Variable Star (Heinlein and Robinson): Book Review

Variable Star is a novel written by Spider Robinson based on an outline written by the late (and great) Robert A Heinlein in 1955 – it is the first in a series of novels.

When 18 year old Joel Johnston, an aspiring musician and son of a Nobel prize winning physicist falls in love with Jinny Hamilton, he really doesn’t understand how his life may change. As Jinny realizes that she loves Joel and decides that she must marry him, she reveals that she is Jinnia Conrad, granddaughter to Richard Conrad, who also happens to be humanities richest man. It turns out that he is being groomed not only to be Jinny’s husband and ‘stud’ as he sees himself, but also as the future inheritor of the family business. Whether it is cold feet, or a realization that he must pursue his own destiny, he joins the crew of the RSS Charles Sheffield and heads to a distant star to help establish a colony.

Thus begins the voyage of Joel Johnston into the unknown; as unexpected events transpire, fate seems to play an important role in his journey to the new colony and towards his destiny……

While this book is attributed to Heinlein, and has all the inherent trademarks of the ‘stellar’ books he has written, it has Spider Robinson’s stamp on it from the first page. What you get is a humor infused examination of human nature that is almost written in a conversational tone. Somehow, although it isn’t particularly fast paced, it soon presents its intriguing story and gets you very interested in all of the characters from page one. As you meet some of the diverse characters you know that they all play a part and thus the twists that occur are perhaps not as surprising as they could be, even though they still come as a shock.

It’s a story about coming-of-age, while still being an exceptionally good space oriented exploration novel – it has many great qualities and although it is pun filled, and written in a style that will make you laugh out loud often, still has an underlying seriousness that makes you think about the consequences of star travel and also underlines the peril that mankind potentially could be.

I have read Robinson’s Callahan series and this bears a little resemblance to it; it has a similar conversational tone, and somehow makes the reader instantly comfortable with the fact that the technologies inherent to the book are not invented yet and may never be.

Robinson has an amazing story-telling ability and he often has been compared with Heinlein in the past. It’s obviously a Heinlein idea, but Robinson has made it his own, and although it is marketed as a Heinlein novel, Robinson really should take credit for bringing the story to life and infusing it with his own style while still being true to the overall Heinlein tenet.

Overall this is one of the better science fiction stories I have read; as an examination of human nature it is excellent, but more so as an exciting and thrilling science fiction novel, suffice to say that Heinlein would have been proud to have his name attached to this excellent book.