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Thunder and Lightning #1
Red Thunder
Seven suburban misfits are constructing a spaceship out of old tanker cars. The plan is to beat the Chinese to Mars--in under four days at three million miles an hour. It would be history in the making if it didn't sound so insane.
411 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
318 people are currently reading
1258 people want to read
About the author
John Varley
233 books603 followersFull name: John Herbert Varley.
John Varley was born in Austin, Texas. He grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, moved to Port Arthur in 1957, and graduated from Nederland High School. He went to Michigan State University.
He has written several novels and numerous short stories.He has received both the Hugo and Nebula awards.
John Varley was born in Austin, Texas. He grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, moved to Port Arthur in 1957, and graduated from Nederland High School. He went to Michigan State University.
He has written several novels and numerous short stories.He has received both the Hugo and Nebula awards.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 230 reviews
July 8, 2024
I enjoyed this book so much.
Yes, I am a big John Varley fan, and this is his homage to Heinlein so I was compelled to like this, there was every likelihood that I was going to really like it and it did not disappoint.
First published in 2003, the science is a little sketchy, but its science fiction, have some fun with it. Varley’s work here actually made me think about Heinlein’s Between Planets and Iron Man because of the energy source game changer.
Varley describes where a group of misfits and ne’er-do-wells team up to outdo the space programs of the United States and China. That they put this all together out of scrap metal and old containers makes it all the better. Heinlein would like this.
I love it when a character steals the show and here we have Jubal (another RAH reference) who provides what’s needed and does so with some backwoods panache.
If this were produced into a film I would want Adam Sandler and crew to give us a Capraesque feel good flick.
I’ve compared Varley’s work before to Philip K. Dick’s canon, except he’s more accessible and I can say the same here. Lot’s of fun.
Yes, I am a big John Varley fan, and this is his homage to Heinlein so I was compelled to like this, there was every likelihood that I was going to really like it and it did not disappoint.
First published in 2003, the science is a little sketchy, but its science fiction, have some fun with it. Varley’s work here actually made me think about Heinlein’s Between Planets and Iron Man because of the energy source game changer.
Varley describes where a group of misfits and ne’er-do-wells team up to outdo the space programs of the United States and China. That they put this all together out of scrap metal and old containers makes it all the better. Heinlein would like this.
I love it when a character steals the show and here we have Jubal (another RAH reference) who provides what’s needed and does so with some backwoods panache.
If this were produced into a film I would want Adam Sandler and crew to give us a Capraesque feel good flick.
I’ve compared Varley’s work before to Philip K. Dick’s canon, except he’s more accessible and I can say the same here. Lot’s of fun.
June 30, 2021
I honestly don't know what happened to this great book. Was it the timing? It came out in 2003, years before The Martian and absolutely after the stream of great Mars books of the '90s, but it hits that near-perfect sweet spot of adventure, underdog, and technical know-how using found parts and the gumption to --
GO TO MARS
-- at all costs.
I mean, come on, it's a perfect updated mix of Heinlein's Red Planet with the later Martian, getting ghetto and even hiring on a great street artist to adorn the spacecraft. I swear, I enjoyed every step of this novel.
Most of it is misfit characters either because of poverty, racial inequality in Florida (yeah, yeah, don't laugh, it happens there, lol), being a washed-up maverick drunk, a misdiagnosed idiot savant, or being too smart and female.
Rusty tankers, pick-up trucks, and using the shoulders of all the scientists that came before is a wonderful gimmie that capitalizes on my own obsession with privatized space travel, but it's the ONE obviously SF notion that gives this book its real oomph. Without Jubal's Christmas ornament breaking the laws of physics and all, waiving most of those energy requirements, this would never have gotten off the ground. But hey! It's SF and there has to be one little tweak to give us anything like this.
I mean, no trust fund could pull this off unless your daddy is Elon. And even then... I mean, come on.
And this doesn't bother me at all.
I swear, it's like I'm reading a totally modern early Heinlein that doesn't fear to stare at all the obvious problems in the face AND it does it with an awesomely clear voice.
With HOPE.
*sigh*
This book should never have been lost in the mix. It should have new life again right now. Especially for all of us seeing space travel come back alive. I literally sat on the edge of my seat as I read this. :)
GO TO MARS
-- at all costs.
I mean, come on, it's a perfect updated mix of Heinlein's Red Planet with the later Martian, getting ghetto and even hiring on a great street artist to adorn the spacecraft. I swear, I enjoyed every step of this novel.
Most of it is misfit characters either because of poverty, racial inequality in Florida (yeah, yeah, don't laugh, it happens there, lol), being a washed-up maverick drunk, a misdiagnosed idiot savant, or being too smart and female.
Rusty tankers, pick-up trucks, and using the shoulders of all the scientists that came before is a wonderful gimmie that capitalizes on my own obsession with privatized space travel, but it's the ONE obviously SF notion that gives this book its real oomph. Without Jubal's Christmas ornament breaking the laws of physics and all, waiving most of those energy requirements, this would never have gotten off the ground. But hey! It's SF and there has to be one little tweak to give us anything like this.
I mean, no trust fund could pull this off unless your daddy is Elon. And even then... I mean, come on.
And this doesn't bother me at all.
I swear, it's like I'm reading a totally modern early Heinlein that doesn't fear to stare at all the obvious problems in the face AND it does it with an awesomely clear voice.
With HOPE.
*sigh*
This book should never have been lost in the mix. It should have new life again right now. Especially for all of us seeing space travel come back alive. I literally sat on the edge of my seat as I read this. :)
January 21, 2015
This homage to Heinlein revived a lot of nostalgia in me for the hopefulness about space exploration in old-fashioned science fiction. Here a group of youth in their early 20’s in Florida hook up with a washed-up, alcoholic astronaut and his autistic inventor cousin to build a rocket to Mars. I had a lot of fun with the story despite its apparent leaning toward a young adult audience.
Manny, who tells the story, helps his mother run the “Blast-Off Motel” at Cape Canaveral while he saves for college. He and his friends have just experienced the thrill of watching the launch of an American mission to Mars, which a muted by the knowledge that China will get there first. They get to know the ex-astronaut by almost running over him drunk on the beach at night, and through him his Cajun genius brother, Jubal. (If that name sounds familiar, a character of that name was the libertarian mentor of the man from.Mars, Michael, in “Stranger in a Strange Land”).
Jubal is charming and funny once they take the time to interpret his cryptic and heavily accented speech. One of Jubal’s inventions, an unbreakable Christmas tree bubble, turns out to tap energy from another dimension to squeeze its contents down to any size. With a bit of fiddling, it can be adapted into a propulsive system, one that on a large scale can be harnessed to power a rocket. The idea is born to beat the Chinese to Mars. An extra motivation is to lend aid to the Americans, who are using a technology Jubal infers to be dangerous (and a key card to play when it comes to the young folks persuading their families to let them take the journey).
Once you let slide the fanciful premise of Jubal’s “Squeezer” (really no worse than wormholes), everything else that follows with the project is quite pragmatic and realistic. Manny and his friend Dak have a lot of electrical and computer savvy, and Manny’s girlfriend has project management skills. It was cool to experience their teamwork under pressure. The main structure of the ship design involved welding a bunch of railroad cars into a frame and putting hatches on them, work suited for members of Jubal’s extended family. The making a Mars rover out of a Dodge pickup was also a fun element to the tale.
I was led to accept the amazing prospect that steady acceleration at one g could win the race, despite starting out a few months after the other ships (in a relatively short time you can exceed a million mph). The actual flight, the safe landing, and saving the Americans was almost anticlimactic after the pleasures of the planning and building phases. The old astronaut pulling off remarkable feats of piloting was a bit too perfect to thrill me.
Varley is known for is mind-blowing trilogy in the late 70’s and early 80’s which featured humans exploring a sentient hollow world (“Titan”, “Wizard”, and “Demon”). He won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for the moving novella, “Persistence of Vision”, which about a man’s captivation with a society formed by deaf and blind people who communicate by touch. That one sort of broke the mold on what could be legitimately embraced as “science fiction.” His “Steel Beach” (1992), which nails well the plausible social impact of successful nanotechnology, was another novel in lofty league with his early work. A couple of other short novels I read of his limited body of work were not quite as good, which is the level of rating I put this one.
If you do take on this quick entertaining read, you are in a good position to follow through with its successor, “Red Lightning”, which was 5-star fun for me as a take on a Mars colony at odds with a decaying Earth society (shades of Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”). I have the third in the series, “Rolling Thunder” to look forward to (as well as his “Golden Globe”, which features a travelling troupe of Shakespearean actors in a far future--possibly a minor source of inspiration for this season’s “Station Eleven”).
Manny, who tells the story, helps his mother run the “Blast-Off Motel” at Cape Canaveral while he saves for college. He and his friends have just experienced the thrill of watching the launch of an American mission to Mars, which a muted by the knowledge that China will get there first. They get to know the ex-astronaut by almost running over him drunk on the beach at night, and through him his Cajun genius brother, Jubal. (If that name sounds familiar, a character of that name was the libertarian mentor of the man from.Mars, Michael, in “Stranger in a Strange Land”).
Jubal is charming and funny once they take the time to interpret his cryptic and heavily accented speech. One of Jubal’s inventions, an unbreakable Christmas tree bubble, turns out to tap energy from another dimension to squeeze its contents down to any size. With a bit of fiddling, it can be adapted into a propulsive system, one that on a large scale can be harnessed to power a rocket. The idea is born to beat the Chinese to Mars. An extra motivation is to lend aid to the Americans, who are using a technology Jubal infers to be dangerous (and a key card to play when it comes to the young folks persuading their families to let them take the journey).
Once you let slide the fanciful premise of Jubal’s “Squeezer” (really no worse than wormholes), everything else that follows with the project is quite pragmatic and realistic. Manny and his friend Dak have a lot of electrical and computer savvy, and Manny’s girlfriend has project management skills. It was cool to experience their teamwork under pressure. The main structure of the ship design involved welding a bunch of railroad cars into a frame and putting hatches on them, work suited for members of Jubal’s extended family. The making a Mars rover out of a Dodge pickup was also a fun element to the tale.
I was led to accept the amazing prospect that steady acceleration at one g could win the race, despite starting out a few months after the other ships (in a relatively short time you can exceed a million mph). The actual flight, the safe landing, and saving the Americans was almost anticlimactic after the pleasures of the planning and building phases. The old astronaut pulling off remarkable feats of piloting was a bit too perfect to thrill me.
Varley is known for is mind-blowing trilogy in the late 70’s and early 80’s which featured humans exploring a sentient hollow world (“Titan”, “Wizard”, and “Demon”). He won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for the moving novella, “Persistence of Vision”, which about a man’s captivation with a society formed by deaf and blind people who communicate by touch. That one sort of broke the mold on what could be legitimately embraced as “science fiction.” His “Steel Beach” (1992), which nails well the plausible social impact of successful nanotechnology, was another novel in lofty league with his early work. A couple of other short novels I read of his limited body of work were not quite as good, which is the level of rating I put this one.
If you do take on this quick entertaining read, you are in a good position to follow through with its successor, “Red Lightning”, which was 5-star fun for me as a take on a Mars colony at odds with a decaying Earth society (shades of Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”). I have the third in the series, “Rolling Thunder” to look forward to (as well as his “Golden Globe”, which features a travelling troupe of Shakespearean actors in a far future--possibly a minor source of inspiration for this season’s “Station Eleven”).
August 28, 2016
Very much a 'guys' read. Specifically, an homage to the pulps' appeal to teen boys' fantasies of building a rocket in the backyard, back in the early days of scientifiction. But over 3 times longer than it needed to be, because of jabber-jabber backstories and jabber-jabber sex...
Interesting, but questionable (discuss-able? is this a candidate for a book club that's not limited to wine and estrogen?), explorations or patriotism, the 'mad scientist' trope, the roles of women, definitions of family, the duties of a leader, etc.
And where does the blurb get the number 7 for the key characters? (I count four, or six, or 9, or maybe about 13, depending, but not seven....)
And how can there be a sequel??
But I can't give it one star, because I did manage to get to the end, and also not get pissed enough to throw the book across the room.
Interesting, but questionable (discuss-able? is this a candidate for a book club that's not limited to wine and estrogen?), explorations or patriotism, the 'mad scientist' trope, the roles of women, definitions of family, the duties of a leader, etc.
And where does the blurb get the number 7 for the key characters? (I count four, or six, or 9, or maybe about 13, depending, but not seven....)
And how can there be a sequel??
But I can't give it one star, because I did manage to get to the end, and also not get pissed enough to throw the book across the room.
July 12, 2008
People have been saying for years that Varley is the new Heinlein. Apparently he's started to take this seriously, since all his books after "Golden Globe" are written in a kind of Junior Heinlein style. Heinlein's okay, I guess, but you know who I like better? John Varley. Wonder what ever happened to him...
July 23, 2019
The first SF book John Varley ever read was Robert A. Heinlein's Red Planet. Red Thunder is his tribute to that book, and all the other wonderful Heinlein juveniles that SF readers of a certain age cut their teeth on.
Anyway, as you've probably figured out, a bunch of likeable Florida teens get together and build a homemade spaceship, a couple decades from now, with the help of a cashiered NASA astronaut and his idiot-savant cousin, Jubal, who has discovered a simple vacuum-energy shunt. With free, unlimited energy, just about anything can fly, even a spaceship made of used railroad tank-cars...
OK, the framing plot doesn't bear close inspection, and the air kinda leaks out of the tale once Red Thunder lifts off, but for 3/4 of the book Red Thunder is GREAT, the Pure Quill, a delight to read. The kid's spaceship would work, given the One Impossible Thing that makes this SF. The other problems of spaceflight were solved long ago, and if you could fly to Mars and back in a week, you wouldn't need sophisticated life support. Watching the crew solve the practical problems of building a spaceship in their garage -- actually a large, vacant warehouse -- and on a tight budget makes for classic golden-age SF.
Once they get to Mars, the story turns perfunctory, as if Varley lost interest. The Chinese and American astronauts are pure cardboard. There's the obligatory Space Rescue, for high drama. There's an oddly-anachronistic bit of Red-baiting, which I found distasteful. Then the return home, to fame and riches. Eh.
Varley's too good a writer to leave the downside of Free Energy! unexamined, and he tosses in a neat bit from Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, but his solution to keeping the dirt-cheap megatons (PyrE) away from the bad guys, while it might work, reads like a United Nations press release. Better to have left that to our imagination, I think. If I'd been Varley's Stern Editor, I'd have ended the novel when Red Thunder lands on Mars, and summarized everything that happened later in an Epilogue.
Still, there's more than enough Right Stuff here to make Red Thunder worth reading, though long-time Varley fans may find the book a bit of a letdown. Better, perhaps, to ignore the famous name, and enjoy the tale for what it is, a fine, flawed, nostalgic remake of a childhood classic.
Review first published at SF Site:
https://www.sfsite.com/09b/re160.htm
Anyway, as you've probably figured out, a bunch of likeable Florida teens get together and build a homemade spaceship, a couple decades from now, with the help of a cashiered NASA astronaut and his idiot-savant cousin, Jubal, who has discovered a simple vacuum-energy shunt. With free, unlimited energy, just about anything can fly, even a spaceship made of used railroad tank-cars...
OK, the framing plot doesn't bear close inspection, and the air kinda leaks out of the tale once Red Thunder lifts off, but for 3/4 of the book Red Thunder is GREAT, the Pure Quill, a delight to read. The kid's spaceship would work, given the One Impossible Thing that makes this SF. The other problems of spaceflight were solved long ago, and if you could fly to Mars and back in a week, you wouldn't need sophisticated life support. Watching the crew solve the practical problems of building a spaceship in their garage -- actually a large, vacant warehouse -- and on a tight budget makes for classic golden-age SF.
Once they get to Mars, the story turns perfunctory, as if Varley lost interest. The Chinese and American astronauts are pure cardboard. There's the obligatory Space Rescue, for high drama. There's an oddly-anachronistic bit of Red-baiting, which I found distasteful. Then the return home, to fame and riches. Eh.
Varley's too good a writer to leave the downside of Free Energy! unexamined, and he tosses in a neat bit from Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, but his solution to keeping the dirt-cheap megatons (PyrE) away from the bad guys, while it might work, reads like a United Nations press release. Better to have left that to our imagination, I think. If I'd been Varley's Stern Editor, I'd have ended the novel when Red Thunder lands on Mars, and summarized everything that happened later in an Epilogue.
Still, there's more than enough Right Stuff here to make Red Thunder worth reading, though long-time Varley fans may find the book a bit of a letdown. Better, perhaps, to ignore the famous name, and enjoy the tale for what it is, a fine, flawed, nostalgic remake of a childhood classic.
Review first published at SF Site:
https://www.sfsite.com/09b/re160.htm
December 30, 2014
To the critics who complain of this premise as implausible, I say return to your non fiction, for if you're not here for the fantasy, then why are you reading fiction? Since most science exploration usually involves people bred and groomed for that purpose, the fantasy here is that ordinary folk build their own spaceship and become the first to set foot on Mars. It may not be the most plausible story, but if you're willing to go along for the ride, it's entertaining, and I always find that to be true when I read Varley.
March 21, 2012
A truly enjoyable tale. I am glad that I picked up this book when I didn't have time to read it in one go. I got to be in the story for about two weeks. The characters are fun and the adventure is engaging. There is very little “bad” language, since one of the main characters reacts very poorly to it. I recommend this book to all.
October 4, 2024
I wanted to like this one because most of Varley's other work is so great. But, I felt that this one was a little too based on stereotypes and although I know it is meant as a homage to the Heinlein Juvenile series, I just couldn't get into the story. Too much suspension of disbelief, no great character arcs, just nothing to grab onto for me. I definitely will not be finishing this series. There is some humor here but it is rather pedestrian and, well, juvenile frankly. I think I'll stick with his Titan and Eight Worlds series.
April 11, 2011
"Given that the basic idea is crazy, it's sound workmanship." One of his characters says that about a cobbled-together spacecraft, but it also applies to John Varley's novels.
The guy who wrote the Titan trilogy is back again with a tale of south Florida in the near future, and eight people for whom the best of life has passed them by. But don't count them out yet.
An alcoholic astronaut, his super-genius cousin, and six college rejects accidentally invent a source of almost limitless power (OK so it was supposed to be an unbreakable chriostmas tree ornament). They use this power source to fulfill a shared dream of going to space, and travelling to Mars.
They have nine weeks and 1.5 million dollars to do it.
They have to hurry. The guy who is behind this incredible new power source is also telling them that the NASA Mars ship, which just launched, will explode...
...and the astronaut's wife is on board.
They have to get to Mars and evacuate the NASA ship before that happens.
A great story, filled with Varley's flair for believable detail: a spacecraft made out of railroad cars, with a Mars rover that started as a Dodge Ram pickup.
In the middle of the cool detail about the creation and flight of the rescue mission, the characters end up sort of rescuing each other.
The guy who wrote the Titan trilogy is back again with a tale of south Florida in the near future, and eight people for whom the best of life has passed them by. But don't count them out yet.
An alcoholic astronaut, his super-genius cousin, and six college rejects accidentally invent a source of almost limitless power (OK so it was supposed to be an unbreakable chriostmas tree ornament). They use this power source to fulfill a shared dream of going to space, and travelling to Mars.
They have nine weeks and 1.5 million dollars to do it.
They have to hurry. The guy who is behind this incredible new power source is also telling them that the NASA Mars ship, which just launched, will explode...
...and the astronaut's wife is on board.
They have to get to Mars and evacuate the NASA ship before that happens.
A great story, filled with Varley's flair for believable detail: a spacecraft made out of railroad cars, with a Mars rover that started as a Dodge Ram pickup.
In the middle of the cool detail about the creation and flight of the rescue mission, the characters end up sort of rescuing each other.
January 10, 2016
This book is good. John Varley is who you need to go to for your sci fi needs. This book doesn't have the delightful weird alieness of the Gaea series but it's brilliant hard sci fi.
I don't think I'd really be good at writing hard science fiction. You do need a basic knowledge of physics to make the book believable.
What makes this book good is the characters. Diverse, interesting characters. My favourite sort of books are ragtag misfits trying to do something cool together that no one thinks they should be able to do. This book features an autistic dude (I read him as autistic) who is Cajun and brilliant who invents the whole system for going to mars. There's a Hispanic fellow and his black friend with a cool car. Two very awesome women and an alcoholic depressed astronaut. Together they make awesome things happen.
Read this book. You don't need Orson Scott Card when there's John Varley writing diverse characters and making them real and interesting people and not lecturing you about morality, marriage and babies. I think he needs more props. I'm going to read MORE John Varley books including the sequels to this book.
I don't think I'd really be good at writing hard science fiction. You do need a basic knowledge of physics to make the book believable.
What makes this book good is the characters. Diverse, interesting characters. My favourite sort of books are ragtag misfits trying to do something cool together that no one thinks they should be able to do. This book features an autistic dude (I read him as autistic) who is Cajun and brilliant who invents the whole system for going to mars. There's a Hispanic fellow and his black friend with a cool car. Two very awesome women and an alcoholic depressed astronaut. Together they make awesome things happen.
Read this book. You don't need Orson Scott Card when there's John Varley writing diverse characters and making them real and interesting people and not lecturing you about morality, marriage and babies. I think he needs more props. I'm going to read MORE John Varley books including the sequels to this book.
March 27, 2025
Fun!
Boys and their adult friends (and ex-astronaut alcoholic and brain damaged genius) decide to make a space ship to get to Mars….
It was somewhat plausible and just fun read!!! Kinda YA style
Boys and their adult friends (and ex-astronaut alcoholic and brain damaged genius) decide to make a space ship to get to Mars….
It was somewhat plausible and just fun read!!! Kinda YA style
May 24, 2023
“The Apollo program was possibly the stupidest way of getting somewhere the human mind has yet achieved … but it was the only way to win the ‘race.’”
A playful exercise in wish fulfillment through miracles in science. Gives the reader a premise—a new source of power—and runs with the implications, as experienced by a late teen on Florida’s east coast.
“Do you trust your government that far, Sam?” “I’m an American.” “So am I, and God bless her, forever. But that’s not what I asked you.”
Published in 2003 but has a pre-9-11 vibe. Plenty of intentional political incorrectness but strives to be inclusive in a greater sense.
“Don’t do anything. I’ll be right over.” I figured not doing anything didn’t apply to fishing. If you’re seriously doing something when you’re fishing, you’re missing the whole point.
Great adolescent voice. Naïve about science, politics, economics, girls … just about everything. Which is perfect.
“Remember our cardinal rule. If you think you might need it, bring it. Right?” “Roger. And if you really have to have it, bring three.”
Quibbles: Lots, but few that destroy the story’s vibe. “We lost the antenna,” Despite the preceding quote, several critical components had no back-up or spare. “One of the tires turned into black confetti. … and I didn’t bring a spare.” Or “Our radar equipment had been scavenged from … the nose of an old fighter plane. It was the best we could do.” They could do lots better, and an “old fighter plane” would have meant tubes, which would not have worked, even if you could have mounted the fool thing on Red Lightning. “So for every pound of oxygen we bring we’ll also be bringing four pounds of nitrogen.” No, we don’t metabolize nitrogen.
“Travis was a terrific storyteller. … stories of space, and of rocket piloting, of guys and girls actually getting out there and doing it. Kissing the sky.”
A playful exercise in wish fulfillment through miracles in science. Gives the reader a premise—a new source of power—and runs with the implications, as experienced by a late teen on Florida’s east coast.
“Do you trust your government that far, Sam?” “I’m an American.” “So am I, and God bless her, forever. But that’s not what I asked you.”
Published in 2003 but has a pre-9-11 vibe. Plenty of intentional political incorrectness but strives to be inclusive in a greater sense.
“Don’t do anything. I’ll be right over.” I figured not doing anything didn’t apply to fishing. If you’re seriously doing something when you’re fishing, you’re missing the whole point.
Great adolescent voice. Naïve about science, politics, economics, girls … just about everything. Which is perfect.
“Remember our cardinal rule. If you think you might need it, bring it. Right?” “Roger. And if you really have to have it, bring three.”
Quibbles: Lots, but few that destroy the story’s vibe. “We lost the antenna,” Despite the preceding quote, several critical components had no back-up or spare. “One of the tires turned into black confetti. … and I didn’t bring a spare.” Or “Our radar equipment had been scavenged from … the nose of an old fighter plane. It was the best we could do.” They could do lots better, and an “old fighter plane” would have meant tubes, which would not have worked, even if you could have mounted the fool thing on Red Lightning. “So for every pound of oxygen we bring we’ll also be bringing four pounds of nitrogen.” No, we don’t metabolize nitrogen.
“Travis was a terrific storyteller. … stories of space, and of rocket piloting, of guys and girls actually getting out there and doing it. Kissing the sky.”
August 31, 2019
John Varley is an author I and a good friend "discovered" while we were in high school. I have enjoyed Varley's work ever since and he has really never disappointed me. Red Thunder is a lot of fun to read though the build up was slow-my best advice is not to pull the rip cord on this one too fast as if you do you will really cheat yourself. One thing I loved were all the nods to Robert A Heinlein, whom I conceive as a sort of spiritual godfather to Red Thunder's come from behind race to Mars story. It was also sort of nice to see Cajuns prove to be some of the heroes of the story, though I thought the character of Jubal (Heinlein fans will get the in-joke) to be a little hackneyed. And there were some science McGuffins you just have to forgive or else the whole thing does not hold together, so I have given the novel only four stars.
March 9, 2008
This book was fabulous. It took an unbelivable premise, made it belivable and had a rolicking good time doing it.
I saw it in the school library, and picked it up off the shelf. I read the cover flap, and said, well, it'll be good for a laugh. But boy, was I wrong! It was much better than I expected.
Despite the rather lofty science fiction concept, the book is remakably human, focusing on the characters and their problems.
This was the first book I've read since Deathly Hallows that I actually felt an incredible sense of loss when it was over, because I didn't want it to end, it was that good!
Some warnings for minor violence, sexual situations and language. The reading level is young adult, and it's a fast read.
Go read it, it's awesome!
I saw it in the school library, and picked it up off the shelf. I read the cover flap, and said, well, it'll be good for a laugh. But boy, was I wrong! It was much better than I expected.
Despite the rather lofty science fiction concept, the book is remakably human, focusing on the characters and their problems.
This was the first book I've read since Deathly Hallows that I actually felt an incredible sense of loss when it was over, because I didn't want it to end, it was that good!
Some warnings for minor violence, sexual situations and language. The reading level is young adult, and it's a fast read.
Go read it, it's awesome!
October 31, 2020
____________________________________
"We'll get to Mars before I can say Jack Robinson," said Tom swiftly.
___________________________________
An old school mad inventor story about nineteen-year-olds who help build a rocket out of train tank cars and fly it to Mars. Well, its as believable as Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint, which I read in 1956 when I was in 3rd grade. The trouble is this book was apparently written for adults.
"We'll get to Mars before I can say Jack Robinson," said Tom swiftly.
___________________________________
An old school mad inventor story about nineteen-year-olds who help build a rocket out of train tank cars and fly it to Mars. Well, its as believable as Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint, which I read in 1956 when I was in 3rd grade. The trouble is this book was apparently written for adults.
January 23, 2016
I could not get into this book. I kept having to look at the publication date on this as I was reading to make sure it was actually published as recently as 2006. Something about it just feels dated. For instance, there's the unironic use of the word "mulato," as well as other details here and there that just don't fit with the conspicuous current pop culture references. Meh. Some authors use up all their juice in their first 40 years of writing, me thinks.
July 24, 2010
One of the things I’ve been doing over the last year or so is re-reading old Robert A. Heinlein. It’s been an interesting experience, some of it not always good, others being wonderful.
It’s partly because of that that I’ve had this copy of Red Thunder around Hobbit Towers for a while and actually not got to reading it. As you might expect from a five-time Nebula and Hugo Award winner, John Varley is a wonderful prose writer, one of those, like Heinlein, whose deceptively smooth style just keeps those pages turning. His reverence of Heinlein is well known (and mentioned in The John Varley Reader, also recommended) and from the outset of his published career, his admirers have mentioned the two authors together. Like Allen Steele, like Joe Haldeman, like Spider Robinson* and now John Scalzi, there’s a page-turnability to many of John’s books that are in the style and tone of RAH.
It’s something that is very difficult to do. Sometimes such a skill can be a writer’s undoing. A good writer can become labelled and the label can make a writers own talents become submerged or lost in the homage.
And that’s where I’ve been with John. Though I loved his short stories (and recently digging through my old copies of Analog and F&SF I’ve found some of them again) and Steel Beach, I’ve found it difficult to persuade myself to get to a more recent read.
Seven years after publication, really, now I’m kicking myself for not doing so. For Red Thunder, the first in a trilogy of Heinlein-esque novels, is a glorious treat, a wonderfully uncomplicated read.
The signs are apparent in the plot, which is clearly an upgrade on Heinlein’s Rocketship Galileo. Manny Garcia is a teen in a near future where space exploration is continuing, yet China now seems to be the power in charge. Meeting a disgraced US astronaut, Travis Broussard, Manny, his friend Dak, his girlfriend Kelly and Travis’ autistic cousin Jubal, are inspired enough to build their own spaceship to travel to Mars. Using a propulsive invention of Jubal’s called ‘the Squeezer’, their homemade spaceship is built in order to travel faster than both the Chinese and the US missions already on the way to Mars. In true Heinleinesque style, Manny’s efforts are with the intention not only to reclaim the race into space for America, but also for the future of the human race, as well as restoring their friend Travis’ reputation.
After their launch and arrival on Mars they find out from the Chinese that the American spaceship (as predicted by Jubal) has blown up in transit. They rescue the stranded explorers and return to Earth as heroes.
So: the plot isn’t particularly new, the characterisation of smart heroes (and heroines!) is a common enough theme and the plot may be a tad unrealistic in places (getting $1 million to fund your experiment is not that easy, these days) but somehow it works. There’s an enthusiasm, a can-do, a hopefulness that we can make things right that runs through this book. There’s a comfort that, in the end, it all turns out OK.
For the Heinlein fans there’s a wealth of little homages. For example, Manny and Jubal are two well known names for Heinlein characters (see The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land for starters.) They’re not overt and don’t spoil the tale, but they are fun to spot.
But John is cleverer than that. In his modernisation there’s a lot of clever touches that make the book not as positive a commendation of Heinlein’s values as you might at first think. All of the key characters are not really heroes in the truest Heinlein sense of the word. Rather than sticking to the 1950’s home-values, in Red Thunder they come from homes divided by divorce, racism and alcoholism – Travis is a washed-up space pilot, Alicia’s dad’s in jail for shooting and killing her mother, Jubal’s dad is in protective care after beating Jubal into an autistic condition, Kelly’s family are not keen on her going out with a non-white boy.
Sometimes this wanting to be different comes across as a little too forced. We have a mixed race group of travellers – a rich white kid, a Cajun autistic, a ‘spic’ (to quote a description of Manny) the typical stereotype of a black minority…. and a white alcoholic adult on the wagon. It works, but only when you don’t pause to think about the implausibility of what’s going on.
However I must say that I wouldn’t think of this particularly as a YA book: there’s a few sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll elements that may be uncomfortable for some, but bring this more up to date than Rocketship Galileo. It’s like Heinlein’s juveniles, yet it’s not. In a good way.
In terms of the gung-ho, can-we-do-it mode often used by Heinlein, well, there’s plenty of that. Perhaps like the 1969 real Moon event, the pressure to get to Mars is not for any scientific endeavour, but more to beat the Chinese to it. And there’s a few points in there about how nasty Communism is, which may sit a little uneasily with some readers. Here the Chinese are the new Russians (though when they meet they’re found to be not that bad after all.)
Similarly, one of the greatest annoyances for me as a reader was Jubal’s Cajun accent which made for some torturous reading at times. It can really irritate the reader.
However if we look at the book’s strengths, as well as the characterisation and the smooth prose (on the whole) that echoes Heinlein so well, it is that nostalgia kick, back to the SF of my youth that resonates so strongly. It reminds me of a time when there was an optimism, a positive-looking upward and outward, when things seemed simpler and more straight-forward, that made me as a reader feel that anything was possible. Red Thunder does that for me.
On finishing the book, I now realise that it is of a style that I need to go back to now and then, even in these depressingly mundane times, perhaps more so in these difficult times. It’s not a particularly challenging book, but it is fun. If ever there was a need to justify the entertainment value of SF, this book delivers. For those who dislike Heinlein’s writing, (not to mention his personal views, his lecturing-as-plot or his political beliefs), I’m not sure this is going to persuade them any differently of his skill. It should, if nothing else, impress them with John’s ability to write as an alternate-Heinlein. For many, like me, it’s a great read. And I’ll confidently pick up the next.
It’s partly because of that that I’ve had this copy of Red Thunder around Hobbit Towers for a while and actually not got to reading it. As you might expect from a five-time Nebula and Hugo Award winner, John Varley is a wonderful prose writer, one of those, like Heinlein, whose deceptively smooth style just keeps those pages turning. His reverence of Heinlein is well known (and mentioned in The John Varley Reader, also recommended) and from the outset of his published career, his admirers have mentioned the two authors together. Like Allen Steele, like Joe Haldeman, like Spider Robinson* and now John Scalzi, there’s a page-turnability to many of John’s books that are in the style and tone of RAH.
It’s something that is very difficult to do. Sometimes such a skill can be a writer’s undoing. A good writer can become labelled and the label can make a writers own talents become submerged or lost in the homage.
And that’s where I’ve been with John. Though I loved his short stories (and recently digging through my old copies of Analog and F&SF I’ve found some of them again) and Steel Beach, I’ve found it difficult to persuade myself to get to a more recent read.
Seven years after publication, really, now I’m kicking myself for not doing so. For Red Thunder, the first in a trilogy of Heinlein-esque novels, is a glorious treat, a wonderfully uncomplicated read.
The signs are apparent in the plot, which is clearly an upgrade on Heinlein’s Rocketship Galileo. Manny Garcia is a teen in a near future where space exploration is continuing, yet China now seems to be the power in charge. Meeting a disgraced US astronaut, Travis Broussard, Manny, his friend Dak, his girlfriend Kelly and Travis’ autistic cousin Jubal, are inspired enough to build their own spaceship to travel to Mars. Using a propulsive invention of Jubal’s called ‘the Squeezer’, their homemade spaceship is built in order to travel faster than both the Chinese and the US missions already on the way to Mars. In true Heinleinesque style, Manny’s efforts are with the intention not only to reclaim the race into space for America, but also for the future of the human race, as well as restoring their friend Travis’ reputation.
After their launch and arrival on Mars they find out from the Chinese that the American spaceship (as predicted by Jubal) has blown up in transit. They rescue the stranded explorers and return to Earth as heroes.
So: the plot isn’t particularly new, the characterisation of smart heroes (and heroines!) is a common enough theme and the plot may be a tad unrealistic in places (getting $1 million to fund your experiment is not that easy, these days) but somehow it works. There’s an enthusiasm, a can-do, a hopefulness that we can make things right that runs through this book. There’s a comfort that, in the end, it all turns out OK.
For the Heinlein fans there’s a wealth of little homages. For example, Manny and Jubal are two well known names for Heinlein characters (see The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land for starters.) They’re not overt and don’t spoil the tale, but they are fun to spot.
But John is cleverer than that. In his modernisation there’s a lot of clever touches that make the book not as positive a commendation of Heinlein’s values as you might at first think. All of the key characters are not really heroes in the truest Heinlein sense of the word. Rather than sticking to the 1950’s home-values, in Red Thunder they come from homes divided by divorce, racism and alcoholism – Travis is a washed-up space pilot, Alicia’s dad’s in jail for shooting and killing her mother, Jubal’s dad is in protective care after beating Jubal into an autistic condition, Kelly’s family are not keen on her going out with a non-white boy.
Sometimes this wanting to be different comes across as a little too forced. We have a mixed race group of travellers – a rich white kid, a Cajun autistic, a ‘spic’ (to quote a description of Manny) the typical stereotype of a black minority…. and a white alcoholic adult on the wagon. It works, but only when you don’t pause to think about the implausibility of what’s going on.
However I must say that I wouldn’t think of this particularly as a YA book: there’s a few sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll elements that may be uncomfortable for some, but bring this more up to date than Rocketship Galileo. It’s like Heinlein’s juveniles, yet it’s not. In a good way.
In terms of the gung-ho, can-we-do-it mode often used by Heinlein, well, there’s plenty of that. Perhaps like the 1969 real Moon event, the pressure to get to Mars is not for any scientific endeavour, but more to beat the Chinese to it. And there’s a few points in there about how nasty Communism is, which may sit a little uneasily with some readers. Here the Chinese are the new Russians (though when they meet they’re found to be not that bad after all.)
Similarly, one of the greatest annoyances for me as a reader was Jubal’s Cajun accent which made for some torturous reading at times. It can really irritate the reader.
However if we look at the book’s strengths, as well as the characterisation and the smooth prose (on the whole) that echoes Heinlein so well, it is that nostalgia kick, back to the SF of my youth that resonates so strongly. It reminds me of a time when there was an optimism, a positive-looking upward and outward, when things seemed simpler and more straight-forward, that made me as a reader feel that anything was possible. Red Thunder does that for me.
On finishing the book, I now realise that it is of a style that I need to go back to now and then, even in these depressingly mundane times, perhaps more so in these difficult times. It’s not a particularly challenging book, but it is fun. If ever there was a need to justify the entertainment value of SF, this book delivers. For those who dislike Heinlein’s writing, (not to mention his personal views, his lecturing-as-plot or his political beliefs), I’m not sure this is going to persuade them any differently of his skill. It should, if nothing else, impress them with John’s ability to write as an alternate-Heinlein. For many, like me, it’s a great read. And I’ll confidently pick up the next.
February 19, 2024
I really enjoyed this one. It's Heinlein adjacent/homage but updated for a modern audience. HžJust a lot of fun.
June 6, 2011
First in the Red young adult science fiction series set in a futuristic Florida.
The Story
We start with the four best friends, Manny, Kelly, Dak, and Alicia watching the Mars-bound VentureStar rocket take off with its Ares-Seven crew. It's a special event for the four as both Manny and Dak dream about going into space. This summer they are, okay, so they're trying to, studying hard to pass their online college courses. Online because neither of them can afford to go to a real college. But that night changes their lives when they almost run over a drunk, Travis, on the beach. A drunk who turns out to be an ex-astronaut with a brilliant but messed-up brother, Jubal, who has invented perpetual energy.
A fuel source that can power a rocket forever. A rocket the six of them decide to build when Jubal does the math and realizes that the Ares-Seven is probably never returning to Earth. Its design flaws will either cause them to be shipwrecked on Mars or sent off at a tangent into the stars. While it hurts Travis to think of this happening to his ex-wife, one of the Ares-Seven crew, the fact that the Chinese rocket which also launched for Mars is likely to arrive on Mars first is the kicker that fuels them into action.
My Take
I loved this story! It's all underdogs who make good thumbing their noses at the Establishment. Four just-out-of-high-school students, an idiot savant, and a drunk of an ex-astronaut plan to build a rocket and reach Mars in two months using off-the-shelf materials.
A good chunk of the story is a shopping list of buying and building that will crack you up. The last bit is of their flight, the confrontation with the Chinese and how they outmaneuver the politics ending with the rescue of Ares-Seven and their life afterwards. A great story for the maverick reader. I cannot wait to dive into Red Lightning. I am dying to know how these characters carry on.
For all that, this was a very back-and-forth story. The prologue started in the future while the main story started in the past and we kept leap-frogging back and forth. It did sort of make sense—I normally hate this sort of thing, but Varney made it follow-able at the same time that he used it to make the story more interesting.
The Cover
The cover epitomizes the story: the building plans for Red Thunder under their crew badge.
The Story
We start with the four best friends, Manny, Kelly, Dak, and Alicia watching the Mars-bound VentureStar rocket take off with its Ares-Seven crew. It's a special event for the four as both Manny and Dak dream about going into space. This summer they are, okay, so they're trying to, studying hard to pass their online college courses. Online because neither of them can afford to go to a real college. But that night changes their lives when they almost run over a drunk, Travis, on the beach. A drunk who turns out to be an ex-astronaut with a brilliant but messed-up brother, Jubal, who has invented perpetual energy.
A fuel source that can power a rocket forever. A rocket the six of them decide to build when Jubal does the math and realizes that the Ares-Seven is probably never returning to Earth. Its design flaws will either cause them to be shipwrecked on Mars or sent off at a tangent into the stars. While it hurts Travis to think of this happening to his ex-wife, one of the Ares-Seven crew, the fact that the Chinese rocket which also launched for Mars is likely to arrive on Mars first is the kicker that fuels them into action.
My Take
I loved this story! It's all underdogs who make good thumbing their noses at the Establishment. Four just-out-of-high-school students, an idiot savant, and a drunk of an ex-astronaut plan to build a rocket and reach Mars in two months using off-the-shelf materials.
A good chunk of the story is a shopping list of buying and building that will crack you up. The last bit is of their flight, the confrontation with the Chinese and how they outmaneuver the politics ending with the rescue of Ares-Seven and their life afterwards. A great story for the maverick reader. I cannot wait to dive into Red Lightning. I am dying to know how these characters carry on.
For all that, this was a very back-and-forth story. The prologue started in the future while the main story started in the past and we kept leap-frogging back and forth. It did sort of make sense—I normally hate this sort of thing, but Varney made it follow-able at the same time that he used it to make the story more interesting.
The Cover
The cover epitomizes the story: the building plans for Red Thunder under their crew badge.
March 14, 2023
This is a good book. That being said, it is also BY FAR the most “normal” thing I’ve ever read by John Varley, like… by a lot. That isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing, but it’s certainly notable, because if you’re used to Varley’s work this might come across as pretty… bland?
Red Thunder is set in the present and is essentially about a group of young adult friends (which is no coincidence considering this book is Varley’s first YA novel) who—upon discovering a new technology that allows infinite fuel/energy/power—try to build their own spaceship and beat China (and the US) to be the first people on Mars. It’s full of heart and has a wonderful sense of adventure but, most notably as a big Varley fan, lacks any of his usual “out there” ideas. Again though, I don’t think that’s an issue for the book itself, merely with my own expectations.
The only real trouble I had with Red Thunder is that it takes soooo long to pick up the pace. The first 1/3rd of the book is entirely focused on characterization, they don’t even kick off the actual plot until 150 pages in. That’s not to say the first part of the book is bad, but it’s pretty unnecessary; he probably could have removed 90% of the first 1/3rd and it would have improved the pacing a lot.
It’s certainly not my favorite Varley novel, but it’s still a Varley novel and with that comes a guarantee of a good time, and this is no exception. Nobody infects me with the excitement of science fiction quite like Varley.
Red Thunder is set in the present and is essentially about a group of young adult friends (which is no coincidence considering this book is Varley’s first YA novel) who—upon discovering a new technology that allows infinite fuel/energy/power—try to build their own spaceship and beat China (and the US) to be the first people on Mars. It’s full of heart and has a wonderful sense of adventure but, most notably as a big Varley fan, lacks any of his usual “out there” ideas. Again though, I don’t think that’s an issue for the book itself, merely with my own expectations.
The only real trouble I had with Red Thunder is that it takes soooo long to pick up the pace. The first 1/3rd of the book is entirely focused on characterization, they don’t even kick off the actual plot until 150 pages in. That’s not to say the first part of the book is bad, but it’s pretty unnecessary; he probably could have removed 90% of the first 1/3rd and it would have improved the pacing a lot.
It’s certainly not my favorite Varley novel, but it’s still a Varley novel and with that comes a guarantee of a good time, and this is no exception. Nobody infects me with the excitement of science fiction quite like Varley.
November 14, 2015
Decepcionante, muy decepcionante novela de John Varley. Hay algunos momentos en que resulta entretenida, pero poco más.
En un futuro cercano, Manny García, su amigo Dak y sus respectivas novias, tropiezan, literalmente, con el ex astronauta Travis Broussard, lo que se convertirá en un punto de inflexión en sus vidas. China y EE.UU. han mandado sendas misiones a Marte y probablemente sean los chinos los primeros en pisar el planeta rojo. Y claro, esto no puede ser, faltaría más, los americanos han de se los primeros. Este es el lema de Jubal, el primo de Travis, un genio que descubre un nueva fuente de energía. Así que toda esta pandilla se embarca en la construcción, sí amigos, de una nave espacial para abortar el intento chino y ayudar a la misión americana.
Pero todo este apestoso patriotismo no es nada comparado con la construcción de personajes, porque más que adolescentes parecen mocosos de 12 años. A reseñar esta frase de la contraportada: "una lectura que nos devuelve a la esencia de la edad de oro de la cf." ¡Ja!
En fin, me ha parecido una historia muy pobre para alguien que ha demostrado tener más imaginación que todo ésto, como es John Varley.
En un futuro cercano, Manny García, su amigo Dak y sus respectivas novias, tropiezan, literalmente, con el ex astronauta Travis Broussard, lo que se convertirá en un punto de inflexión en sus vidas. China y EE.UU. han mandado sendas misiones a Marte y probablemente sean los chinos los primeros en pisar el planeta rojo. Y claro, esto no puede ser, faltaría más, los americanos han de se los primeros. Este es el lema de Jubal, el primo de Travis, un genio que descubre un nueva fuente de energía. Así que toda esta pandilla se embarca en la construcción, sí amigos, de una nave espacial para abortar el intento chino y ayudar a la misión americana.
Pero todo este apestoso patriotismo no es nada comparado con la construcción de personajes, porque más que adolescentes parecen mocosos de 12 años. A reseñar esta frase de la contraportada: "una lectura que nos devuelve a la esencia de la edad de oro de la cf." ¡Ja!
En fin, me ha parecido una historia muy pobre para alguien que ha demostrado tener más imaginación que todo ésto, como es John Varley.
May 23, 2023
The incredulousness was bearable up until a point. Still, an enjoyable SF read (for fans). More like a DIY manual on how to get to Mars. The cast is interesting, the tone is definitely masculine, and the writing isn't great or potent. It's mainly a story from Point A to Point B (from Earth to Mars & back). Now, spoilers:
I shut my brain off after they found Travis' wife. That made me limit the rating to no more than three stars. So much was implausible in this whole book, but you're there along for the ride b/c you know Varley is just having fun thinking about putting together a spaceship. So you accept the free energy, and the delirious personas, but all along you're just, in the back of your mind, thinking, this is crazy! Mars?! And still, you're just enjoying the book--but then, Varley just does too much with having everything turn out neat & clean. There wasn't any tension or suspense or drama, nothing really went wrong with the whole bonkers project, they got to Mars without a hitch, then landed without a hitch, found the other party no prob, even drove around Mars and nothing wrong happened. Then they find another group of people, some dead, some alive, but at this stage you're like, I know Varley isn't about to have them find Travis' wife, alive...and lo! there she is, perfectly fine in a wrecked spaceship floating in outer space. I checked out after that and consulted with myself: Should I read the rest of the books in this series? Nah, I'm good, that was the straw that broke my back of plausible things. Jubal was the most interesting thing but he was MIA for the second half.
I shut my brain off after they found Travis' wife. That made me limit the rating to no more than three stars. So much was implausible in this whole book, but you're there along for the ride b/c you know Varley is just having fun thinking about putting together a spaceship. So you accept the free energy, and the delirious personas, but all along you're just, in the back of your mind, thinking, this is crazy! Mars?! And still, you're just enjoying the book--but then, Varley just does too much with having everything turn out neat & clean. There wasn't any tension or suspense or drama, nothing really went wrong with the whole bonkers project, they got to Mars without a hitch, then landed without a hitch, found the other party no prob, even drove around Mars and nothing wrong happened. Then they find another group of people, some dead, some alive, but at this stage you're like, I know Varley isn't about to have them find Travis' wife, alive...and lo! there she is, perfectly fine in a wrecked spaceship floating in outer space. I checked out after that and consulted with myself: Should I read the rest of the books in this series? Nah, I'm good, that was the straw that broke my back of plausible things. Jubal was the most interesting thing but he was MIA for the second half.
May 6, 2021
I love John Varley.
Mainly.
I go to John Varley for interesting ideas, unusual (but borderline-possible) hard sci-fi tech, and a good yarn. He's never disappointed me.... But...
This was not the book I wanted. I know (now) that it's a homage to Heinlein's juvenile novels - but I was never a big fan of those. Perhaps not really aimed at me. Spy kids in space? Maybe a bit.
It held my attention. But not worth the 4th star, for me. Let alone the 5th.
If you're a hard sci-fi fan - read Steel Beach or The Golden Globe, or The Ophiuchi Hotline. If you're a hard sci-fi fan who can stomach some borderline-fantasy elements - read the Gaean trilogy. But don't start your John Varley journey here. There's much better to be had.
Mainly.
I go to John Varley for interesting ideas, unusual (but borderline-possible) hard sci-fi tech, and a good yarn. He's never disappointed me.... But...
This was not the book I wanted. I know (now) that it's a homage to Heinlein's juvenile novels - but I was never a big fan of those. Perhaps not really aimed at me. Spy kids in space? Maybe a bit.
It held my attention. But not worth the 4th star, for me. Let alone the 5th.
If you're a hard sci-fi fan - read Steel Beach or The Golden Globe, or The Ophiuchi Hotline. If you're a hard sci-fi fan who can stomach some borderline-fantasy elements - read the Gaean trilogy. But don't start your John Varley journey here. There's much better to be had.
July 22, 2019
Sold to me as an homage to the heinlein juveniles, I was dead keen to get into this. There are a lot of nods to RAH - especially names, but the style and milieu also fit into the groove (although there are differences).
Chapters 13 and 28 sang out to me, and the whole story is full of the exciting and drive you'd expect from something from Heinlein in his prime, with perhaps an older, somewhat modernised layer of late-teenhood to peer through. To sum, an exciting adventure.
Chapters 13 and 28 sang out to me, and the whole story is full of the exciting and drive you'd expect from something from Heinlein in his prime, with perhaps an older, somewhat modernised layer of late-teenhood to peer through. To sum, an exciting adventure.
June 6, 2018
A fun juvenile sci-fi novel. Sure, the technology that drives the story forward has no regard for the laws of physics, but it's still an enjoyable read for what it is.
December 16, 2022
Adventurous, optimistic, energetic.
December 16, 2018
If you liked the Heinlein juveniles, you’ll like this.
November 30, 2020
If there’s a sub-genre that might be called wacky science fiction, then surely John Varley’s novel, Red Thunder, is a prime example. Oh, it’s not zany like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or Doctor Who. But as the story’s protagonist and narrator notes, the technology at the center of the tale is “outrageous, goofy beyond belief.” And that is most definitely the case. So, don’t think about reading this book if you’re looking for another of Varley’s trademark hard sci-fi stories. But if you’re open to suspending disbelief a little more than usual, you’re likely to find Red Thunder delightfully entertaining. And it’s sometimes really, really funny.
Now, in all fairness, Varley doesn’t tell this story for laughs, at least most of the time. However, this is a tale about four young people who are barely out of their teens. These four young adventurers team up with a disgraced former astronaut who is typically seen wedded to a whisky bottle and his Cajun cousin, a Bible-thumping scientific genius who is widely considered retarded. I told you this was wacky science fiction, remember?
Although the technology at the heart of this tale is improbable beyond the known limits of human science, he treats it in a serious fashion. When the time comes to build a spaceship that will use the fanciful Broussard Drive to propel the Red Thunder to Mars in three-and-a-half days, Varley meticulously describes in an entirely realistic fashion all that the unlikely crew would have to do to make it serviceable. And, this being science fiction (and wacky to boot), you know—you just know—they’ll get there. But that happens long before the end of the story, and there’s lots more fun to follow.
About the author
John Varley (1947-) has been writing science fiction since 1974. He has published more than a dozen novels, which have gained him nominations for most of the major awards in the field. He is best known for the Gaea Trilogy (Titan, Wizard, and Demon). Red Thunder is the first of a series of four novels.
Now, in all fairness, Varley doesn’t tell this story for laughs, at least most of the time. However, this is a tale about four young people who are barely out of their teens. These four young adventurers team up with a disgraced former astronaut who is typically seen wedded to a whisky bottle and his Cajun cousin, a Bible-thumping scientific genius who is widely considered retarded. I told you this was wacky science fiction, remember?
Although the technology at the heart of this tale is improbable beyond the known limits of human science, he treats it in a serious fashion. When the time comes to build a spaceship that will use the fanciful Broussard Drive to propel the Red Thunder to Mars in three-and-a-half days, Varley meticulously describes in an entirely realistic fashion all that the unlikely crew would have to do to make it serviceable. And, this being science fiction (and wacky to boot), you know—you just know—they’ll get there. But that happens long before the end of the story, and there’s lots more fun to follow.
About the author
John Varley (1947-) has been writing science fiction since 1974. He has published more than a dozen novels, which have gained him nominations for most of the major awards in the field. He is best known for the Gaea Trilogy (Titan, Wizard, and Demon). Red Thunder is the first of a series of four novels.
May 6, 2019
Having read only Varley's short stories, I was surprised by the somewhat simplistic tone of the book. As I read it, I realized it really is a YA story, though with a lot more adult sexuality than other YA books I've read.
The story is well told despite the cliched story line: The gang of extra-bright misfits along with an adult misfit and a deus ex machina character beat China to Mars. Along the way, they do some maturing, the rich asshole is shown up (though indirectly his wealth funneled to his daughter paid a huge amount of the costs), the corporate monstrosity in the form of a resort hotel gets wiped off the beach by a storm, the struggling motel and the protagonist's mom are flipped into enormous success and wealth. The racial prejudice toward the protagonist by some is subordinated by his wealth and success; this is certainly realistic but not a sign of success in moving past the prejudice. The fact that this small group of teens/young adults can turn four oil tank cars into a rocket with all the necessary propulsion, guidance, and life support systems was a leap I could not completely make.
I also assumed, in error, that this book was one of his earliest ones. But it isn't. I was 12 when I read Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky and I drooled over the possibility of establishing a society from the ground up on some distant planet. There were hints of sexuality, but if I'd read Red Thunder at that age, I would have had very different dreams. Of course, that was a totally different era and sexuality is much more out in the open today.
The story is well told despite the cliched story line: The gang of extra-bright misfits along with an adult misfit and a deus ex machina character beat China to Mars. Along the way, they do some maturing, the rich asshole is shown up (though indirectly his wealth funneled to his daughter paid a huge amount of the costs), the corporate monstrosity in the form of a resort hotel gets wiped off the beach by a storm, the struggling motel and the protagonist's mom are flipped into enormous success and wealth. The racial prejudice toward the protagonist by some is subordinated by his wealth and success; this is certainly realistic but not a sign of success in moving past the prejudice. The fact that this small group of teens/young adults can turn four oil tank cars into a rocket with all the necessary propulsion, guidance, and life support systems was a leap I could not completely make.
I also assumed, in error, that this book was one of his earliest ones. But it isn't. I was 12 when I read Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky and I drooled over the possibility of establishing a society from the ground up on some distant planet. There were hints of sexuality, but if I'd read Red Thunder at that age, I would have had very different dreams. Of course, that was a totally different era and sexuality is much more out in the open today.
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