Variable Star

Locations
Call Number: Science Fiction, Adult Book / Fiction / Science Fiction / Classic / Heinlein, Robert
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Pittsfield Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Science Fiction	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Science Fiction / Classic / Heinlein, Robert	4-week checkout	On Shelf

"A sci fi essential book"--Jacket.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

A Great Disappointment submitted by GJBarnett2 on August 9, 2019, 10:28pm I grew-up with the works of Heinlein and have read, I believe, everything he ever published so I was eager to read this posthumous book by the widely-respected SF author Spider Robinson based on an incomplete and untitled 7-page outline found among RAH's effects after his widow's death. Unfortunately, there was little to work with. Robinson noted his dismay in discovering that the outline stopped abruptly with no ending which he would, therefore, had to create from whole cloth. Better had they simply published the outline. While the many obvious threads to RAH's actual works give a semblance of his hand, it isn't possible to tell which were originally created for the outline and later adapted as source material for his later works rather tha "back written" from his published works by Robinson to fill-out the outline. Unfortunately, it now seems likely to me that RAH never brought this outline to fruition because he didn't feel it was up to his standards. Certainly this book isn't. Despite Robinson's best efforts, I found this almost unreadable with many pages that appeared to have been included primarily to reach the minimum number of words required by the publication contract. RAH was by training an engineer and I have the impression that he never cheated the reader by using a scientific impossibility as a cheap solution to a plot conundrum. Suffice it to say, not so here. One can only hope that the, hopefully, only "missing" portions of the outline may one day be discovered and a new version of "Variable Star" created with more of the Master's Touch.