Variable Star by Spider Robinson

This novel was partially plotted by Robert Heinlein, who died before writing it. Spider Robinson was selected to tell the story Heinlein left behind. Initially, I think this was intended to be in the Heinlein juvenile novel series.

First and foremost, this novel kept me up at night reading. I enjoy reading most of this novel, and have picked up other Spider Robinson books as a result of this novel. It is very good. Though my notes below will raise some questions, I hope my liking of this book moderates any criticisms. This was given to me by a friend. It really feels like a funny Edgar Rice Burroughs.

A brief synopsis of the plot will serve to illuminate a few points I want to make about this story. The opening chapters detail the mental anguish of an 18 year old who finds that his betrothed is the heiress to the wealthiest corporation in the galaxy⁠—though she lied to him about it throughout their dating life. Being 18 and heartbroken, he runs away, all the way away to an expedition to found a new colony lightyears away from Earth. Onboard the colony ship he starts to integrate into this new society, gain fame and renown for his musical abilities, and help in his small way to save the ship as each new crisis comes. Ultimately, he tries to save humanity from extinction, and it’s implied, does a pretty good job.

As the synopsis shows, there are three parts to the story: Terra, Colony Ship, and Post-Colony Ship. However, the ratios are a bit strange, in the reading. At the end of Terra, like Joel, the reader has little to stand on, as suddenly all of the characters vanish, and the novel starts again on the Colony Ship, with only Joel keeping on. The rest are new characters being introduced and explored. This feels like two-thirds of the book. And again, after they leave the Colony Ship, it’s a new start to another novel, though this one only plays for a few pages acting as a sort of epilogue. These massive shifts in narrative direction may annoy some readers, as the effort the reader puts into the first part is fulfilled only by, “and then he runs away” instead of those stories resolving. Then when those stories from the first part do finally resolve it is an epilogue at the end of the novel. Two things would’ve taken this plotting from good to great: first and foremost, more foreshadowing. The Colony Ship comes up once or twice during the first part, but not enough for me. I want more discussion about it before Joel signs up for it. Though the lack of discussion about it does help build Joel’s character, other tactics could’ve built his character and not left the reader feeling rudderless at the change. Second, this would’ve been helped by a “Part 1: Terra” style billboarding of the narrative shifts. At the end, I can see the whole structure, but even a single sentence saying, “I thought that was the last time I would ever see Jinny and Evelyn and Conrad of Conrad,” would’ve been a blinking light telling the reader that their roles in the novel would continue eventually, after the crises of the Colony Ship. To be clear, this was a good novel, but this minor annoyance could’ve been avoided and helped this book attain greatness.

Another tactic I would like to question is the referential nature: Ricky and Julian from Trailer Park Boys, Smithers from The Simpsons, George RR Martin, artist Alex Grey⁠—there are probably a dozen name-drops in this book to friends of Spider Robinson and famous people. These also include in-canon references to Heinlein novels. This tactic seems weird. I don’t read science fiction to hear somebody else’s interpretation of Smithers’ sexuality, but this book gives that to me. If I don’t know Ricky and Julian from the TV show, do I understand their characters in the novel? Archetypes become shorthand⁠—Herculean, Promethius, Einstein⁠—but when basing them on pop-culture, their effectiveness diminishes because their universality lacks. I didn’t mind these as much as this paragraph makes it sound, but it’s certainly not a tactic I use or appreciate in writing.

Another problem is the humor being too present. This is a funny book and I love literature that makes me tear up from laughter, which I did here. But the humor is taken too far as tragic moments are not free of punny witicisms⁠—even the extinction of 43 billion humans and the entire solar system elicits a couple of humorous one-liners. That seems more tone-deaf than anything. By that point in the story I already understand the main character to be a jokester, and don’t need it reinforced. I think it would’ve been more consistent with his change to maturity to leave some of those jokes behind. But, again, only about two percent of the jokes are misplayed. In the main course, I love the inclusion of so much humor here.

As a writer, Robinson can really construct some sentences well. There are a couple of awkward moments and weird changes of person that should’ve probably been rewritten. But I can only think of three or four parts where this applies. In all, the book is well written by an author that clips words from the English language to reflect how people speak more than how people write, without losing legibility for the most part.

The theme of the novel seems to orient around mental health and dealing with the hope and despair of life. Meditation and exercise and psychology help Joel go from punk kid to functioning adult. And Robinson does a good job of splitting the telling and showing of this change⁠—enough of a good job that the jokes around the extermination of the solar system fall flat. Yet interesting ideas like Religion and Group Marriage are mentioned but not explored at all.

There is another inherent theme: humanity needs to escape the solar system to survive. And this is an interesting discussion, even drawing in Fermi’s Paradox to the narrative.

But the story still struggles to find a footing. Robinson is a big Heinlein fan and was a friend to the man. This leads me to question what happened here in regards to Heinlein’s rules for writing. He states that there are five types of stories, and this novel seems to try all five at once: it starts out boy-meets-girl, then goes all the boy who learned better, then it’s the little tailor, then a human interest story, and the gadgets underlie the whole thing, driving the plot every time a Relativist breaks down. I don’t necessarily take Heinlein’s divising of five story types to be prescriptive, but I wonder what he intended with this story.

Regardless, Spider Robinson turned in a novel I really like here. And I intend to read more of his work in the future. This story straddles the line between Heinlein’s adult fiction, with their deep dives into themes and ideas, and his juvenile adventure novels. I like pulp fiction, and this is good pulp fiction that kept me up at night reading from sheer joy.