Comments on: Varley's ROLLING THUNDER: third book in Thunder/Lightning Heinlein juvenile tributes, a smashing success

By: wassy

wassy — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everybody,

Do you know if there is a french translation of these novels ?

Thx,
BB.

By: karrock

karrock — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Not sure if the author had anything to do with it, but why has the United States Marine Corps seal been hijacked to represent the “Martian Naval Corps”?!?

Gold eagle (pointed in the correct direction and trailing ribbon intact), globe and anchor (again pointed in the correct direction) against a red field surrounded by a blue ring bordered by a gold rope. The only thing they did was add some stars to the red field and change the text.

By: csbmonkey

csbmonkey — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

*heh* There is only one true Rolling Thunder for me, and that’s William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones on a shooting spree in a brothel in Mexico to take down those bastards that killed his boy.

Of course, I am guessing that the book’s Rolling Thunder reference is back to Operation Rolling Thunder.

By: MartysMind

MartysMind — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks for the tip. I am a long time Heinlein fan and will put this on the top of my “for fun” reading list.

Now if I could just get through those 20 odd books I have on my “must read” list …

-Marty

By: Elorin

Elorin — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

More books on my list of things to buy…thanks for the recommendation.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

#9, you should read the previous book for the origins of the Martian fleet…

By: Nix

Nix — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Far more than Ellison, Varley has a habit of writing things that make me go ‘I don’t believe he did that, nobody else would dare!’

Even ignoring the immortal opening line of _Steel Beach_, there’s the bizarre predelictions of the enemy in _Demon_, the talking nuclear bomb in one short story that’s happy to tell all passers-by that it is in fact a nuke, and when it will detonate (a sort of high-tech suicide bomber), and perhaps most of all _The Golden Globe, which is the Varley attempt at that old SF staple, the almost-plotless travelogue, which turns into something best described as a Shakespearean picaresque shaggy dog story (with assassins, artists, and sarcastic AIs.)

I really must get around to reading this latest trilogy: I’m afraid that shortage of shelf space and the habit of some publishers of cancelling engaging series halfway through has led to me only buying SF series when they’re completed. (I’m in mourning for Tony Daniel’s gonzo two-thirds-complete _Metaplanetary_ series: if it’s been finished while I wasn’t looking, someone please say!)

By: materkb

materkb — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Splendid series, splendid book, splendid author. This is my favourite of the now-trio in Varley’s Martian universe, partly because I live in Pismo Beach, where the book opens.

Mostly, though, I commend this book because the Heinlein juveniles were one of the brightest spots in my reading youth. They enliven my adulthood, too.I was in the later end of the original target audiance (my copies were the ones with the black and white illos actualy drawn by Heinlein), and I can say with happy authority that Varley’s books are right on target.

Has anyone played the Spot The Title game in the last chapter?

By: Matt Staggs

Matt Staggs — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I loved the first book in this series – I didn’t realize it had gotten this far along! I’ve got to check this out.

By: theatgrex

theatgrex — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a huge John Varley fan. I’ve read the first two in the series and I will most likely read this one as well. However, my favorite of his is definitely Steel Beach. It was the first book of his that I read , one of the first sci-fi books I read at all and it’s a big reason that I’m still reading sci-fi to this day . I rembered being in awe that someone could even imagine the kind of crazy shit that he did in that book. Right from the first sentence it pulled me in. Varley is truly one of the best!

By: ReidFleming

ReidFleming — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks, Cory. Heinlein was my third SF author to devour as a child so the nostalgia factor is intriguing. Not that anyone cares but I started with some odd ones; ‘Venus on the Half Shell’ by Kilgore Trout (Farmer) and next to Michael Moorecock’s ‘Dancers at the End of Time’. I will grab one or more of Varley’s books next time I’m out.

By: planettom

planettom — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Also have to recommend John Varley’s other work.

The Gaea Trilogy (TITAN, WIZARD, and DEMON) about a living space-habitat orbiting Saturn.

His recent time-travel yarn MAMMOTH.

And a lot of his excellent short fiction was collected in THE JOHN VARLEY READER: 30 YEARS OF SHORT FICTION.