Rolling Thunder

January 28, 2008
Nebula and Hugo–winner Varley continues the space opera saga of the Garcia-Strickland clan (last encountered in 2006's Red Lightning
) in this enjoyable if simplistic tale. Patricia Kelly Elizabeth Podkayne Strickland-Garcia-Redmond, daughter of an earlier series hero, Ray Garcia-Strickland, is glad for any excuse to escape her job as the Martian consul in California, but the news calling her home is dire: her great grandmother is ill and about to go into suspended animation. After a family reunion, Podkayne heads to Europa, where a disaster forces her own suspension. The solar system she awakens to 10 years later is radically different. Podkayne learns of looming trials threatening the survival of mankind and tackles them with undiminished determination. Varley has deliberately made Podkayne an uncomplicated figure who lets major events and traumas roll right off her, rendering her a less than satisfying protagonist despite her heroics.

March 15, 2008
In the distant future, Mars is a colony of Earth, and Lt. Patricia Podkayne is a third-generation Martian with something to prove. As a member of the Music, Arts, and Drama Division of the Martian Navy, she accepts an assignment as an entertainer on the planet Europa, not realizing that trouble is brewing on that world. Three-time Hugo Award winner Varley's style of future sf is immediate and gritty, filled with realistic details and believable characters. His conclusion to a trilogy begun with "Red Lightning and Red Thunder" demonstrates his skill as both raconteur and master of science-based fiction.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2008
Varley concludes the solar system exploration trilogy of Red Thunder (2004) and Red Lightning (2006) with a zany Heinlein homage, whose immediate tip-off for the fans comes with the disclosure that the protagonist prefers to be called by one of her middle names, Podkayne (see Heinleins Podkayne of Mars, 1963). Assigned to the cultural affairs wing of the Martian Navy, she is sent to the Jovian satellite Europa, nominally as an entertainer. She is shortly hip deep in intelligence work, for which she has hardly any training, but also for which she could end up paying with her life. Meanwhile, she becomes the erotic mentor of young Juba, a role for which she has more qualifications and more interest. Readers who have by this time stopped giggling wont stop reading until they reach the end, where they may launch a peroration largely composed of the titles of the classic Heinlein juveniles, on which at least two generations of readers cut their sf teeth. Not for the humor-impaired, definitely for Varley fandom.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)