Red Thunder by John Varley is a cross between The Astronaut Farmer and Salvage 1. It’s a story about a group of kids who work with an ex-astronaut and his genius (and slightly mentally challenged) cousin to develop a new power source into a trip to Mars. If you look at the cover and the title, it would appear to be more of a Tom Clancy book, but this is a homage to Robert Heinlein’s juveniles.

Manny and his buddy Dak are out on the beach with their girlfriends (Kelly and Alicia) when they run over an astronaut. Literally run over an astronaut. In this case, the astronaut is Travis Broussard. He was a heroic NASA pilot until his drinking got him kicked out. Now he is drinking himself to death slowly with nothing to live for. After getting him back home, the kids go back to visit the next day. Then they are introduced to Travis’ cousin Jubal. Jubal has a slight mental retardation from his father’s beatings, but still has a head for physics that Einstein would be jealous of.

They find Jubal latest invention, a shiny silverish ball that is pretty much indestructible. It turns out that the indestructible silver ball was created with minimal energy and has a vacuum inside. The tool that creates them can also pop them. If you pop one the size of a bb, you get a loud pop. If you pop one the size of a beach ball, you should be protected from hurricane force winds. The group decides to take a modified version of Jubals tool (the squeezer) and use it to beat both the American and Chinese astronauts to Mars. And so the second part of the book deals with the team building a space ship. The third part of the book then deals with the trip to Mars and back.

The book is not a realistic look at a trip to Mars, but it’s a fun ride. The only complaint I have is that the introductory section of the book where we get the energy breakthrough and learn about the characters is too long. More time is spent on the character’s history and backstory when the interesting part of the book is the trip to Mars. But I would still recommend it and am looking forward to the two sequels Red Lightningand Rolling Thunder.