SF Masterwork of the Week: Double Star

The writer known as ‘the Dean of Science Fiction’, Robert A. Heinlein won four Hugo Awards for best novel. The most recent was in 1967 for The Moon is a Harsh Mistress; before that he won in 1960 and 1962 for his two most famous works, Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land.  But his first win was in 1956  . . .

Double Star

One minute, down-and-out actor Lorenzo Smythe was – as usual – in a bar, drinking away his troubles as he watched his career go down the tubes. Then a space pilot bought him a drink, and the next thing Smythe knew, he was shanghaied to Mars.

Suddenly he found himself agreeing to the most difficult role of his career: impersonating an important politician who had been kidnapped. Peace with the Martians was at stake – failure to pull off the act could result in interplanetary war. And Smythe’s own life was on the line – for if he wasn’t assassinated, there was always the possibility that he might be trapped in his new role forever!

Double Star is available as an SF Masterworks paperback and an SF Gateway eBook. You can read more about Robert A. Heinlein in his entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.