I couldn't get into this book when I was little- I think because I just didn't understand Times Square, newsstands, subways, etc. Too many concepts too foreign to me too young.
It was a cute little book to read now. Not much too it but normal kids book- talking animals, but still charming. I wonder if kids still read this book.

Feb. - March 2008, audiobook

Story about learning how to be yourself and how to come to terms with being raped. Also deals with anorexia and living in a family where emotions are suppressed. A lot of music and some to do with anger management and the radio.

Just when we all thought the Robert Heinlein canon was complete, along come notes and an outline for an unfinished manuscript that his literary estate decided to have completed and published. This is a novel begun more than fifty years ago, when one of its coauthors was seven years old, and completed more than thirteen years after the death of the other coauthor.


It's also a pretty darn good book. It's not true Heinlein, but it's not a cheap imitation of Robert Heinlein either. Spider Robinson was specifically told not to try and 'do the literary equivalent of a Rich Little impersonation of Robert Heinlein.' He took Heinlein's outline and turned it into something very special indeed: a story set in Heinlein's well-crafted Future History but not necessarily a typical Heinlein piece. So we get the universe populated by Venerian dragons and three-legged Martian mystics, farmers on Ganymede and cities built deep inside the Moon, and fusion-powered torchships plying the spaceways throughout the solar system and beyond.


And then Robinson goes and destroys it all. The 'Variable Star' of this story turns out to be our own Sun. For reasons unknown, the Sun goes nova and incinerates the entire solar system, leaving behind a few dozen far-flung interstellar colonies who are themselves in jeopardy once the wavefront from the explosion reaches them.


Just ahead of the wavefront is the CSS Charles Sheffield (named for another of the few authors who quite possibly could have played in Heinlein's universe with credibility); aboard is Joel Johnston, a musician who narrowly escaped marrying into the uber-rich Conrad family and having the remainder of his existence--and his identity--dictated to him. Six years out on its way to Brasil Novo, a colony world 40 light-years from Earth, the Sheffield has already had its share of problems.


Since the ship is traveling just below the speed of light, and the wavefront is traveling at the speed of light, death seems all but a certainty for the colonists. Or is it? Joel's business with the Conrad family (and his ex-fiancee Jinny) is not yet finished. They have the means to rescue him, but Joel's survival may come with too dear a price. Even the Devil gives something back in exchange for your soul. The Conrads aren't entirely as generous.


Most of the story is constructed around Joel's decision to depart Earth forever and the society that he helps build aboard the colony ship; the actual payoff comes in the last third of the book. Joel is anything but the typical omnicompetent Heinlein hero: he's a very gifted musician and was brought up as a farmer (one of an ironic few who are being sent to found an agricultural colony) but he makes serious technical and interpersonal errors that impact his life and the lives of others. Indeed, this character (unlike most Heinlein characters) is running from his mistakes rather than confronting them. Ultimately he must confront himself in order to ensure not only his survival but the survival of the human race.


It would be a mistake to say that Heinlein shelved Variable Star completely; several of the ideas he developed in 1955 showed up in later novels. The use of instantaneous telepathy as a means of interstellar communication appears in Time for the Stars (1956). The notion of time travel (in the form of relativistic time contraction in this case) to bring an older man and a young girl close enough in age to become lovers first appears in The Door Into Summer (1957) and shows up in many other Heinlein stories. The spunky young female protagonist who thinks nothing of giving the finger to the system shows up first and best in 1963's Podkayne of Mars. Even Johnston's rebellion against the Conrad clan to make his own future, though hardly unique in literature, is echoed in 1959's Starship Troopers. Many, many other ideas in Heinlein's later work can be found in Variable Star.


There are updates from the 1950's incorporated into the story, but not as consistently as I would have hoped. This is still a universe where Leslie Lecroix, not Neil Armstrong, was the first man on the Moon, and where Jupiter's moons are habitable (the radiation environment at Ganymede would fry anything and anyone living on its surface; no hint is given of alternate techonology that would have permitted colonization). The moving highways Heinlein predicted would replace the interstate highway system in the late 20th century are still in use more than a hundred years after Heinlein's original history predicted their obsolesence. Heinlein's famous three-legged transcendent Martians (as seen in 1949's Red Planet and 1961's Stranger in a Strange Land) and Venerians from 1951's Between Planets exist, but contact with them seems to have had no impact on human philosophy, theology, or politics whatsoever. Indeed, the Martians--who had destroyed the planet now known as the Asteroid Belt and had contemplated destroying the Earth just for the sake of art--may even have been responsible for the whole thing, but nobody considers that idea.


The 9/11 attacks still happen and the United States responds as in our timeline. This does eventually put an ultra-fundamentalist government in charge of the United States as in Heinlein's original Future History (especially in Revolt in 2100) and the consequences are about as Heinlein had developed. However, I have a hard time believing that Osama bin Laden and Valentine Michael Smith--or the beings who raised him--could exist in the same universe. Osama would find himself sent 'elsewhere' as soon as he proposed someone hijack a plane and fly it into a building. For that matter, the security apparatus of the United States and other nations seems much more efficient in Heinlein's Future History: at its best, the United States has become a near-dictatorship, causing the best and brightest to leave for the stars. At its worst, a homegrown hybrid of Ayatollah Khomeini and Jerry Falwell is in charge and people can be made to disappear. I doubt al Qaeda could even function on a meaningful level in such an environment.


The inclusion of 9/11 was probably necessary but seemed forced. I would have had an easier time believing that Nehemiah Scudder's operatives caused the attack and framed a foreign group, thus setting the stage for him to take control of the country. The same analogies Robinson drew to support the point he makes (brilliantly) could have been drawn while staying more consistent with the Future History.


This is the book's biggest weakness. Robinson has put a great deal of work into coming up with a convincing retcon but doing so weakens much of Heinlein's original vision. It's a good enough book on its own, but how much is Robinson and how much is Heinlein? An annotated version, including Heinlein's original eight-page outline, would be very welcome. Shared visions are great, but knowing who's contributing what is even better--I'm inclined to read more of Spider Robinson's considerable body of original work because of this book.


Is it worth reading? Definitely. It's not Heinlein but it is Heinlein's playground. And it's good to know that the playground is still open. But anyone expecting to hear the Master's voice as more than a whisper into another talented writer's ear is going to be disappointed. Approach this book on its own merits. The vision persists even if the voice has been silenced.

This is the emotional journey of Ansset, not just a "Songbird" but one of the most talented to ever leave the Songhouse, which is above rule by even the Emperor. Songbirds are the best at a kind of "music therapy", and they are only assigned to the most deserving of individuals. The Emperor of all of the worlds goes to the Songhouse to request a songbird, but of course this is very irregular, because Songbirds must be deserved. Amazingly, he proves the Songhouse wrong, and shows that he is deserving, and now the Songhouse must provide the songbird best suited to him.

A highly unusual book. Some parallels to Ender's Game are apparent, such as Ansset's unusual intelligence for his age, and the isolation he experiences as an anomaly in the Songhouse. Overall an interesting read, although it does have some disturbing moments.

This book was fabulous. Great connections to music, emotional without being sappy and above all it is sincere. I laughed. I cried. It was better than Cats.

Finished 1/8/07

awesome recanting of stories from those directly involved in the punk scene from it's roots to it's demise. hillarious as well!