This page is about a novel by Robert Heinlein. For other uses, see double star (disambiguation).

Double Star is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein. It was published in 1956 and received a Hugo Award the same year (for Best Novel).

The plot centers on a down-and-out actor. A brilliant mimic and pantomimist, Lawrence Smith (stage name Lorenzo Smythe, a.k.a. "The Great Lorenzo") might have been another Charlie Chaplin had not his poisonous self-centeredness kept him socially isolated. Reduced to sleeping in a coin-operated cubicle, he is down to his last coin when a spaceman hires him to double for a public figure. It is only when he reviews the tapes for his impersonation that he realizes how deeply he has been deceived: he will have to impersonate one of the most prominent politicians in the solar system (and one with whose views Smythe deeply disagrees) -- John Joseph Bonforte, leader of the Expansionist coalition, currently in opposition but with a good chance of taking power at the next general election.

Lorenzo grows tremendously as a person during the story, as he takes on not only Bonforte´s appearance, but some aspects of his personality. Bonforte is literally a "good and strong" political leader (similar in personality and leadership style to Franklin D. Roosevelt). When the role he assumes becomes extended due to the incapacity of Bonforte (who had been kidnapped and drugged into insensibility by political opponents), Smythe takes on more and more of Bonforte's persona. After Bonforte dies of the aftereffects of the drug overdose, Smythe realizes he has little choice but to assume the role for life. In a retrospective conclusion set twenty-five years later, we learn that he has been generally successful and has carried forward Bonforte's ideals to the best of his ability. Penny (Bonforte's adoring secretary; now his wife) says, "I never loved anyone else." Smythe has transformed from self-centeredness to nobility and almost literal self-sacrifice.

The central political issue in the plot is the granting of the vote to Martians in the human-dominated Solar System. Lorenzo shares the anti-Martian prejudice prevalent among large parts of Earth's population, but he is called upon to assume the persona of the most prominent advocate for Martian enfranchisement -- which he does successfully. At the end of the book his former life, including the prejudice he used to hold, seem to him like things that happened to someone else.

Publication of the book coincided with the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement in the US South.

Like many of Heinlein's stories, this novel inspired later works. The plot of Double Star (along with similar works such as Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper and Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda) inspired the 1993 film Dave.

Monarchy

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The political system depicted in the book is a constitutional monarchy, with the House of Orange elevated to the role of emperors of the Solar System. The Emperor reigns (but does not rule) from a palace on the Moon, with the real power in the hands of a democratically-elected Prime Minister.

Presumably, this is an example of Heinlein's love of startling his readers with provocative ideas that he didn't necessarily agree with -- in this case, presenting American readers with the prospect of their country once again being reigned over a monarch (and the possibility that this would not, in fact, be so terrible).

This idea appears in other Heinlein books. In a Comedy of Justice, one of the many alternative realities through which the hero wanders is a history in which the US has a monarch (called "Hereditary President"). In The Moon is a Harsh Mistress one of the characters suggests that the Moon's citizens set up a monarchy after they win their independence from Earth.

Trivia

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• Double Star expands on an earlier description of the waterbed in Beyond This Horizon. Heinlein's detailed descriptions made it impossible for the waterbed to be patented later, when waterbeds actually began to be manufactured.
• The cover illustration for the 1970s UK edition of Double Star (artist: Anthony Roberts) was the subject of an unlikely controversy when it was used as the basis of an entry for the 2000 Turner Prize for modern art. The artist in question, Glenn Brown, was accused by some people of plagiarism.

External links

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1956 novels | Novels by Robert A. Heinlein | Hugo Award winning works

Estrella doble | Double étoile | Double Star | Dubbelstjärna (bok) | 双星 (小说)