Red Thunder - John Varley Book Review

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Review Summary

Ace, April 2003, 23.95, 416 pp.
ISBN 0441010156

In the not too distant future, NASA has invented space technology used by Ares Seven to travel to Mars, but it will land two weeks after the Chinese make the first red planet landing with people aboard. Manny and Dak, two college students, want to become astronauts more than anything else and they get to meet former astronaut Travis Bussard when they almost run over him in their jeep. Travis was drummed out of NASA because he was an alcoholic and he doesn't intend to change that condition until four young men and women give him a reason to remain sober.

Travis's cousin Jubal, an idiot savante, invents a new form of energy that when inserted onto a spaceship, can take the crew to Mars in under a week. Jubal wants America to be the first country to walk on Mars. Manny, his girlfriend Kelly, Dak and his girlfriend Alicia agree with him. Travis thinks they are all crazy but helps them build a ship that will take them to Mars when Jubal informs him that there is a fault in Ares Seven that destroy the ship before it lands. Travis doesn't want that to happen because his ex-wife, the custodial parent of his children, is on board the Ares Seven.

John Varley has written a first rate science fiction novel starring five unlikely heroes who end up doing the country proud. Jubal, the creator of the space drive, takes pleasure in simple things even though his patents are making him billions of dollars. RED THUNDER would make a great movie because it has plenty of action, romance and suspense. This work will appeal to fans of Robert Heinlein's more sophisticated works.

Harriet Klausner

Harriet Klausner, Resident Scholar

Detailed literary breakdown of Red Thunder

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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot

Composition of Book
Descript. of chases or violence - 10%
planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 20%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 30%
Descript. of society, phenomena (tech), places - 40%

Tone of book - suspenseful (sophisticated fear)
FANTASY or SCIENCE FICTION? - science fiction story
Explore/1st contact/ enviro story Yes
Plotlets: - primitive/present day space voyage
Tech./$$$/Info hunt Yes
Stealing/recovering/destroying - method of transportation
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Inventing-of-item story? Yes

Main Character
Identity: - Male
Profession/status: - fighter (air/space) pilot
Age: - 40's-50's
How sensitive is this character? - middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - very athletic

Main Adversary
Identity: - none

Setting
Which planet? - Mars
Earth setting: - dinosaur times
Takes place on Earth? Yes
Not Earth, in Solar System? Yes

Style
Person? - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - no torture/death
scientific jargon? (SF only) - a moderate amount of scientific explanation
How much dialogue? - significantly more dialog than descript

Most similar books to Red Thunder
Empty Cities of the Full Moon by Howard V. Hendrix
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Contact by Carl Sagan
Picoverse by Robert A. Metzger
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s).

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