Variable Star, by Spider Robinson and Robert A Heinlein

[othercat]

Variable Star is a novel based off of notes by Robert A. Heinlein and written by Spider Robinson. I generally have a strongly negative reaction to books written after the death of a writer, but this is one of the cases where I had a more or less positive reaction. Spider Robinson and Heinlein are a good fit for each other style-wise so this felt more like collaboration within a shared universe instead of *awkwardly written fan fiction the writer is being paid for. (This would be my general opinion of all of Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s Dune books.)

Our Hero is a young man named Joel Johnston. He is a dead broke would-be composer who discovers that his girlfriend has been posing as an ordinary girl. Who she actually is, is the scion of one of the richest families in the world. Joel is not able to handle what he has learned, and really doesn’t want the life her family appears to be setting up for him, so he runs away, aided by Jinny’s seven year old cousin.

Variable Star