Fire Star

Science Fiction has a tendency to come down on the more liberal side of most issues. Fire Star breaks from this tradition and delivers a story with a conservative heroine/agenda. With most science fiction you get a society radically different from our own, but Flynn is able to show you today’s world and make space travel believable.

In this story, private enterprise has invested deeply into a secret project to replace the shuttle. Mariesa Van Huyten and her Van Huyten Industries (VHI) are the driving force behind this project. The corporate world is in it for the profits that are promised from a single stage to orbit vehicle, but Mariesa is driven by her fears.

The cast is supplemented by the test pilots that will take the new ship up as well as students in a school system bought out by VHI for the purposes of improving education. Mariesa has her own purposes of putting hope and the dream of space into the leaders of tomorrow. The sub plots intertwine seamlessly with the main plot. The book ultimately succeeds in showing the reader how space travel could change and getting the reader excited about it at the same time.

This is a very good book. There is mild sexuality and violence, but high school level readers should be fine. Warning: This book is part of a series and may lead you to buy the other books, but it works as a stand alone. This book is a Heinlein Award winner and follows in the tradition of Heinlein works.