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Double Star
by: Robert A. Heinlein

Off The Bookshelf's Price: $7.99

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Used Price: $3.67
Collectible Price: $10.00
Third Party New Price: $4.41

Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780345330130
ISBN: 0345330137
Label: Del Rey
Manufacturer: Del Rey
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: October 12, 1986
Publisher: Del Rey
Release Date: October 12, 1986
Studio: Del Rey
Sales Rank: 399868

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
One minute, down and out actor Lorenzo Smythe was -- as usual -- in a bar, drinking away his troubles as he watched his career go down the tubes. Then a space pilot bought him a drink, and the next thing Smythe knew, he was shanghaied to Mars.

Suddenly he found himself agreeing to the most difficult role of his career: impersonating an important politician who had been kidnapped. Peace with the Martians was at stake -- failure to pull off the act could result in interplanetary war. And Smythe's own life was on the line -- for if he wasn't assassinated, there was always the possibility that he might be trapped in his new role forever!

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- One of my favorite Hienlein stories!
This is a story for everyone. Kids and adults can enjoy this story of intrigue and action. Set in the future includings mans exploration of the solar system. There are even Martions on Mars! I have read it many times and it has become one of my all time favorites!

Rating:

- Heinlein did better, later
"Double-Star" is good fiction, It is set in the future, thus it is "science-fiction". However, the core of the tale has to do with human psychology. It was and is a good story. However, for Heinlein, this tale rates "average" (in my opinion). For writers as a whole, Heinlein's "average" rates four stars, at least.

Rating:

- One Heinlein's best "small" books
For me, Heinlein's books have always fallen into three categories: the biggies (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Time Enough for Love, Stranger, etc.), the juvees (many of them excellent, e.g. The Rolling Stones, Rocket Ship Galileo, Orphans of the Sky), and everything else. I tend to think of the "everything else" books as his "small books"... not necessarily fewer pages, but -- as a rule -- less ambitious... drawn on a smaller canvas.

This deft retelling of The Prisoner of Zenda is one of the best, perhaps the best, of the small books. The storytelling is tight, and Lorenzo Smith is one of Heinlein's most memorable characters... He also one his most human and self-aware characters. Heinlein characters tend to preach tolerance and acceptance of otherness. Lorenzo *learns* tolerance. ... Read More

Rating:

- PoliSciFi? The first and best Political Science Fiction
Double Star is a brilliant tale of political intrigue set in a science fiction mileiu. Ignore the space ships, ignore interplanetary travel, and ignore the other trapping of SciFi, this is a story of an actor drawn into the most brutal, deceptive, treacherous environment known to humanity; politics.

The actor, Lorenzo, has the right build and face to play the stand in for a high ranking politician, and it is not clear whether or not he'll ever get out of the role... or want to.

In addition to being a great tale, there are a number of worthwhile lessons hidden in here. The best example is the habit of taking notes on people you meet, even folks junior to you that appear to be nobodies, in order to cultivate a relationship at a later date. Machiavellian? Mmmm... yes, ... Read More

Rating:

- Oh, yeah! The "Coriolanus effect"!
This one isn't really "science fiction," since, with only changes, it could be set in the here-and-now, or in Ruritania -- but it's pure Heinlein, and better written than many of his earlier works. At only 128 pages, it's also pretty short for a novel -- but it works. Lorenzo Smyth (a/k/a Larry Smith) is an actor convinced of his own talent (which, as it turns out, is actually considerable) who is hired to impersonate the Good Guy leader of a major political alliance, who has been kidnaped on Mars by the Evil Opposition. Against his better apolitical judgment, Lorenzo takes the job because it's a challenge, and almost immediately regrets it as the limited engagement spins itself out indefinitely. There's a minimum of strident overwriting of the sort Heinlein was often guilty of in pursuit of his moral ... Read More

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