Variable Star
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The plot summary in this article or section is too long or detailed compared to the rest of the article. Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot. |
- For the astronomical object, see variable star.
| Variable Star | |
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| Author | Robert A. Heinlein & Spider Robinson |
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| Cover artist | Stephan Martiniere |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Tor Books |
| Publication date | September 19, 2006 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-7653-1312-X |
Variable Star is a 2006 novel written by Spider Robinson based on the surviving seven pages of an eight page 1955 novel outline by the late Robert A. Heinlein. It describes the coming of age of a young musician who signs on to the crew of a starship as a way of escaping from a failed romance.
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[edit] From Heinlein to Robinson
Robinson states in an appendix to the book that he was working from an outline that lacked an ending. He was specifically told by his publisher that they wanted him to write in his own style, not Heinlein's, and the abundance of profanity and puns makes it clear that this is not a Heinlein novel. The outline is almost exactly contemporaneous with Heinlein's juvenile novel Time for the Stars, and shares many of its details, such as the use of faster-than-light telepathic communication between twins. Although Heinlein apparently wrote the outline for Variable Star to be used, like Time for the Stars, as part of his Scribner's juvenile series, Robinson's realization deals with a variety of topics, including drugs and sexuality, that would have been completely unacceptable for a juvenile novel in 1955.
[edit] Setting
The book is set in a divergent offshoot of Heinlein's Future History; it contains many passing references to works by Heinlein and other authors. These references and plot elements are noted in parentheses.
Mars and Venus are both settled by men and have intelligent natives: Venerian dragons (Between Planets) and three legged Martians (Red Planet, Stranger in a Strange Land), there are cities "in Luna" (The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress) and on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn (Farmer in the Sky). The Moon was first reached by Leslie LeCroix, backed by D. D. Harriman (The Man Who Sold the Moon). The asteroids are also settled. But most of the solar system's forty-three billion are on Earth.
In Heinlein's Methuselah's Children, the starship New Frontiers left Earth with the Howard Families in 2136, returning in 2210. In this universe, the Howard Families either don't exist, or remain in masquerade. The New Frontiers has not yet returned as the story opens in 2286. It is presumed lost.
[edit] Plot
Eighteen-year-old aspiring musician and composer Joel Johnston has fallen in love with Jinny Hamilton, a student about his age. Both are orphans, and virtually penniless — though he is the son of a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and a farmer from Ganymede. He then learns his beloved is actually the granddaughter of the galaxy's richest man, Richard Conrad, head of the Conrad family, which controls a sizable fraction of the solar system's commerce. In a meeting at one of Jinny's homes, Joel learns that that the patriarch has already mapped out his future; he is to be groomed for a role in the family business, and to be a 'stud' for the family, to continue the dynasty. Preferring to pursue his own destiny, he leaves the estate with the help of Jinny's cousin, seven-year-old Evelyn Conrad.
He promptly goes on a massive bender. When he sobers up and learns that the scholarship he had been counting on to finance his further education has suspiciously fallen through, he signs onto the crew of RSS Charles Sheffield (presumably named in honor of mathematician, physicist and science fiction author Charles Sheffield), a starship headed to a distant star on a twenty-year (subjective time) voyage to establish a colony. It keeps in touch with Earth both by laser and by telepathy between close relatives (twins in most cases). Like many others, Joel has to make major emotional adjustments, and ends up seeing a professional healer, who helps him gain some insight into his psyche.
As a colonial with rare actual dirt farm experience, Joel works on the two agricultural decks with Zog, a Marsman, and Kathy. Joel is still getting over Jinny, but eventually goes on a date with Kathy, whom everyone seems to regard as the ideal compatible match for him. She, however, has recently gotten engaged to be in a plural marriage. (Like other Heinlein books, multiple forms of marriage exist.) He then proceeds to date a number of women, but with the exception of a brief, non-mutual infatuation with the woman to whom he loses his virginity, none of them are particularly serious.
He plays his music, mainly on the saxophone, and proves good enough that he is paid well to play twice a week. He eventually records an album, which become a best seller on Earth. Later, he is advised that a seemingly-worthless inheritance, shares in a lost starship (the New Frontier), has suddenly made him quite wealthy after the ship turns up. He upgrades his shared quarters.
Five years into the voyage, one of the ship's six relativists, who are essential to the running of the ship's quantum ramjet drive, is killed and another mentally incapacitated, leaving only four. Since a relativist can control the engine for at most six hours per day, this loss places a tremendous strain on the ones that remain, since the drive cannot be shut down without risking not being able to restart it.
The next year, disaster strikes. The sun has gone nova, contrary to all astrophysical theories, killing everyone in the solar system. (This makes it clear the book does not take place in any of Heinlein's other universes, with the possible exception of the short story "The Year of the Jackpot".) The scattered starships and few colonies are all that is left of humanity. The crew is completely devastated. Worse, a wavefront of deadly gamma radiation is following at lightspeed, threatening all the colonies. The crew is only able to warn one in time; the rest are doomed. Unable to endure the catastrophe, one of the relativists commits suicide. The three remaining relativists try valiantly, but the ramjet drive goes out in less than two weeks. The ship will not be able to stop at its destination; it will coast on by at 97.6% of the speed of light.
Later, the ship is overtaken by a faster-than-light vessel. It seems that Jinny married a genius scientist who developed a revolutionary drive. Unfortunately, there was only the one experimental starship; aboard are several Conrads, including the domineering Conrad of Conrad, Jinny, her husband, and Evelyn, who has aged much faster than Joel because of time dilation. She is now nineteen, and explains that she bullied her grandfather into coming to get him so that she could marry him. Conrad proposes an evacuation plan, shuttling people to the new colony planet nine people at a time. However, Joel realizes that the ship will never return, that Conrad only contacted them to get vitally needed supplies. The resulting confrontation leaves the plutocrat imprisoned and several people dead. The faster-than-light engine is transferred to the Sheffield, allowing the ship to complete its journey.
Joel and Evelyn marry, then proceed to warn each of the other colonies of the coming radiation wave. Joel decides to stay in space with his wife and child, rather than being planet-bound.
[edit] References
- Multiple references to the Interregnum of the Prophets and to Nehemiah Scudder, the First Prophet, most notably appearing in the Heinlein novel If This Goes On. The post-Interregnum period appears to have a culture and technology consistent with Heinlein's Future History, with the exception that the Howard Families are absent (or still in hiding).
- Relativist Solomon Short (a character conceived by David Gerrold for interstitial aphorisms in his Chtorr novels) is a play on Lazarus Long, one of Heinlein's iconic characters. Similarly, Jinny's husband Andrew Jackson Conrad may be Andrew Jackson Libby (taking on the Conrad surname, as is common in influential families); Libby is the inventor of an "inertialess" drive in Methuselah's Children. The captain of the Sheffield, James Bean, may be a reference to Jim Baen.
- The relativists who power the Sheffield's engine appear in an earlier Robinson story, though not under that title. The main character of the story is a relativist, who also invents time travel.
- Several characters appear to be Tuckerizations of science fiction and fantasy authors, including George R.R. Martin. Heinlein's wife was called Virginia (Ginny), so Jinny could be another link. Robinson's own wife is named Jeanne, or "Jeannie".
- Instantaneous communication between telepathic twins is also used in Time for the Stars.
- The character is from the farm colony of Ganymede, and his home—Lermer City—is a reference to Bill Lermer in Farmer in the Sky.
- Early in the novel, Jinny says that "after a dance like that, a couple ought to get married". This is nearly the wording and exactly the spirit of Zebediah Carter's proposal to Dejah Thoris Burroughs in The Number of the Beast.
- The term "Conrad of Conrad" parallels "Rudbek of Rudbek" in Citizen of the Galaxy; both refer to the male head of an inconceivably wealthy family.
- The New Frontiers was the name of the ship that Lazarus Long stole to allow the Howard Families to escape Earth in Methuselah's Children. In Variable Star, it is a missing starship whose miraculous return to Earth gives Joel a large financial windfall.
- A passenger on the Sheffield has a Russian name, comes from Luna, is called a "Loonie", and speaks in the clipped manner of Loonies from The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.
- At one point, Joel has a (drug-induced) vision of Jinny and says "Her eyes were hazel, stoned, rolling," which refers to Hazel Stone, who appears in The Rolling Stones, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and other novels.
- "Sheffield"—the name of the ship—is also an alias of Lazarus Long used in Methuselah's Children and Time Enough For Love.
- The quotes that begin chapters seventeen and eighteen are attributed to "Anson McDonald", on the occasion of "Anson McDonald Day". Anson McDonald is one of Heinlein's pseudonyms, and the afterword states that these quotes are actually Robert Heinlein's, delivered on Robert Heinlein Day.
- Joel meets Evelyn when she is a little girl, but time passes more slowly for him and he marries her as an adult. This is similar to Dan and Ricky in The Door Into Summer, and Tom Bartlett and his great-grandniece Vicky Bartlett in Time for the Stars.
- Joel is also treated similarly to Dan when he first attempts to go on his voyage (or going on a long trip to nowhere, whatever), that is, he is given medicine to sober him up and turned away.
- The characters Richie and Jules are references to the TV series Trailer Park Boys which has the main characters
RichyRicky and Julian. Jules, like Trailer Park Boys character Julian, carries a drink at all times and when the two are apprehended they give their names as "Corey Trevor and Jay Rock", other Trailer Park Boys characters. Finally their legal council is "Lahey", yet another Trailer Park Boys character. - Joel meets his first date on board when he is playing music and she accompanies him without him seeing her. This is similar to how Jake meets his wife in Robinson's Callahan stories.
- One of the last lines of the book is a quote from Tennyson's Ulysses:
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- ... my purpose holds
- To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
- Of all the western stars, until I die.
- ... my purpose holds
- The last Heinlein novel published in his life was To Sail Beyond the Sunset, which included and drew its title from this quote.
[edit] External links
- Official Site
- Audio Review at The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast
- Review at SFFWorld.com
- Review at We Read Science Fiction
- Variable Star publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
