Variable Star - Softcover

Robert A. Heinlein is universally acknowledged as modern science fiction's greatest author. At his death, in 1987, he left a legacy of books and stories that has profoundly influenced the course of the field for generations.

But one of Heinlein's most ambitious works was never finished. In 1955, he began work on a novel to be titled Variable Star, completing a detailed outline and making extensive notes for the book, only to set it aside to focus on other novels, including Tunnel in the Sky and the Hugo Award-winning Double Star. For more than half a century, the work lay forgotten among Heinlein's papers. Upon its rediscovery, the Robert A. Heinlein Trust selected an author to finish the work.

The author chosen was, appropriately enough, a writer The New York Times has hailed as "the New Robert Heinlein": Spider Robinson, the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of such modern science fiction classics as Stardance and "Melancholy Elephants."

Profits from the book will help fund the annual $500,000 Heinlein Prize for innovation in commercial manned spaceflight, a goal Mr. Heinlein considered crucial to humanity's long-term survival.

“Completing a book from notes by a dead author is almost always a mistake. But Robert A. Heinlein apparently isn't really dead. He was obviously standing at the side of Spider Robinson as he wrote this book, guiding his hand. Variable Star will delight the fans of the greatest science fiction writer who ever lived, and at the same time, stays true to Spider's passionate themes of optimism, kindness, and humanity's future among the stars.” ―John Varley, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of The Persistence of Vision and Steel Beach

“I've already laughed hard and wanted to cry....This book is a delight and I love you for doing it. I love you even more for doing it so damned well. Thank you.” ―David Crosby, Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter and member of The Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash