With a career that spans over thirty years, John Varley is only moderately prolific, with just over a dozen novels to his name. Fortunately, he is an author who is well worth the wait between books. Red Lightning once again shows why he continues to be one of the greats in science fiction.Red Lightning is the sequel to Red Thunder. The earlier novel dealt with a group of young adults who build their own spaceship despite government intervention (similar to The Astronaut Farmer (which came later), but also plotted rather differently). Red Lightning takes place a couple decades later and is narrated by Ray Garcia-Strickland, son of one of the Red Thunder heroes. In the intervening years between the two books, humanity has successfully colonized Mars and established based throughout the solar system. Earth, however, remains the center of the human universe.A mysterious object hits the Atlantic at near-light velocity, creating a massive tsunami that devastates the Caribbean and the east coast of the U.S., leading to economic and political crises. The first part of the book deals with Ray and his family going from Mars to Earth to explore the damage and rescue some relatives; the second portion, taking place on Mars, has Earth invading the colony and inadvertently sparking calls for independence.When reading this book, you'd think that the Katrina disaster would have been an influence, but a look at the copyright shows it was published too soon after that hurricane to really have an impact on the novel (though Varley does refer to it in an afterword); it was the Indonesian tsunami of 2004 that had more influence. Literarily, there is an obvious Heinlein effect, especially Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.Though dealing with heavy issues, Varley writes with a light touch (though not so light as to trivialize what's going on). This helps make Red Lightning another fun Varley novel. If you want to read good (or great) old-fashioned style science fiction, Varley delivers the goods with Red Lightning.