Rolling Thunder

I resisted Varleys Thunder series for a long time, mostly because I thought the initial premise was plain silly. Little did I realize that if Heinlein were writing YA fiction in the 21st Century he wouldnt be able to out do what Varley has produced with this title and its two predecessors. I started in the middle (still need to read the first one) and loved it, just finished this one and loved it more. I was totally smitten with Varleys Podkayne and the innumerable references to Heinleiniana, including Manny Garcia and Kelly Strickland (Manuel Garcia OKelly-Davis, anyone?), a little brother named Mike (Mycroft, perhaps), a genius name Jubal (Broussard, not Harshaw), a farmer in the sky, a (possible) tunnel in the sky, the Red Planet, between planets, and citizens of the galaxy. Me oh my! And, yes, I agree with Varleys Podkaynes assessment of Heinleins Podkayne -- what a mean old man! Richard Jasper Oneonta, NY

I cant say Im a John Varley fan based on this book and the previous two in the series. The biggest problem is that the plot feels lazy. You can tell that when he sat down to write this, there were moments when he thought to himself: Eh, I dont really want to research that, or, I dont have the energy to explain how the character developed here. And then at the very end, youve got all (and I repeat *all) of the main plot points still unexplained and you get a lazy I dont know answer to all of them. The result is that the characters dont develop the way they could, and you could care less about them. The result is that it feels less like a sci-fi and more like a dry historical document with a replaceable sci-fi backdrop.

Varley is perhaps not at his strongest here, given his virtuosity in the Titan series, but he nevertheless provides an entertaining space romp with some unusual and truly engaging characters. There are enough plot kinks to keep you interested in our heroines fate (with the unlikely name of Podkayne), and the end run heads us off to a feel-good launch ramp for the next novel (surely theres another in the writing as we speak....) After a long hiatus between this and his Titan series, Im delighted to see Mr. Varley is back in the saddle. I give it 4 stars for decent characterization, continued use of ingenious gadgetry developed in a prior novel, a reasonably complex plot, and for not taking itself too seriously. All in all, a worthy, happy read.

As a longtime fan of Johns work I grabbed this book and consumed it voraciously. Having read the other books in his Mars trilogy (Red Thunder, Red Lightning) I had thought them as a separate thought or arc from his Nine planets stories but no, these books are defiantly at the heart of those earlier works. Now if he could find a way to tie in his Gaia trilogy.......

I have now finished reading the story of the Garcia-Strickland family. And it was pretty good. Not great, however. I liked the twist abouth how this generation of Garcias ended up in a space career, but I sometimes wonder at the likelihood of such a person being able to accomplish so much in such a major crisis. IOW, this book stamped finished to the storyline, but left me somewhat unsatisfied. Red Thunder was the kind of book which grabbed the reader by the throat and refused to let go until the reader reached the last page. Red Lightning, while less aggressive, carried on the storyline and clearly was a logical extension of what happened in RT. Rolling Thunder, however... Dont get me wrong. John Varley is an excellent writer. And his ability to create believable characters and realistic dialog are well-honed. By and large, his plot carried itself well. Its just that things were proceeding along right up until... And its that until which, in my opinion, doomed Rolling Thunder to decent and adequate status rather than superb and excellent conclusion. He chose at one point to have a character - if you can call an alien life form which no one can communicate with character - do something which totally changes the tone of the book from space adventure to end-of-humanity suspense. It would be fine if there were a Bruce Willis character, who, with his team of plucky oil-rig workers, came out and put paid to the threat, but Varley let the E-O-H crisis continue unabated. Im not saying that all crises in real life end on a happy note, but given the general upbeat, we can solve this if we put our minds to it, approach of books one and two, the were gonna slink off with our tails between our legs finish simply didnt end the series right.

Book 3 of the series was the weakest. Red Thunder was good, and Red Lightening the 2nd in the series was the best, in my opinion.