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ineffablebob's review
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Red Lightning is a direct sequel to Red Thunder, set years after the first book, and I think it's a better novel. There are a lot of similarities, of course, including a teenage narrator who is pretty ridiculously mature for his supposed age. Assuming you can live with that, the two major parts of this adventure - a search and rescue mission on Earth, and a friends-against-the-world journey to fight the powers-that-be - both struck me as more engaging than the trip-to-Mars of the first book. In any event, if you like this kind of space opera set in the near future, this one won't disappoint.
jeremyhornik's review
3.0
Perfectly fine, solid, sci fi grafted to coming of age book. But: lost it for a week with 30 pp to go and I forgot all about it. Fun, forgettable. Once the disasters are over, a lot less interesting.
markyon's review
3.0
Having reviewed the first of this series (Red Thunder) and being pretty impressed, I quickly moved on to the second of John’s books in this series.
As I had hoped, this is an interesting novel with many of the pleasing attributes of the first. It is, in simple terms, Red Thunder: the Next Generation. The tale here moves on from Manny, Kelly, Dak and Travis to the teenage prodigy of Manny and Kelly. Now living on Mars and helping run Manny and Kelly’s Red Thunder Hotel, the tale is told in the first person by their son, Ramon (Ray) Garcia-Strickland.
Things have moved on since the first novel. The Squeezer has now made travel across the solar system relatively easy and comparatively quick. People have spread from Earth to create a community on Mars and turn Phobos into a sports centre (for air-boarding between itself and Mars, no less.)
The expansion across the system suddenly halts when something lands in the Pacific Ocean, travelling at near-light speed. The resulting tsunami obliterates the east coast of the USA. Ray and his parents travel to Earth to rescue Betty, his grandma, still living at the Blast-Off Motel in Florida. At the same time Jubal, the only person who really knows how to create and operate the Squeezer, disappears from his luxury prison on the Falkland Islands.
The majority of the book deals with the journey to save Grandma (driven by Travis Broussard in a DUKW) and the rediscovery of Jubal, as well as to find the origin of the tsunami. There’s also the revolution and independence of the Martians who are suddenly placed under martial law by Earth power factions and tortured (with clear similarities to Guantanamo Bay.)
However, it all (in Heinlein-esque style) ends pretty much happily ever after.
As with the first novel, John writes entertainingly. Ray’s commentary is gawky, embarrassingly humorous and seriously down-played. As Ray puts it, in that wonderful reductive way writers can have (page335), ‘And that’s how I saved Mars and maybe the whole human race, and in the process kicked some of the most powerful people on Earth in the butt.’
As a reader, it felt good to revisit and continue on from Red Thunder. More pleasingly (for me) Jubal is less important than previously, though he is still an important character. This means that we get less of his irritating Cajun accent, which really didn’t work for me in the previous novel, as I spent more time trying to decipher his speech in writing than enjoying the plot.
More negatively, what didn’t work for me this time was a little more serious. John writes in an interesting Afterword that this book was inspired (if that is the right word) after both the events of 9/11 in 2001 and the devastation caused by the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, though much of it had been spookily written by the time of that disaster. Poignantly, Hurricane Katrina, in September 2005, happened as this book was being finished and, like the tale told In Red Lightning, emphasised how quickly civil order could break down in sudden disasters. However, with its inspiration obvious and with its heart firmly on its sleeve, Red Lightning became for me an imperfect novel.
In particular, the journey on Earth, from the Garcia-Strickland’s arrival to their rescue mission in Florida, is just too long. Whilst I can see the need to tell the tales of devastation and horror following a major tidal-wave, travelling there by the use of a DUKW amphibious vehicle just makes no sense. A journey that, based on previous journeys by the Red Lightning would take hours, or possibly a day, takes much longer. If the need to see whether relatives had survived was so urgent then I’m sure the family could’ve pulled a few strings and gained a spaceship to get there quicker, despite all the bureaucracy and zoning-off that has occurred. (That was basically what they did by building Red Thunder in the first novel.)
If it was a case of helping without having to deal with bureaucracy it could’ve been done by flying in, picking up, dropping off supplies and getting out in a matter of hours. Whilst it is important to tell the tale of a government struggling to come to terms with a major disaster, this could’ve been done without having to drive through it. And they could’ve taken rescue supplies to boot. Whilst the story of devastated America was shocking, it was marred for me by being, in this instance, illogical.
Overall this is still a tale told with panache. Better in some ways than Red Thunder, but less so in other aspects, it is still a great page-turner if you can cope with the odd logical lapse.
As I had hoped, this is an interesting novel with many of the pleasing attributes of the first. It is, in simple terms, Red Thunder: the Next Generation. The tale here moves on from Manny, Kelly, Dak and Travis to the teenage prodigy of Manny and Kelly. Now living on Mars and helping run Manny and Kelly’s Red Thunder Hotel, the tale is told in the first person by their son, Ramon (Ray) Garcia-Strickland.
Things have moved on since the first novel. The Squeezer has now made travel across the solar system relatively easy and comparatively quick. People have spread from Earth to create a community on Mars and turn Phobos into a sports centre (for air-boarding between itself and Mars, no less.)
The expansion across the system suddenly halts when something lands in the Pacific Ocean, travelling at near-light speed. The resulting tsunami obliterates the east coast of the USA. Ray and his parents travel to Earth to rescue Betty, his grandma, still living at the Blast-Off Motel in Florida. At the same time Jubal, the only person who really knows how to create and operate the Squeezer, disappears from his luxury prison on the Falkland Islands.
The majority of the book deals with the journey to save Grandma (driven by Travis Broussard in a DUKW) and the rediscovery of Jubal, as well as to find the origin of the tsunami. There’s also the revolution and independence of the Martians who are suddenly placed under martial law by Earth power factions and tortured (with clear similarities to Guantanamo Bay.)
However, it all (in Heinlein-esque style) ends pretty much happily ever after.
As with the first novel, John writes entertainingly. Ray’s commentary is gawky, embarrassingly humorous and seriously down-played. As Ray puts it, in that wonderful reductive way writers can have (page335), ‘And that’s how I saved Mars and maybe the whole human race, and in the process kicked some of the most powerful people on Earth in the butt.’
As a reader, it felt good to revisit and continue on from Red Thunder. More pleasingly (for me) Jubal is less important than previously, though he is still an important character. This means that we get less of his irritating Cajun accent, which really didn’t work for me in the previous novel, as I spent more time trying to decipher his speech in writing than enjoying the plot.
More negatively, what didn’t work for me this time was a little more serious. John writes in an interesting Afterword that this book was inspired (if that is the right word) after both the events of 9/11 in 2001 and the devastation caused by the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, though much of it had been spookily written by the time of that disaster. Poignantly, Hurricane Katrina, in September 2005, happened as this book was being finished and, like the tale told In Red Lightning, emphasised how quickly civil order could break down in sudden disasters. However, with its inspiration obvious and with its heart firmly on its sleeve, Red Lightning became for me an imperfect novel.
In particular, the journey on Earth, from the Garcia-Strickland’s arrival to their rescue mission in Florida, is just too long. Whilst I can see the need to tell the tales of devastation and horror following a major tidal-wave, travelling there by the use of a DUKW amphibious vehicle just makes no sense. A journey that, based on previous journeys by the Red Lightning would take hours, or possibly a day, takes much longer. If the need to see whether relatives had survived was so urgent then I’m sure the family could’ve pulled a few strings and gained a spaceship to get there quicker, despite all the bureaucracy and zoning-off that has occurred. (That was basically what they did by building Red Thunder in the first novel.)
If it was a case of helping without having to deal with bureaucracy it could’ve been done by flying in, picking up, dropping off supplies and getting out in a matter of hours. Whilst it is important to tell the tale of a government struggling to come to terms with a major disaster, this could’ve been done without having to drive through it. And they could’ve taken rescue supplies to boot. Whilst the story of devastated America was shocking, it was marred for me by being, in this instance, illogical.
Overall this is still a tale told with panache. Better in some ways than Red Thunder, but less so in other aspects, it is still a great page-turner if you can cope with the odd logical lapse.
merrinish's review
3.0
I didn't like this one as much as I liked the previous installment. That had more to do with the fact that I liked Manny much better as a narrator than Ray. Manny was a lot more relatable as a character than Ray. But, still an interesting novel, having a lot to do with events set up in the first.
shnuggs's review
3.0
I love John Varley. He is one of the most readable SF authors, he's got a great sense of humor, and there is usually some kinky and/or steamy inter-special sex in his books. His Wizard/Titan/Demon series is one of my all-time faves, and I haven't read a book or short story of his that I haven't enjoyed. "Red Lightning" is a sequel of sorts to "Red Thunder" (which was better). Humans have been living on Mars for a generation. An alternative source of energy has been discovered that allows for unlimited interplanetary travel. Then disaster strikes - something lands in the middle of the Atlantic causing a tsunami that wipes out the East Coast. Half of the the book deals with the rescue of folks affected by the wave; the rest is an action story about a crazy inventor, an attack on Mars, teenagers in love, and more. The books is somewhat disjointed - not Varley's best by a long shot - but still enjoyable for what it is.
wealhtheow's review
2.0
I raced through this book but found it decreasingly interesting. This is, in fact, my least favorite Varley yet. Although it was published this year, it also reads as the most "old school" scifi of all his books. As in many Heinlein or other Grand Master books, his characters spend most of their time either explaining physics to each other or excitedly discussing what's wrong with the political landscape. In either case, the characters themselves are mere mouthpieces for the author. The main character, like many other Grand Master main characters, is smart and self-deprecating, but his relationship with a beautiful, flexible blonde with few inhibitions isn't written believably. Believability is a big problem for this book--I just didn't buy the societies or characters Varley created. Superficially interesting, they were all alike and all very artificial.
At the beginning of the book, I was hooked. I wanted to know more about Ray's adventures as a hotelier on Mars (check out Kage Baker's "Empress of Mars" (http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0406/empressofmars.shtml) for a better read) and I was invested in the disaster relief efforts on Earth. After they returned to Mars, however, the book's weaknesses (and the fact that Varley clearly didn't have much else to say) came to the fore.
At the beginning of the book, I was hooked. I wanted to know more about Ray's adventures as a hotelier on Mars (check out Kage Baker's "Empress of Mars" (http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0406/empressofmars.shtml) for a better read) and I was invested in the disaster relief efforts on Earth. After they returned to Mars, however, the book's weaknesses (and the fact that Varley clearly didn't have much else to say) came to the fore.