Double Star

This isn't really science fiction, as the sf elements have little bearing on the story. Sure there are rocketships and aliens and all that, but it is mostly scenery for Heinlein to ponder politics and personality types (again).

To be honest I was a little bit surprised at how progressive he was (for the times) at this point in his career.

A leading politician has been kidnapped, and his close associates hire an actor to impersonate him until the real man can be rescued. This is the actor's story, of how he copes with the task and thinks himself into the role, and it's handled well enough to be quite interesting. There is a plot of sorts, but it exists only as a framework to hang this character study on.

It's set in a future in which space travel is fairly routine and the political rights of (non-human) Martians are an issue. Essentially the same story could have been set in the present, or the past, but setting it in the future means that readers are unlikely to get worked up about the politics.

This novel was published in 1956, and you have to make allowances for that when reading. The characters are from the 1950s, the technology is from the 1950s with a few updates, and the writing style is characteristic of 1950s sf.

Some reviewers have commented on the line “Stow it, Penny, or I'll spank your round fanny.” It doesn't read well these days, but clearly it was one of those jokey threats uttered with no intention of carrying it out. In 1956, I guess it would probably pass as banter between close colleagues who get along well with each other. To quote another writer, “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.”

For me, this is an amiable and mildly interesting story, marginally good enough to reread, but only very occasionally. Remarkably, it won a Hugo award; I think the other candidates weren't very strong that year.

Politics are something that are usually given short shrift in a lot of science fiction, so I really enjoyed that this book focused on them. The plot pretty straightforward, so enjoyment of this novel would hinge on how much you enjoy Lorenzo, a stuffy, our-of-work actor who's suddenly offered the role of a lifetime when the Prime Minister of Earth is kidnapped.

I originally read this book many years ago (nearly thirty, I think), and I enjoyed the re-read. It's a satisfying story, not hugely original, but well written and well paced. It does reflect the technology of 1950's America, and more so the attitudes. There are parts that are repulsively sexist by modern standards. But such attitudes were common in the age in which this novella was written. All in all, I find this to be one of the more enjoyable of Heinlein's early works.