Mostly a chance to show off Amazon associate info, because of my eager desire to give more personal info to Amazon.

John Varley’s Red Lightning, which has been floating around on my must-read list, is finally in paperback and I enjoyed it immensely. There you go, that’s a simple review.

It is the second in what is apparently now going to be a trilogy, at least, following Red Thunder, a joyful homage to Robert A. Heinlein’s juvenile novels. In fact, recent discussion of the centenary of Heinlein’s birth pushed Red Lightning back up to the top of my list.

Whereas Red Thunder shared the exuberant gee-whizzishness RAH’s juvies, Red Lightning’s characters and motives seem a bit more genuine in practice. If Red Thunder was Rocketship Galileo, Red Lightning is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, although the relationship is not as close. (Here’s hoping the next book isn’t The Cat Who Walked Through Wall!)

This book follows, fairly logically, from the happy ending from Red Thunder. Here we see the Garcia-Strickland family one generation after their homemade rocketship makes it to Mars. Manny’s has settled down as a hotelier and now it is up to his son, Ramon, to take up the reins as protagonist. He does a fairly good job it too, frankly, and I think I prefer him to his father. Varley gets the real credit, of course, but it is a sign of well-crafted fiction that I can immediately get into the spirit of the book so long after reading the first one.

Varley takes a seemingly preposterous technology, which allows for a source of free energy, and charts a future timeline. Unlike The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Red Lightning doesn’t concern itself with the politics of revolution, although they certainly play a part. If anything, this book is less of an homage, but still carries on in the Heinleinian tradition. (Whoa, Heinleinian, I’m never going to say that word out loud.)

Varley’s future Earth has been torn apart by a horrible calamity, part 9/11 and part Boxing Day Tsunami by way of Hurricane Katrina, multiplied by an order of magnitude. Fortunately, just when you think the book will get bogged down in the mission to rescue Ray’s grandmother in Florida, we’re back on Mars facing an invasion as Earth falls into chaos.

I should really learn to Varley more credit. While it seems a like he’s setting up a cheap scenario to nitpick at President Bush and American Adventurism, Varley avoids the low-hanging fruit and sticks with Ray’s attempts to figure out what has happened and save his planet.

I could have used a good re-cap of the “bubble squeezing” technology that was introduced in the first book, but otherwise Varley sets up a nice space adventure that — bubbles aside — relies on believable science and neat-o rocketry.

Good book and a fine summertime read.