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Red Thunder (The Thunder and Lightning Series) by [John Varley]

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John Varley

Red Thunder (The Thunder and Lightning Series) Kindle Edition

by John Varley (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Book 1 of 4: The Thunder and Lightning

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“The heart-pounding space race is on . . . in this riveting SF thriller” from the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author of Red Lightning and Rolling Thunder (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

As Chinese and US spacecraft compete to be the first to land on Mars, a former astronaut, his cousin, and four teens from Florida decide to take matters into their own hands. If they can quickly build their own space-worthy ship using scrap metal, appliances, and power tools, they have a chance to come from behind—thanks to an inventive new power source that can propel them to the Red Planet within three days. No guts, no glory . . .

“Varley’s great strength is in his characterizations, but in Red Thunder he also shows a strong sense of place. . . . If you are willing to simply fantasize about fleeing your office cubicle and becoming a heroic space explorer, this novel will fulfill your wishes.” —The Washington Post

“Fast paced . . . Engaging characters.” —Rocky Mountain News

“Full of little gems of wit and intelligence.” —Booklist

“[A] fun-filled adventure. Varley matches a serious literary style with an outrageous plot, and he’s one of the few writers in the field who could make it work.” —Chronicle

Print length

420 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Publication date

September 22, 2020
File size

4373 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF JOHN VARLEY

“Varley is a kind of latter-day, humanist Heinlein, someone who writes science fiction with imagination and verve.” —Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

“The short story is to science fiction what the seven-inch single was to rock: the most perfect yet the most mercilessly demanding form. My life-experience of John Varley’s stories has been that the great majority of them are quite literally unforgettable.” —William Gibson

“John Varley is the best writer in America.” —Tom Clancy

“[Varley is] one of science fiction’s most important writers.” —The Washington Post

“Superior science fiction.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Varley has earned the mantle of Heinlein.” —Locus

About the Author

John Varley is the author of the Gaea Trilogy (Titan, Wizard, and Demon), the Thunder and Lightning Series (Red Thunder, Red Lightning, Rolling Thunder, and Dark Lightning), Steel Beach, The Golden Globe, Mammoth, and many more novels. He has won both Nebula and Hugo Awards for his short fiction, and his short story “Air Raid” was adapted into the film Millennium. Varley lives in Vancouver, Washington. For more information, visit varley.net.

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

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From Booklist

The opening scene of this space-advocacy novel shows an ethnically diverse, mixed-gender cast of youngsters contemplating converting a railroad tank car into a spaceship. That is a clue as to what lies ahead: a "garage spaceship" story a la Heinlein's YA classic, Rocketship Galileo (1947). The young in question have rescued an alcoholic ex-astronaut whose reclusive, brain-damaged cousin has discovered a new power source capable of getting a spaceship to Mars. Since the Chinese are about to beat the American Mars expedition, everybody works with a will to build the proper ship. In due course, our heroes beat the Chinese, rescue the Americans, and enjoy a happy, affluent ending. Full of little gems of wit and intelligence if not of plausibility, this will be the first space-advocacy novel to appear after the Columbia tragedy, and no amount of revivified condescension toward the space program will probably keep space lovers from swarming for it. Libraries, be prepared. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

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. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08CZJFQ81
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy (September 22, 2020)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 22, 2020
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4373 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 420 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #485,635 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #314 in Humorous Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #523 in Humorous Science Fiction (Books)
- #1,199 in Space Exploration Science Fiction eBooks

Customer Reviews:
384 ratings

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4.4 out of 5

384 global ratings

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Patrick Shepherd

Space is Still an Adventure

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 3, 2003

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Those who became entranced with science fiction by way of Heinlein's juveniles will find in this book a return to that same sense of wonder, the feeling that man can accomplish almost anything he sets out to do, that everyday troubles can be overcome, that will make you proud to be a member of the human race.
Just how do you build a spaceship in your back yard (or even a rented warehouse)? As a starting point, it greatly helps if you have a power plant that can deliver effectively unlimited power, the invention of Jubal, Travis Broussard's highly eccentric cousin. Travis, as an alcoholic cashiered astronaut, provides both some of the necessary capital and the experience level to make such a project a possible reality. For labor, four `kids' (they're 20+ years old) who are motivated and highly intelligent, who already have some skill sets that are quite relevant to the task are quite willing to learn more. Building the ship occupies a good two thirds of the book, and some of the details of how it's done in a hurry-up, make it work (while really testing for safety) fashion make for fascinating reading. The actual flight of the Red Thunder, while still interesting, is not quite so fascinating, and the space rescue that the crew performs on an American attempt to reach Mars smacks a little bit of melodrama, but it had me turning pages till two in the morning.
The power plant device, the `Squeezer', is highly improbable, and violates quite a few principles of physics (as known today), but it is the basic element that both allows the space ship to become a reality, and due to its inherent power, drives the reasoning behind building the ship as a private enterprise, as such power, in the wrong hands, could become a nightmare. This helps drive one of the thematic messages of this book, an almost paranoid anti-government (of any stripe) stance, a reflection on the reality that all humans are not inherently good, kind, or peaceful. Offsetting this message are some others: people really can and often do help one another, people do better when they have a definite goal to work towards, your family is a major influence in your formation, but is not the only or final determiner of just what type of person you become.
Varley pays some definite homage to Heinlein here, with a plot line that is very much a re-working of Heinlein's Rocket Ship Galileo (Heinlein's first and probably his weakest juvenile), updated to today's world (and so becoming far more believable). There are more references to Heinlein in the character's names (Manny Garcia, Jubal) and John D. MacDonald (Travis, McGee and the Florida setting). This book is not technically a juvenile, but it has that same feel, and is readable by almost anyone over the age of fourteen or so (there are some references to sex and some portrayed family relationships that are probably not appropriate for younger readers).
The characters are well fleshed out, and the portrayed interpersonal relationships ring with veracity. It's easy to get very caught up in Manny's (the first-person narrator) life, his relationships with his mother, his girlfriend Kelly, his best friend Dak. A very fast and highly entertaining read, one that will forcibly remind you of just what a pleasure reading can be.
--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

3 people found this helpful

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Mal Warwick

A wacky tale by a master of hard SF

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 30, 2020

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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.

10 people found this helpful

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It's OK.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 16, 2022

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I bought this because I had just finished Mammoth and was so impressed with it that I thought I should try another John Varley book, but this book is no Mammoth. There is no interesting plot, no twists and nothing coming at you that you would not expect. Overall it is pretty predictable.

It's not bad. The characters are interesting enough, especially the real adults, but the four young people that are at the center of the story feel a bit shallow and not real. While there is always the possibility (and hope) of a new and cheap power source, the idea of being able to build a home made rocket in the short time they have, and produce something usable, does not feel realistic and the idea that it could be kept secret among all of the people in the plot just seems silly.

Still, if you can suspend your belief the book it is OK. No surprises here, no plot twists and no real mystery, but not much more to the story than the main plot.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

squashplayer

Not awful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 25, 2019

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Reasonable but oddly goes into a ton of detail about how the homemade spaceship is constructed but completely ignores issues like protection from heat of reentey, something any ten year old would know. And apart from one occasion, there isn’t any peril, none. Literally everything goes right for these guys. Considering what the book’s about this is unbelievable! But the characters are nice and an interesting topic

2 people found this helpful

Robert P. Shaw

A really terrible book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 11, 2015

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John Varley is the sort of author who would have great difficulty writing a turkey, but somehow he manages. I really can't work out why he wrote this awful, terrible book. I read various negative reviews prior to purchasing, but didn't believe them. I was wrong. This one deserves to be buried, sad to say.

2 people found this helpful

linzibop

Great book for a lover of the John Twelve Hawks Traveller Trilogy

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 2, 2014

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I was recommended this book to buy for my partner on a website where it recommended books based on others you like. I put in the John Twelve Hawks Traveller Trilogy and this was suggested. He loved it, I'll have to have a read myself!

wolf

Entertaining read for hard sci-fi fans

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on May 4, 2021

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The story is very interesting and entertaining. The individual characters have depths, which makes it even intriguing to follow the story. Technical details and story locations are well researched. Occasionally one gets the impression that a little bit of external lectoring or editing would have been beneficial for the flow of the story.

Lv scifi

Great read

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on July 10, 2021

Verified Purchase

It was worth the 5 stars.
Good cast of characters. Good storyline.
Interesting author.
Look forward to more of these books.

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