At the 2003 World Science Fiction Convention in Toronto, it was revealed that an outline existed for a novel that Robert Heinlein had chosen not to write. The outline, prepared in 1955, was detailed. It cried out to be completed, and veteran science fiction writer Spider Robinson was assigned the task. Variable Star, is the result.
I think that science fiction is in the middle of a process of self-destruction. While the global reading population has been expanding, the science fiction shelves in the bookstores have been shrinking. It is now almost impossible for a new writer to break into the field, and editorial policies are increasingly conservative and formulaic. At the same time, there’s a pervasive recycling of old material. One of the most annoying activities is the publication of endless sequels to old works, sometimes written by others after the death of the author, or works “set in the universe of” an established classic. Baroque stylistic convolutions are preferred. We have entered a kind of Hellenistic Alexandria, where the dead outrank the living and cleverness consists of saying what has been said before, only in a more confusing and duller way.
So, normally, I would not bother reading something like this. I assume that if some great writer in the past didn’t bother completing a project, he probably had good reason not to do so. But this is different. It’s Heinlein. And the posthumous collaborator is Spider Robinson, a writer for whom I have some respect. I know a lot about Heinlein’s personal life and habits, from helping out his biographer in some research and proofreading. My curiosity, in this case, was cat-like.
I’m happy to say that I was not disappointed. Robinson did a fine job. First of all, his style is in the same ball park as Heinlein’s, but noticeably different. It’s more sensuous and ambiguous in timbre, like a saxophone, while Heinlein’s is an unambiguous clarinet. It’s clear that Robinson was sometimes specifically trying to mimic Heinlein’s style…. but not always. You can go through the work and pick out paragraphs and sentences and tag them as “Heinleinesque” or “Robinsonian”, which one would think would be annoying, but in this case works quite well. I found myself getting pleasure from the interplay. (If sax and clarinet sound like an odd combo for you, check out some of the transcriptions of Mozart that have been done that combo. They’re charming.).
I won’t describe the story, because it does have developments which should not be spoiled for the reader. I can see why Heinlein abandoned the project. Not because it was a bad idea, but because it contained too many good ideas. Its various components were best worked out in more than one book, and you can plainly see how they were subsequently used in Time for the Stars, and Citizen of the Galaxy. The book has a teenage protagonist, and was probably intended for his series of “juveniles” published by Scribner’s. But the subject matter was too grim, and the implied sexuality to obvious, for Scribner’s to have accepted in the mid 1950’s. Heinlein had encountered aggravating editorial prudery for much less, and had already expanded the bubble to near the bursting point.
As with the style, there are scenes and details that are clearly not Heinlein’s. As the book progresses, it becomes more and more a Spider Robinson book. Frankly, this is for the best. The Heinlein components, by necessity, could hold no real surprises. In his postscript, Robinson speaks of Heinlein’s ghostly presence while he was writing it, but ghosts are, after all, only memory, and Heinlein is dead. Robinson is a living man, and his voice comes, not from the cool mists of Niflheim, but from the warm sun of Georgia Straight. The parts that were most clearly Robinson’s — the musical sections, in particular — pleased me most. I’m sure that most purchasers of the book will file it under H. My copy will be in the Rs.
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