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Variable Star by Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson
01/11/2006 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: TOR/SciFi Channel. 318 page hardback. Price: $24.95 (US), $32.95 (CAN). ISBN: 0-765-31312-X. Buy Variable Star in the USA - or Buy Variable Star in the UK  check out website: check out website: www.tor.com
I tend to have very mixed feelings about resurrected story outlines from deceased authors brought back today by living writers. Most of the time, if they have been shelved earlier in their careers there must have been a reason. When it comes to Robert Anson Heinlein, his writing changed quite significantly over the years and as this plot comes from 1955 when he was coming towards the end of juvenile Science Fiction, he may have been thinking it was time to move away from them.
Certainly, this story has none of the trappings of his later work where you can usually spot a character based on his own personality assisting the hero gain some vision of what he is about. How much of the original notes denoted sexuality, let alone homosexuality as used here, would have been used in a juvenile version is hard to say. Certainly, Spider Robinson is putting it a few years above total juvenile even if this reviewer is not sure if that would be the original intention.
Student musician Joel Johnston discovers his finance Jinny Hamilton is in fact Jinny Conrad, the grand-daughter of Richard Conrad who owns a large part of the Solar System. When he discovers he is going to be forced to give up his saxophone career for a life of business, Johnston flees on a colony ship on a thirty year trip. It is to this that much of the story concentrates in a first person narrative. To say too much more about what happens on this journey will spoil surprises for those who want to read this book. Along the way there are references to modern times that Heinlein wouldn't have had access to in 1955 let alone in 1988, the year of his death.
Spider Robinson, in his afterward, explains how he got the assignment, his problems with the ending and a lot of suggestions from other Heinlein fans of the professional persuasion in getting it polished.
I read this story with little in the way of expectation which is probably the best way to avoid disappointments in any book. The plot is covered well but increasingly as I read, I found the emotional content lacking. There wasn't enough heart in Joel Johnston himself. It is almost as though he is distanced himself from events which considering how horrific is gets towards the end of the book is a little disconcerting.
I can't help but feel that Heinlein would have invested a lot more emotions than not much at all. Considering also that Johnston is a saxophone player, other than a bit about chords towards the end, you would have thought his rhythms from that would have entered more into how it shaped the way he saw his life. If anything, he tended to come out rather plainer than I would have expected.
I suspect the Heinlein fans will buy this book to see a resurrected plot but be wary of expecting too much from it.
GF Willmetts
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