Red Lightning by John Varley is the sequel to Red Thunder (reviewed previously) and follows on with the next generation 20 years after the events of Red Thunder. This book has some of the same flaws as the original, but it’s strengths aren’t quite as good. By following up 20 years later, we can see some of the effects from the end of previous book and allow us to see how the events played out. The change in narration is handled well, but be still have too much exposition at times.

Ray (Ramon) is a 17 year old Martian, the younger child of Manny and Kelly from the original book, who is the favorite nephew of Jubal (the genius from the original book). He and his sister Elizabeth have lived on Mars for over 10 years while their parent run one of the hotels. The first part of the book deals with setting up the environment and situation so far. Then a catastrophe happens on Earth and our family travels back to meet up with old friends and try to find Manny’s mom. Here we are re-acquainted with Travis Broussard as they travel across country on a rescue mission.

Then the final part of the plot starts up when Jubal disappears from Earth and the Earth authorities attempt to attack Mars, since they believe Ray’s family knows where Jubal is. The action picks up at this point with another fantastic physics breakthrough from Jubal and a space battle. The actual action in this book is limited and a lot happens off screen.

Overall the book is a fast, decent read, but not a great one. I would definitely recommend it if you enjoyed Red Thunder (and you do need to read Red Thunder to understand this one). The final sequel Rolling Thunder has caught my attention, not just because of the first two books, but because the main character is named Podkayne.