Pun Salad

Continuing my rereading-Heinlein project… Double Star won the Best SF Novel Hugo for 1956. It's Heinlein at his best. And (frankly) after wading through the ponderous (but excellent) 700+ page In the First Circle, I was in the mood for something easier and lighter.

The story is first-person narrated by near-future actor Lawrence Smith (aka "Lorenzo Smythe" or "The Great Lorenzo"). Down on his luck, he's approached in a seedy bar by space pilot Dak Broadbent, who offers him a small job: could he take the place of a guy who needs to appear in public, but unfortunately is temporarily unavailable…. Lorenzo is dubious, but takes the job.

But soon discovers that the gig is (literally) more than he bargained for: he's not impersonating any random schmoe, but famed politician John Joseph Bonforte.

On Mars.

And Bonforte is not just unavailable, he's been kidnapped by powerful people who are trying to monkeywrench his negotiations with the inscrutable native Martians. And they aren't above using further violence to spoil Lorenzo's performance.

Anyway, there's a lot of action, and Heinlein does a great job of narrating Lorenzo's character arc from the inside. The basic idea isn't exactly fresh, but I still had a good time. The ending is unexpectedly moving; Heinlein did that more than a few times to me.