Red Thunder

I got some books under my belt now, so lets start checking them out this week:

Red Thunder by John Varley is a pretty high concept book. Basically, what would happen if some average, normal people built a space vehicle?

The book takes place in the near future where the US and China are both attempting to get to Mars. It starts with a group of teens out joy riding on the beach when all of a sudden, they run over a drunk man. He survives by being pushed into the sand and the teens decide to drive him home. Turns out he is an infamous astronaut and the kids (unexplicably) befriend him.

They soon meet his idiot-savant genius of a brother who has invented what is essentially a magical device, kinda like a multi-dimensional bubble that can be resized to compress or inflate matter essentially infintely. This is an interesting concept and I can see how this can lead to amatuer spaceflight. And free energy!

Anyway, the brother also realizes that the American engine sending the astronauts to Mars is defective and will likely not complete the mission safely. So, what's the best solution? Well, build a spaceship and go up there to recue them themselves obviously. And along the way why not stop at Mars to get there before the Chinese?

Much of the story is far-fetched, the relationships are harder to believe than the science, but it's all in good fun. I enjoyed this book quite a bit and had fun with it once I got over the relationships and coincidences that didn't make a lot of sense. John Varley is kind of known for his pop-scif-fi and it shows. It was fun and a quick read. Check it out!



I will be at a funeral tomorrow, so I don;t know if I will have a Friday post, but I'll try. See you later!