A quick and moderately fun read but definitely not meeting my expectations. The book overall was quickly paced with little real story. Basically it touched on racism as the main theme but I found the main character to be mostly unbelievable. ( )

It’s election day, so what’s more appropriate this week than a book review on a work of political science fiction? As you by now have guessed, I have a soft spot in my heart for Robert Heinlein, and I thought discussing Double Star today would be more than appropriate. When politics are so on the mind of most Americans as we choose our next president, I thought I would discuss how The Great Lorenzo, a down on his luck actor is whisked off the street and told that he isn’t going to elected to be in politics; he’s going to have to BE one of the major faces of politics. Every actor has a role to play, and Lawrence Smith just got elected for the role of a life time.

When John Joseph Bonforte, head of the Expansionist Coalition, and likely the candidate in an upcoming election, winds up kidnapped, what is their party supposed to do? Certainly not admit he’s been kidnapped or later returned so drugged he barely stands a chance of living. No, here’s what you do when you have a major political opposition leader who has gone missing: you find and train a body double. What you don’t do, however, is tell the actor/double you hired exactly who they are supposed to be impersonating or exactly why until you’ve got them half way to Mars. That’s what Double Star taught me, anyhow. Read More of this review ( )

This is sort of a retelling of "The Prisoner of Zenda," and the plot succeeds or fails based on whether or not you buy the possibility that, with just a little grease paint and some talent, one man could pass himself off as another, at close range, to people who knew him. The other part of the story is that this man whom you are impersonating is a key political figure in the story of mankind reaching out to the stars. He brings an end to human-centered government, and xenophobic relations between Earth and the other inhabited planets in our Solar System. Heinlein takes on this sort of theme much more powerfully later in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress." This book is more of a romp, with some stuff to think about just coming along for the ride.

How different was the world of late 1950's sf publishing. Novels could be 140 pages long. No need for warp drive in order to meet aliens (though some sort of relativity drive makes it possible to get from the Earth to Mars in a matter of weeks), because they're right here! They live on Venus, and Mars, of course. Did we really know so little about conditions on Mars as to think big people-sized creatures could live there, in 1956? Hard to imagine we were that ignorant still. Of course, we had still not one satellite in orbit in 1956, let alone sent any robot vehicles off to the Moon and planets. But canals with shrimp growing in them? And an atmosphere that would allow someone to breath, albeit only for a short period. Mars would kill you in a matter of minutes, it's barely better than the Moon. Several themes of Heinlein's later work are on display here, though he develops them a lot more later on. His whole interest in the impersonating schtick is to explore what it would be like to inhabit another person's...life. In a later work, he has an old man taking over a young woman's body ("Time Enough for Love"). All of this raises interesting questions about what is it I'm talking about when I say "I"? Also, the motif/theme/whatever it is of the Wise Old Man is here, in the person of the politician, Bonforte. He's not preaching and pontificating yet, as he will in later novels, but he is there. I enjoyed reading this, but be prepared for some major boners in future-prediction. There are mountains of microfilm filling up vaults on the Moon, which I'm guessing the "robot brains" (computers) can read somehow. Slide rules still...rule. As another reviewer here said, it's more Ruritania than sf, but what the hey. Give it a read. ( )

This is an interesting book about political intrigue and the inner workings of a possible interplanetary, interspecies government. This book shows the rivalry of political dissidents as well as a loyalty not often seen in people today. ( )

I like visions of the future from the 1950's.

There's always an overload of microfilmed data. ( )