Red Thunder

By John Varley

Seven suburban misfits are constructing a spaceship out of old tanker cars. The plan is to beat the Chinese to Mars--in under four days at three million miles an hour. It would be history in the making if it didn't sound so insane.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Apr 27, 2004
• ISBN: 9781101656051

John Varley

John Varley is the author of the Gaea Trilogy (Titan, Wizard, and Demon), the Thunder and Lightning Series (Red Thunder, Red Lightning, Rolling Thunder, and Dark Lightning), Steel Beach, The Golden Globe, Mammoth, and many more novels. He has won both Nebula and Hugo Awards for his short fiction, and his short story “Air Raid” was adapted into the film Millennium. Varley lives in Vancouver, Washington. For more information, visit varley.net.

Reviews for Red Thunder

[jamespurcell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Quick, enjoyable read.

[chrisriesbeck · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Red Thunder is the Heinlein juvenile for those who, like me, would like to like Have Spacesuit Will Travel or Rocketship Galileo, but find them too annoying. A bunch of young adults -- adult enough to have sex fairly frequently -- and a washed-up astronaut build a spaceship and take it to Mars, thanks to the basically magical free energy invention of the astronaut's brilliant but multi-damaged brother Jubal. That magical device was clearly included to tell the reader "this is for fun, not for real." While characterizations here are not deep, they are solid and consistent. The primary voice has Heinlein's competent hero down pat. Thankfully, the adults, while competent beyond us mere mortals, do not include an infinitely wise pontificating author in disguise, as Heinlein did. The book goes on a little too long, and ends a little too tidily, but all in all it did just what it was intended to do.Recommended!

[tobinelliott · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I really wanted to enjoy this novel.

It's been years since I've read any Varley, but I remember the previous stuff with fondness. The Titan/Wizard/Demon trilogy, Millenium (which was turned into such a shitty movie with Cheryl Ladd), and a couple of short story collections. I remember loving them all.

I was in the Dominican Republic last week, I'd blasted through all the reading material I'd brought with me, and they had a library of used books you could donate to or pull from. Most of it was stuff I'd never read, much of it stuff I simply couldn't read due to a foreign language. It boiled down to one book, and I'll say right now, I was pleased that it was a Varley novel, more pleased that it was one I hadn't read, even more pleased that it was the start of a four-book cycle.

I started reading it, then researched it a bit when it wasn't coming out as expected, and that's when I figured out it was an homage to the old Robert Heinlein adventures. Fair enough.

Except...no.

Heinlein was great for his time, and he single-handedly got me interested in SF. He was the gateway author for my discovery of Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Frederick Pohl, Larry Niven, and just a ton more. But through those others, I also outgrew the dated boys' adventures of Heinlein.

And here, Varley gamely tries to update that for the near future. The problem is, it's a different world. And it's a world of difference in today's readers, as well. A story where people happen to just meet the exact person they need to meet at the time (two teens want to go to space...so they meet an astronaut...who has a cousin who's a genius that just happened to solve the world's energy issues and find a way to get to Mars in a week...and the teens friends happen to either be rich or have studied medicine...and another cousin's a welder...I could go on and on...)

And this motley crew? Yeah, they basically come together artificially quickly, solve any problems that happen to be lingering (minor things like alcoholism or a failing business...), never have anything beyond a minor furrowed-brow disagreement, and a common goal of being the first Americans on Mars.

Honestly, there's just so much wrong with the execution of this novel...it's not awful, but it's sure as hell not good. I even switched over from the hard copy novel to audiobook, just to get through it. Didn't really help.

The problem I see with this is, any intelligent adult should be saying, "Oh come on!" every few pages or so. Any kid 15 and under might get bored with some of the science, and mildly titillated at the teen sex that happens fairly often, and anyone in between will simply be bored because there's so much better SF out there.

Not good.

[steve_walker-348810 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful plot, great action, and characters....well ...The characters come on a little too strong. Varley pays homage to fellow writer Carl Hiaasen by trying to write like Hiaasen and with Hiassen like characters. The result is a very,very mixed bag. The crisis point of the novel and the ending are stretched to far. The ending is too much of a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too approach with a successful landing, departure, and a space rescue as well. There are better SF novels about getting to Mars.

[cajela_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Woohoo! A terrific Heinleinesque romp, with a group of teens banding together with an idiot savant backwoods physics genius and his ex-astronaut caretaker and cousin to build a spaceship and go to Mars. Set in a near-future Florida, it's plenty of fun.Varley is a very engaging writer, and the story is well paced. Plenty of small dramas along the way and entertaining characters and settings keep it moving.It's a fantasy world, though. The good guys are just too smart, hard-working, sensible and beautiful to be true. Meh. It's too much fun for the lack of social realism to be a real problem. Escapist novel is escapist.

[marysgirl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Multiple Hugo and Nebula award winner John Varley's first novel of the new century harks back to an earlier era. [Red Thunder] is an homage to Heinlein's juveniles, but it also borrows the "can do" attitude of young folks from such classics as the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and the Andy Hardy movies. But instead of "let's put on a show in the barn," it's "let's build a spaceship in the warehouse." What's to stop them? Men-in-black government types? A sleazy PI? Lack of written permission from their parents?The story is deceptively simple. In the near future, two young couples run across (literally) ex-astronaut Travis Broussard while joy riding at night on the Florida beach. They befriend the reclusive alcoholic and his eccentric inventor cousin Jubal. In the meantime, a Chinese mission to Mars will land ahead of the American Ares Seven, whose crew just happens to include Broussard's ex-wife, the mother of his two children. Add a fatal flaw in the Ares Seven engine and Jubal's new-found energy source and the kids rocket off on the adventure of their lives.Some fans might be put off by Red Thunder because it is such a familiar plot, especially since Varley's early work was lauded for its originality and inventiveness. He exploded onto the seventies science fiction scene with short stories and a novel exploring a universe in which Earth has been destroyed by invaders and the remnants of humankind have scattered to the other "Eight Worlds" in the solar system. He followed that with his fantastical Gaea Trilogy (Titan, 1979; Wizard, 1980; Demon, 1984) and Millennium (1983), a novel of mysterious time travelers who rescue the victims of natural and man-made disasters. It was a long dry spell until Steel Beach (1992) and The Golden Globe (1998) returned Varley fans to the Eight Worlds universe.Though Red Thunder is a simple tale, the characters are fully fleshed and intriguing. The all-American superteens of yesteryear are replaced with likable but flawed youngsters. Old enough to vote but not to drink, they are products of physically and emotionally missing parents and frustrated ambitions. There are many opportunities for both the kids and the adults to give up and take the easy route -- but they don't, and so there follows a tale of personal and technological triumph.The tale is told by Manny Garcia. His Cuban father died under suspicious circumstances, leaving Manny and his Italian mother to run an increasingly decrepit motel. The Blast-Off Motel, profitable in the early days of Cape Canaveral, now barely pays the taxes, much less tuition for college. Dak, Manny's best friend, is an African-American who shares Manny's obsession with going into space and his frustration with calculus. He is also the proud owner of Blue Thunder, a kick-ass customized truck that figures prominently in the story. Kelly, Manny's white girlfriend, is in a battle of wits with her rich, philandering, underhanded father. Manny wonders, is Kelly dating him to spite her dad? Alicia rounds out the foursome. A former foster child and current health food freak, she gets the boys to eat salad and helps Broussard dry out. Travis Broussard is a typical Varley character -- quirky, independent, with just a touch of larceny. He was too much of a cowboy for NASA, so after landing a crippled shuttlecraft in an African jungle, saving the crew and passengers, but killing a water buffalo, NASA gave him a medal and a retirement dinner.These characters draw you into their problems and make you hope for the best. Everyone who's ever yearned for space but known they didn't have the "right stuff," can sympathize with Manny and Dak and cheer their efforts to make their dream come alive. In fact, most of the conflict and drama of the story comes from trying to build a working space ship out of tanker trailers, Sears appliances, and components from Radio Shack -- in sixty days. Varley leads us up and down an emotional rollercoaster as one problem after another is met and solved. Phony physics aside, you can almost believe that anyone can go into space with enough guts and lots of relatives who are good with power tools.Red Thunder shows another Varley hallmark -- a sense of humor, sometimes ironic, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. Manny's mom packs a long barreled target pistol, from her competitive shooting days, to run off the drug dealers because the Blast-Off Motel "didn't even attract a very good grade of narcotics trafficker." The ship sports a graffiti artist's vision of Creation -- God rides a Harley. The President of the US meets the Red Thunder crew in the Goofy parking lot of Disney World. Varley's characters don't take themselves (or the government or the news media or advertising and marketing practices) too seriously, but they make the best of their opportunities.Red Thunder isn't a deep book. Its message is one of upbeat optimism and the "let's roll" attitude of everyday Americans with a goal. The writing and dialog are straightforward, though mild sex, cursing, and drug references make the book unsuitable for young children. Those who enjoyed Heinlein's juveniles, Nancy Drew, or Andy Hardy will love this book. Those who want more complicated fiction should look up Varley's earlier works (unfortunately, many are now out of print, but they are well worth trying to find). Other readers just looking for a fun romp or beach read will be drawn along by the trials and tribulations of four good kids building a spaceship in the warehouse.

[hamburgerclan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Back when I was an impressionable young person, there was a TV movie that I saw. Well, there were a lot of TV movies that I saw back then but I'm referring to one of the few that stuck in my head. It was called Salvage One or some such and it starred Andy Griffith as a junk dealer who had a hankerin' to build a spaceship, go to the moon and salvage all the equipment that the astronauts left up there. I don't know why it touched me. Maybe it was the thought that a shade tree mechanic might be able to build a spaceship. Or maybe it was the concept of space being accessible by just plain folks. Anyway, I wonder if Mr. Varley had seen the film as well, because Red Thunder is the tale of a group of just plain folks who want to build a spaceship and go to Mars. Of course, it's done a lot better than that old movie, but the gut appeal is the same. Y'all should check it out. It makes excellent summer reading.--J.

[rbtwinky · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Red Thunder is simple, basic, pop science fiction. I suppose as that goes it was probably a pretty good book. I picked it up because a book club I'm involved in wanted to read it. I don't normally get into run-of-the-mill science fiction. Because of that it's hard for me to compare it to other things that I have read. The characters in the novel were quite stereotypical and superficial. The science seemed pretty hokey and uninspired. Perhaps worst of all, the meat of the science fiction didn't even start happening until the last third of the book. Overall, I didn't enjoy it very much.