Rolling Thunder

First off, the book is a great and delicious tribute to Heinlein -- but updated. That's true for all the books in this series. He outright admits it and names his character Podkayne (as in Heinlein's Podkayne of Mars. But don't get this mistaken for some fan fiction. Varley is a fantastic writer. He......more

If you couldn't get enough Heinlein back in your teens, and especially if you were female and aggravated at the lack of strong female characters, well, Podkayne is back, and more liberated than ever! Varley has created an excellent Heinlein homage for we baby boomers, with references to many of "the......more

The fact that he named the main character Podkayne is pretty much the only reason I haven't given this book less than 1 star. Mostly, Podkayne was a Mary-Sue . . . written by a man (so she was more obsessed with her breast size than she was by her exotic eye-color; she did, however, manage to be str......more

Back when I was in junior high school the school library had a shelf with all the Heinlein juveniles on it. I read every one of them, but my memory of each varies. The school itself no longer exists, but if I could somehow be transported back in time I could still go directly to that shelf and even......more

Again we drop through the generations, and this is another solid, interesting yarn. Obviously, there's only so much variation on a theme you can get, so the introduction of the Europan critters is an interesting twist to keep things alive. And nice to see so many Heinlein references squozed into tha......more