23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What Price, To Play the Boards?, December 2, 2002
This review is from: Double Star (Mass Market Paperback)
The year is 1956. Eisenhower is in the White House, following a long line of military men to reach that post. And this slim book appears, presenting the wild idea of an actor, perhaps not even a very good actor, who manages to reach the position of head of state. Obviously an idea like this could only appear within the realm of science fiction! What a difference in perspective an additional twenty five years will make, as once more science fiction becomes fact.
The route Lorenzo Smythe takes to reach this post is, however, just a little different from that of the real-world actor. The Great Lorenzo, as he styles himself, is conceited, arrogant, out of work, and down to his last half-Imperial when he is offered the job of doubling for a well-known political figure. The job is so obviously beneath his dignity that he is ready to turn down the offer when the Martians take a hand, and Lorenzo finds himself involved in murder, kidnapping, and slicing both humans and Martians into small pieces to flush down the disposal.
Forced by these circumstances to take the job, Lorenzo is even more disturbed when he finds out the identity of the person he is supposed to double for, none other that the leader of the opposition party, Joseph Bonforte, whose politics, what little he knows of them, he despises. But his own inflated idea of his abilities allows him to steady down and start studying for the role, a role he will play for much longer than he could ever anticipate.
This book is a character study, carefully and artfully detailing how Lorenzo changes under the influence of having to pretend to be someone he is not, aided by the immediate staff of the man he impersonates. It is fascinating to watch him change from someone you probably wouldn't invite into your home, to confused and beginning to search for some moral basis to his life beyond 'the show must go on', and finally to a man doing his best not just for himself, but for all intelligent beings, truly becoming the man he is portraying.
The other characters here are pretty sketchy, mainly props to help move the plot and aid Lorenzo. This is most noticeable with Penny, Bonforte's personal secretary, who suffers from the typical Heinlein failing (at that point in his writing career) of portraying women as one-dimensional beings. However, this limited portrayal of these secondary characters does not detract from, but rather enhances by contrast the masterful portrayal of Lorenzo.
Heinlein makes good use of his own experience in running for the California State legislature, as he describes the mechanics of running a political campaign, just how decisions are reached, how dependent a politician is upon the quality of the staff he selects, so that these items ring with real-world ambience. This is also probably the first book that clearly showed his leaning towards what would now be called Libertarianism, but this exposition is fairly muted, unlike some of his later works. And it wouldn't be a Heinlein book without his side commentaries: here he covers monarchies, civil servants, patronage, media management, taxes, unions, truth and lies, prejudice and xenophobia.
Published at a time when a novel of character was practically unheard of in the science fiction world, this work, like so many others by Heinlein, expanded the boundaries of the field, another step in lifting it out of its self-imposed pulp ghetto and back to the world of literature. This is probably part of the reason this book earned Heinlein his first of five Hugo awards for best novel of the year, a record matched by no other author. The rest of the reason? It's a fun, fast, great read; a story that hasn't lost its power to engross, entertain, and expand your view of the world.
--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fun, light but leaves an impression, May 11, 2000
This review is from: Double Star (Mass Market Paperback)
I read this book over 10 years ago. I still remember it and I'm still fascinated by the whole theme of pretending to be someone makes you into that person that you were pretending to be. Less heavy handed than Vonnegut's Mother Night with the same theme, this Heinlein book is a delight on many levels. First the main character's smart aleck tone is highly entertaining. "If a guy walks into a bar dressed like a hick acting like he knows the place, you can tell that he's a space man". Heinlein's use of character voices is one of his strengths (like in Podkayne of Mars). Second, the role that this actor is playing becomes him and makes him into a responsible human being which is a nice idea in that a person can change and become a good person despite their best efforts to the contrary.
There are problems of course. The Martians aren't that fleshed out. The shift from jerk to statesman seems way too abrupt. Some may find the main character grating. But Heinlein's strength rest in that his storytelling doesn't allow you to dwell too much on his weaknesses.
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19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of Heinlein's top three, September 15, 2003
This review is from: Double Star (Mass Market Paperback)
The other two are _The Door into Summer_ and _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_. Heinlein also wrote a handful of near-great novels as well as some third-tier stuff that I don't care about rereading. (And his nonfiction, unlike Asimov's, isn't worth the paper it's printed on.) But these three novels are magisterial, and as close to perfect as anything he ever wrote.
This time out, our "hero" is Lawrence Smith a.k.a. Lorenzo "Lorrie" Smythe a.k.a. "The Great Lorenzo", a self-important and out-of-work actor who, at least initially, isn't all that heroic. He's approached about a job, and it turns out to involve serving as a double for a famous statesman in a public appearance. The rest you'll have to read for yourself.
It's a fast-moving, well-paced, meaty story, and it raises all sorts of fascinating questions about personal identity, character, and such. And Heinlein handles it all very deftly. Smith (why _are_ so many of his characters named "Smith"?) contends at one point that in order for an actor to portray a character properly, s/he has to _become_ the character, and it's impossible to do so without coming to like the character somewhat. Well, that's just what Heinlein does here with Smith himself. (Another of Heinlein's Smiths would later describe this process as "grokking".)
Oh, there are a few soapboxy bits, but they don't interfere much with the story. For example, at one or two points we get a few pseudo-profound quotations from statesman John Joseph Bonforte that sound suspiciously like Heinlein himself at his tub-thumpingly silliest (or perhaps some lost excerpts from the notebooks of Lazarus Long, which may be another way of saying the same thing). But it's kept under control. (In other words, this is not _Starship Troopers_ or _Farnham's Freehold_.)
This is one of Heinlein's finest and most tightly constructed tales, and almost fifty years after its publication it still holds up well. This is the master at his best -- and his best was very, very good.
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