Robert Heinlein's Double Star, the first novel featured in the Library of America's American Science Fiction: Five Classic Novels 1956 - 1958, is a cracking little read. Based on the time-honoured plot of the double who becomes indistinguishable from the more accomplished character he seeks to imitate, it manages to be funny, thought-provoking and exciting whilst painting a lively if not terribly convincing picture of our future in the stars. Well, at least as far as Mars. I started it yesterday evening as we were preparing to leave KL and finished it this morning relaxing in Melaka and it added considerably to my general sense of well-being, not least because of the general optimism of its vision of things and things to come. It's certainly remarkably prescient concerning the notion that an actor might well function very effectively as a politician.
Despite my recent sense of the need to read something major, something of real weight in the field of fiction, I'm more than happy to continue enjoying trekking down the by-ways of what one might loosely term 'genre fiction' for some time to come if the rewards are this great.
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