Best book of the year
December 28th, 2007 by HenI’ve just finished what I’m, at this late date, going to call my best read of the year - Spider Robinson’s unfinished Heinlein - Variable Star.
For a long time I resisted buying it - I’ve felt no urge to buy For Us, The Living, Heinlein’s long lost first novel, as the description never impressed me. Similarly, I suspect there are a couple of books from his later years that I’ve never read - the Lazurus crossover stuff always left me feeling cheapened. So, I ignored this book too as it was too likely to disappoint - and who needs that?
However, I regularly walk into a bookshop to touch real books and usually depress myself that there is nothing to read. Said depression has been solved recently by doing it less often and refusing to buy hardbacks except in very, very few cases (Pratchett, Feist, Salvatore - and even then sometimes not for the latter two). After a period of famine, this is paying dividends. I picked up 3 books I was half interested in reading, and Variable Star was one of them. Why not I thought, fresh from declaration that Moon is a Harsh Mistress was Heinlein’s best book and shame to realize that I didn’t have it and instead just read my Dad’s each time I’m there (thanks for the present Steve 
).
Then it sat on the overloaded ‘to-read’ cast iron shelf of the bakers rack. The others were read, but Variable Star was not picked up. Again fear held my hand. Why ruin things? Maybe I should re-read Moon first now that I own it - even though I read it barely 3 months ago. Fortunately a virus saved the day. I spent Christmas ill with flu and with the energy of a newborn fawn I decided to rest on the bed and read something. Variable Star was easiest to hand, and my other actively reading book (as opposed to the large pile of started so I’ll finish someday) makes for dry reading.
I was hooked.
Extremely hooked. Exhausted, but hooked. I felt 10. I snuck as many moments as I could to read, ignoring my barely healthier wife and demanding 3 year old whenever I could. I’ve never read a Spider Robinson book as far as I know [though probably have read short stories], and this felt so natural. I’m quite happy I’ve not read one as it meant I got to experience this book the right way, and can now go off and read some of his books, thinking of this primarily as a Heinlein and not a Robinson. Enjoying this as much as I could, and not hurting any enjoyment I might get from his books.
I don’t want to talk about the plot too much, or the background as it would ruin things somewhat. There were a couple of bits that irritated me - Spider uses the verb google twice; which I don’t believe there’s much to suggest will exist that far in the future. It’s fine in cyberpunk set now or in a decade, but felt very odd in the far future. The book also lurched a bit towards the end; but having finished it I’ll definitely forgive Spider that for it’s something that other Heinlein books are guilty of anyway. Deus ex Machina - a phrase that makes me feel like a fraud because all I know about literature is the classic ‘I know what I like’.
That’s all I’ve got in the way of negative. This is a book that as a Heinlein would probably take second place in my mental ordering; just slightly behind Moon because of the rushed ending and a fair way ahead of Stranger and Starship Troopers. It has the same value Moon has of not being as short or shallow as Heinlein’s other “Juveniles”, and not being as overly long or disagreeably deep as Heinlein’s later works. It’s the “just right” of fiction.
So… best book of the year; and I suspect if I were to go back to being 10 and putting all my books in my favourite order, this one would be one of the few books in the last decade to walk its way into the top 30.