A review by wealhtheow
Red Lightning by John Varley

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.