Red Thunder [Hardcover]

John Varley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2003

In the highly anticipated new novel by John Varley, "one of the genre's most accomplished storytellers" (Publishers Weekly), a manned mission to Mars becomes a personal mission for an unlikely bunch of astronauts: seven suburban misfits who have constructed a spaceship built out of old tanker cars and held together with all-American ambition. They call her Red Thunder. They plan to be the first people on the Red Planet...despite China's big head start. If it didn't sound so crazy, it would be history in the making...

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Debuting in 1974, John Varley became the decade's freshest, most exciting, and most important new science fiction author. He dominated the Seventies with numerous stories and two novels, set mostly in his Eight Worlds future history. By 1984 he had won three Hugo Awards and two Nebula Awards. Yet his output dwindled through the 1980s, and in the 1990s he released only two novels, Steel Beach and The Golden Globe, a pair of Eight Worlds books that received tepid responses.

Fans who feared Varley was devolving into another Robert A. Heinlein imitator may have mixed reactions to Red Thunder, Varley's first novel of the new millennium. Part of SF's turn-of-the-century trend of "Mars novels," but not part of Varley's Eight Worlds series, Red Thunder reads a lot like a Heinlein juvenile novel, if Heinlein were alive and writing juveniles in 2003. Varley's paying tribute to the Master's juveniles, especially Rocket Ship Galileo and Red Planet (and also, more subtly, to the ending of Alfred Bester's novel The Stars My Destination). Though Varley is working with decades-old tropes and is not in his full wildly-imaginative 1970s mode, Red Thunder is an enjoyable SF novel that should win back many disgruntled fans and gain him a new generation of admirers. --Cynthia Ward

From Publishers Weekly

And the heart-pounding space race is on! When a Chinese spacecraft, Heavenly Harmony, threatens to land on Mars a few days before the U.S. shuttle vehicle Ares Seven, washed-up ex-astronaut Travis Broussard, his brilliant but unconventional cousin, Jubal, and four kids from Florida decide to build their own private spaceship, Red Thunder, and get there first in this riveting SF thriller from Hugo and Nebula award winner Varley. Jubal has invented an amazing new power source, the Squeezer, which provides enough thrust to get them to Mars in a mere three days. While the Chinese and other Americans head to Mars the long way, the team works feverishly to build a spaceworthy craft, because although they all want Americans to land on Mars first, a more pressing reason for their visit to the red planet arises. Jubal has discovered a potentially disastrous design flaw in Ares Seven, which has Travis's ex-wife aboard. With a plausible cover story, a lot of help and a raided trust fund, Red Thunder gets built. Will its creators evade the feds who keep nosing around? Will they launch? Will they beat the Chinese to Mars? Can they save Ares Seven? Do you have to ask? In the end, they put their lives on the line, proving that Everyman can be a hero, too. With hilarious, well-drawn characters, extraordinary situations presented plausibly, plus exciting action and adventure, this book should do thunderously well.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Ace Hardcover; 1 edition (April 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441010156
• ISBN-13: 978-0441010158
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,333,754 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I haven't enjoyed a book this much in a long time, April 7, 2003

By 

Kevin Murphy (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Red Thunder (Hardcover)

This book is a departure for John Varley, which he pulls off impressively. It has the feel of the later (non-juvenile)Heinlein "juveniles" (particularly Tunnel In the Sky), and this is obviously not an accident -- a number of references to Heinlein's work are scattered throughout, and I'm not sure I found them all. As in "Jubal, this is Manny my best friend."

The story is simple and outrageous -- 4 diverse twenty-year-olds stumble across a drunkard ex-astronaut, who just happens to have an eccentric genius cousin, who just happens to have invented the perfect space drive (an energy-producing device seemingly of infinite efficiency). For a number of reasons, it seems like a good plan for them to surreptitiously build a spaceship and go to Mars, hoping to beat the competing Chinese and American missions already on the way.

Of course, it's never that simple, and several varieties of black hats and paranoia impede their attempt, things go wrong, people need rescuing, but all is right, and more than right, in the end.

If you're looking for deep meaning or angst, look elsewhere. If you want a book to ENJOY they way you did when you were reading "Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" or "Double Star", go buy this book.

A fine book for hopeful people of all ages.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Far too good to leave to the kids., May 20, 2003

By 

Doug D. Eigsti (Colorado Springs, Colorado United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Red Thunder (Hardcover)

Based on the dust jacket blurb I would not have cracked the spine had not the name John Varley been on the cover. The description just does not sound interesting. But because it was a Varley book I sought out the book immediately, and was not disappointed; for it is this very fact that the plot does not thrill that makes you appreciate how masterful Varley is at telling a story.

Unlike his other novels, which are set in exotic locales, such as Saturn's rings or Luna's underground disneylands, that have an attraction all their own, Varley has chosen to set RT largely in Florida's redneck country. It is as if he is intentionally breaking form with his other locales. Although, on the surface, it may seem mundane this book gives nothing away to his other, more ostentatious, efforts, such as his Gaea trilogy, or the baroque Eight Worlds stories. It just doesn't seem to matter what the subject, Varley is able to engage the reader sublimely. Despite my ambivalence to the plot, I found myself, in the midst of reading, marveling at how enthralled I was by a novel that did not contain what I have come to regard as essential Varley elements. RT showcases his knack for characterization without any distractions. For this reason RT may be his most accomplished performance, demonstrating that his typical shock and awe techniques are just so much window dressing disguising the fact that he is a supreme storyteller.

The characters are so expertly drawn that the reader finds himself becoming pulled into the story regardless of the initial appeal of the story line. One finds himself empathizing with the characters and then, by association, becoming involved in the sequence of events simply because the characters care about what is happening. Told in first person narrative, from the perspective of Manny Garcia, the reader first becomes attached to the protagonist through just a few key scenes that anyone with a childhood fondness for the power and the glory of manned space flight will immediately succumb. Manny is a likable guy that underachievers everywhere will relate to. Once that has been accomplished it is inevitable that his close friends will become your friends, and then their passion for the project becomes infectious, and you find yourself suddenly and unexpectedly rooting for the cast of characters, working with them on the project, and wishing you could be a part of the adventure yourself. It is really quite an event; to watch disconnectedly as you are transformed from a skeptic to a fan in the course of a few written pages. I try to be mindful of this as I recommend this book to others, avoiding plot synopses in favor of an emphasis upon the characterization and wit.

Then, of course, there is Varley's trademark humor; another way that Varley pulls you in, makes you a part of the story. You know how, in life, you are drawn to the people that can make you laugh through the hard times. When life gives you lemons you make lemon-aid, or in Varley terms, when life's problems cause you to pilot a space shuttle a little too drunk and shoot a hole in your windshield with your illegal colt 45 to suck out the fire in the cockpit so you can crash-land into a herd of water buffalo in the African outback, you make it into a water buffalo barbecue and force NASA to pin a medal on your chest (35.3). He manages to coax a smile even in the most somber occasions; like when Manny is forced to plaster over bullet holes in one of his family's motel rooms so that the guests wouldn't be alarmed and their half-star Michelin rating would not be endangered (44.-4). Or when Dak's estranged mother capitalizes on his new found fame by announcing to the press that, "She was praying for Dak's safety and appearing nightly at the Riviera Room in Charleston South Carolina (317.-1)." This kind of wit is rare and fulfills the desire of many to be able to take life's struggles in stride. His characters don't take themselves too seriously, but they do make the best of things, and make you want to be there, to become part of their cordial intimacy. His characters may have problems, but they have a rousing good time in the midst of them, and they have each other to keep them company. Varley is supremely optimistic, and it is contagious.

RT is a simple story expertly told. Were it not for the finely crafted characters one might be tempted to label this as a juvenile novel. Not that it is childish or immature; rather, it is so good that aspiring writers would be well advised to read it. It is not a complex tale, so readers of varying skill can profit from the reading. The plot is reminiscent of one of Heinlein's juveniles: The protagonist is a youth just out of adolescence, who stumbles upon the invention of the century. He and his friends capitalize on this invention and embark on the adventure of a lifetime. But it is there that the comparison of RT with other juvenile novels makes its departure; for though its protagonists are young and brash, RT is always in control, masterfully enveloping the reader with prose whose simplicity and clarity belies its impact upon the reader. It does have a childlike quality that one remembers fondly from reading books in youth. Like Huckleberry Finn it is accessible to children of all ages, but far too good to leave to the kids. Read it to get a taste of Varley's quality, but brace yourself, his other works, although every bit as good, are not nearly so tame.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars John Varley's "Rocketship Galileo", July 31, 2003

By 

W. H. Jamison, Jr. (Burien, Washington United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Red Thunder (Hardcover)

I've always loved Robert Heinlein's "Rocketship Galileo". Sure, it's the weakest of his juveniles, since he was just learning to write for that market. But it is the first Heinlein novel I ever read at the tender age of seven and for my money it is still the best damned Atomic Nazi's on the Moon SF novel ever written. So it was with great pleasure that I read John Varley's "Red Thunder". "Red Thunder" is set in the near future, our protagonists are Manny, Dak, Kelly, Travis, Alicia and Jubal who manage to take a breakthrough in physics discovered by the brilliant but wildly impractical Jubal and turn it into a working space ship. The book reads like an updated "Rocketship Galileo" except the characters drink, get laid and deal with a far more realistic world and problems than Heinlein's foursome ever did. Buy this book, sit back and enjoy the ride, it will make you wish that Varley were a more prolific writer.