Clockwork Orange with his head in a vise and his eyes propped open. I so want to look away.

Some Spoilers probably below

Issues 1. Heinlein's main characters in his juvies are often nice, gee whiz guys, not terribly smart but earnest and self effacing. I gather this guy was supposed to be that -- the commonor tapped for greatness,etc, who proves himself. This guy is not that.

Rather he's a lackadaisical whiner who drags everything out until you feel like you're on a 20 year spaceship journey with someone who can't shut up. Ever. This book is terribly wordy. Practically nothing happens through most of it. Heinlein's juvies were always short, as novels go. Putting umpteen more words in this one to drag it out to current length just drags.... it.... out....

2. It's one thing for an author to use his wife's name as the love interest. It's another for Robinson to use Heinlein's wife's name. And I'm sure Heinlein's main character would not have whined Jinny, Jinny, Jinny to the point where you want to bash him over the head with his sax and put you both out of your misery. Way way too much whining.

Plus for Robinson to go on and on about "Jinny" (for any fan who knows the reference) feels 1. a little creepy given he isn't Heinlein, and 2. way too obsequious. Kissing up to the boss, cubed. No self respecitng women would tolerate that drivel. I rather doubt V. Heinlein would appreciate it from Robinson.

3. It's one thing for Jinny Conrad to love this character. Love, after all, is blind (and boy does it have to be in this case). But for her "Conrad of Conrad" father to see any merit in this dork, and to go on and on about how he's needed (when the reader can barely stand him) and to pursue him for even five minutes when he ought to be counting his lucky stars (all Conrad owned) that the guy actually ran away and solved his problem for him calls for more suspension of disbelief than any reader can muster.

4. Having Einsten's Relativity make it possible for the little girl to grow up "relatively" fast enough to marry the older guy might have worked in 1957. Now it is just creepy. Plus the older guy is a creep who should not be inflicted on anyone, much less an innocent kid, however grown.

5. Heinlein's views on women were an interesting combination of liberal thinking and sexism understandable for a man of his generation. In other words, Heinleinian statements about women in the text of a book are forgivable from Heinlein, particularly Heinlein writing when he did.

The same statements are really, really out of place coming from anyone more contemporary. Plus, some of those statements are quaint coming from a 15 year old character written about in 1957. Coming from a 24 year old character written in 20XX they are crass. It also bears mentioning that you could more easily forgive or understand this stuff coming from one of Heinlein's "gee whiz" juvie characters. But again, this guy is not one of those. Robinson tries to start him off that way, but his ego can't leave him there. The character affects humility but actually thinks so much of himself (Robinson and the character) that the guy rapidly proves to be insufferable. And being insufferable and crass and occasionally affecting gee whiz naivete is just an unbearable combination. This guy's statements about women are offensive, plain and simple. And this from a girl who was reading Heinlein in elementary school.

I could go on, but why bother?

Stick with rereading Heinlein. This book is a so horrendous you will find it hard to believe anyone could create such a frankenstein monster out of Heinlein's good bones.
I definitely enjoyed this one. Admittedly, I'm a Heinlein fan, already, though I'd like to think I can be objective enough to judge this one on its own merits. Robinson, apparently took a set of comprehensive notes, and with them, conjured up a ghost. It actually read like one of Heinleins' transitional juvenile-to-adult novels. The characters were strong, and the plot was engaging.

Anyway, I loved it, and I think anyone that gives it a chance will at least like it. Is it perfect? Not really. Some of the situations were seemingly contrived to fit the outline. Aside from that? Give it a shot, you won't regret it.
This is written by two authors, more than 50 years apart. The grand master of science fiction, Robert Heinlein, wrote an outline for this plot in the 1950s, but never produced a book, having prolifically written others as he turned his work from juvenile works to adult oriented ones after publication of his classic "Stranger in a Strange Land." Following Heinlein's death, the notes ofr this book were discovered and then completed by Spider Robertson, a heavyweight science fiction author in his own right who has constantly expressed admiration for Heinlein in his "Callahan" series of books to the point of making Heinlein's cat, Pixel an ongoing character.

This is clearly a juvenile novel, very much in tone with Heinlein's other juveniles and a great pleasure to read. I have it on both and as a paperback.
...A Passable Forgery...
By which I mean to cast no aspersions. As noted by others - there are departures from the touch of the master.

Somewhere in Russia (last I heard) there is a copy of The Mona Lisa likely produced in France quite some time after the death of Leonardo DaVinci that differs from the the original in ways discernible only to students of the art deeply steeped in the craft, methods and materials of that art form.

Here too is an artfully wrought work spun from the imaginations of two minds… differing from either individual's past works.

But it works like maple on bacon.

I am pretty sure I have read all of Heinlein from three to eight times - and a good deal of Robinson's works, as well. If I were a couple of decades younger I might feel about SR the way I feel about RAH.

This story reminds me of my teens and twenties while reading RAH for the first time.

There is a young fellow in my family I hope to introduce to RAH. I will include this work as a part.
I've read every damn thing that RAH wrote, and I just NOW find out that the estimable Spider Robinson got to flesh out a tale that the Master never wrote himself?!?! This was a great read. Yes, it's clearly in Spider Robinson's voice. But there are echos of Heinlein everywhere, and the only reason I can't see RAH having written it himself is that there wasn't nearly as much sex in the book... Grin. I'm holding out hope that he'll write the Orphan Stars books that come after. If you like either Spider's or Bob's writing, you'll like this.
It started out like a Heinlein Juvie much as I grew up on. He quickly ran out of the master's plot material and the book dragged on forever on an interminable interstellar flight scheduled for 20 years, truncated to less than half that and retaining the feel of 20 years. I couldn't be bothered to keep the characters straight and was glad for the Deus Ex Machina ending only because thanks heavens it was an ending and I could stop.

One positive. From the future history standpoint he had a very succinct 1 page synopsis of the "War on Terror" and it's likely aftermath. It was thoughtful and I fear accurate but not worth reading the entire book for.