Double Star

What Hacker News says

1. stevenwooOct 2023
   One thing with the early sci-fi is you will have to pretend you don’t know what we now know about the other planets. Asimov (The Martian Way I think got Saturn’s rings very wrong) and Heinlein (Mars and Venus are both depicted very wrongly and still a very entertaining story in Double Star) had a few stories and novellas.
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2. KerrAvonFeb 2022
   If we're doing recommendations, I'd say Double Star is Heinlein's best work of the 1950's, although it contains neither time travel nor implied incest.
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3. netman21Jan 2020
   As an author I am encouraged by all the great responses here. In addition to writing a book a year I read about 50. My question for OP: How do you learn anything if you are not reading books? Sure, you can learn a lot about a subject online. When I write a book I spend about 6 months reading everything I can find (including books). Then I organize what I have learned and present it (I hope) in an easy to absorb manner. A reader can learn everything I know about a subject in 4-6 hours. Want to learn about the Cold War? Read Gaddis' seminal book on it. Want to learn about WWII? Read Winston Churchill's five book series that won the Nobel prize for literature? Civil War? Shelby Foote. If history is not your thing what about biography? There are biographies of practically every founder of great tech companies. (Jobs, Gates, Musk). How about ideas? Malcolm Gladwell (Tippingpoint), Michael Lewis (Mondeyball). Or maybe break into reading with fiction. Give yourself a present of the complete Lord of the Rings. If you liked the movies be prepared to love the books. If you hated the movies, no problem, the books are far better. OR science fiction. Read all of Heinlein's books for young adults. Start with Double Star then read Have Space Suit Will Travel. A Door Into Summer speaks to any engineer. Tunnel In the Sky is the classic survival story. When you are hooked on Heinlein read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress; it only takes a chapter to get used to his interesting take on what English of the future will sound like.

   I hope you are encouraged by all the great reasons listed in the rest of the comments. I for one live to read!

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4. setpatchaddressDec 2018
   People read what they want to read, but that’s not the Stranger I remember. And you’d have a different conclusion if you read Job to the end. You probably wouldn’t like the book any better, but it’s not remotely what you’re implying.

   Edited to add: I realize post-juvenile Heinlein is not to everyone’s taste — and I’m personally convinced Double Star may be his finest single book — but if one is interested — Stranger, Glory Road, Starship Troopers, Moon is a Harsh Mistress, are all worthwhile — and different from each other.

   I’m not gonna defend Farnham’s Freehold, but each of the other later Heinlein works not listed above has some merit, though mostly for real fans only.

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5. ritMar 2013
   You could go back even before Gattaca. In the beginning of one of Heinlein's earliest works (and one of my all time favourites), "Double Star" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Star], he discusses using latex fake fingerprints to frame someone.

   Book was written, I believe, in the early '50s.

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6. n4r9Apr 2025
   [The italics and punctuation suggest your comment is sarcastic, but I'm going to treat it as serious just in case.]

   Yeah, I'd say characterisation is a weakness of his. I've read Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers, and Double Star. Heinlein does explore characters more than, say, Clark, but he doesn't go much for internal change or emotional growth. His male characters typically fall into one of two cartoonish camps: either supremely confident, talented, intelligent and independent (e.g. Jubal, Bernardo, Mannie, Bonforte...) or vaguely pathetic and stupid (e.g. moon men). His female characters are submissive, clumsily sexualised objects who contribute very little to the plot. There are a few partial exceptions - e.g. Lorenzo in Double Star and female pilots in Starship Troopers - but the general atmosphere is one of teenage boy wish fulfilment.

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