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Getaway
The Getaway Special
In the tradition of Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos, Jerry Oltion, a rising star of science fiction and a Nebula Award-winning author, returns with a novel of intergalactic travel, a mad scientist, and otherworldly allies.
Allen Meisner is a member of INSANE, the International Network of Scientists Against Nuclear Extermination. A card-carrying mad scientist, he develops a hyperdrive engine capable of taking anyone to the stars for just a few dollars. But after a demonstration aboard a space ship goes awry, Allen learns that there's no such thing as a free ride.
Allen's ideas do not have quite the effect he desires. While the ability to travel great distances excites some, it terrifies others. Earth is in chaos as governments prepare for war to control this unleashed power. With everyone waiting for the bomb-now propelled by hyperdrive-to fall, Allen and his shuttle pilot, Judy Gallagher, look for a way to save humanity.
With electronic parts from Radio Shack and a plastic septic tank from a lumberyard, they build their own spacecraft and go in search of habitable planets. Armed with new allies, an intelligent butterfly, and a temperamental tree, they return to Earth for a final showdown between fear and freedom.
Allen Meisner is a member of INSANE, the International Network of Scientists Against Nuclear Extermination. A card-carrying mad scientist, he develops a hyperdrive engine capable of taking anyone to the stars for just a few dollars. But after a demonstration aboard a space ship goes awry, Allen learns that there's no such thing as a free ride.
Allen's ideas do not have quite the effect he desires. While the ability to travel great distances excites some, it terrifies others. Earth is in chaos as governments prepare for war to control this unleashed power. With everyone waiting for the bomb-now propelled by hyperdrive-to fall, Allen and his shuttle pilot, Judy Gallagher, look for a way to save humanity.
With electronic parts from Radio Shack and a plastic septic tank from a lumberyard, they build their own spacecraft and go in search of habitable planets. Armed with new allies, an intelligent butterfly, and a temperamental tree, they return to Earth for a final showdown between fear and freedom.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
2 people are currently reading
119 people want to read
About the author
Jerry Oltion
220 books24 followersJerry Oltion (pronounced OL-tee-un) has been a gardener, stone mason, carpenter, oilfield worker, forester, land surveyor, rock 'n' roll deejay, printer, proofreader, editor, publisher, computer consultant, movie extra, corporate secretary, magazine columnist, and garbage truck driver. For the last 37 years he has also been a writer, with 15 novels and over 150 stories published so far.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 16, 2009
The Getaway Special never quite seems to settle on what it's going to be. A wacky interstellar comedy, Ron Goulart-style? An edge-of-the-seat novel of nuclear brinkmanship, a la Failsafe in a science fiction setting? A nuts-n-bolts quasi-realistic "here's how we built the spaceship" story, perhaps reminiscent of some of Heinlein's work?
It's neither fish nor fowl. That said, it'sedible - I mean, readable.
It's the story of a self-proclaimed "mad scientist" (a cutesy designation which threatens to become actively annoying) and a space shuttle pilot as the venture across the galaxy. At first, there's an interesting semi-realistic tone; it's neat to imagine what would happen if FTL travel suddenly became cheap and easy. Of course, The Great Explosion already covered that ground (though how I wish there were sequels!).
Then the book takes a darker, more paranoiac turn, rather like Capricorn One (which is NOT what I meant by a wacky Goulart comedy, by the way). But it isn't long before it turns into what promises to be an interesting description of how to make a spaceship at home. Alas, this too gets a relatively sketchy treatment (although not before reminding me of Gilpin's Space by R. Bretnor).
Next, the story turns towards interstellar exploration. Once more, though, there's a relative lack of detail and focus.
Other threads follow. Strange aliens, world-saving...to be honest, it wasn't until I got to the roughly the middle of the aliens segment that I found myself no longer taking the book seriously. When aliens start making jokes and display virtually unbelievable abilities, the willing suspension of disbelief breaks - and mine did.
It wasn't an awful book. It was readable, and passed the time. But it wasn't particularly good, either. I'm not likely to make a particular effort to seek out future works by Mr. Oltion, although I'm not going to actively avoid him, either.
In a fractional system, I'd give this book a 2.6. And the .1 that takes it from "okay" to "liked it" is really because I came to the book with low expectations.
(Another book that I was reminded of while reading this one: The Venus Belt and Tom Paine Maru by L. Neil Smith. They, and all the other books I've mentioned above, are (I'm sorry to say) more interesting than The Getaway Special.)
It's neither fish nor fowl. That said, it's
It's the story of a self-proclaimed "mad scientist" (a cutesy designation which threatens to become actively annoying) and a space shuttle pilot as the venture across the galaxy. At first, there's an interesting semi-realistic tone; it's neat to imagine what would happen if FTL travel suddenly became cheap and easy. Of course, The Great Explosion already covered that ground (though how I wish there were sequels!).
Then the book takes a darker, more paranoiac turn, rather like Capricorn One (which is NOT what I meant by a wacky Goulart comedy, by the way). But it isn't long before it turns into what promises to be an interesting description of how to make a spaceship at home. Alas, this too gets a relatively sketchy treatment (although not before reminding me of Gilpin's Space by R. Bretnor).
Next, the story turns towards interstellar exploration. Once more, though, there's a relative lack of detail and focus.
Other threads follow. Strange aliens, world-saving...to be honest, it wasn't until I got to the roughly the middle of the aliens segment that I found myself no longer taking the book seriously. When aliens start making jokes and display virtually unbelievable abilities, the willing suspension of disbelief breaks - and mine did.
It wasn't an awful book. It was readable, and passed the time. But it wasn't particularly good, either. I'm not likely to make a particular effort to seek out future works by Mr. Oltion, although I'm not going to actively avoid him, either.
In a fractional system, I'd give this book a 2.6. And the .1 that takes it from "okay" to "liked it" is really because I came to the book with low expectations.
(Another book that I was reminded of while reading this one: The Venus Belt and Tom Paine Maru by L. Neil Smith. They, and all the other books I've mentioned above, are (I'm sorry to say) more interesting than The Getaway Special.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 19, 2020
Oltion, Jerry. The Getaway Special. 2001. Tor, 2003.
My, my, my. I did not expect The Getaway Special to be as much fun as it turned out to be. The premise sounds silly. A self-acknowledged “mad scientist” invents a small, cheap hyperdrive and causes an international incident when he tests it on the Space Shuttle Discovery. He causes even more trouble when he releases the designs for it on the public Internet and decides to build his own starship out of a thankfully new and unused septic tank. Oltion, who has designed a popular “trackball telescope” that he put in public domain, is interested the effects of freely distributed inventions. Here, he pushes the idea to a galactic scale. This is the kind of story that any of the Golden Age science fiction writers would have been proud to have their names on.
My, my, my. I did not expect The Getaway Special to be as much fun as it turned out to be. The premise sounds silly. A self-acknowledged “mad scientist” invents a small, cheap hyperdrive and causes an international incident when he tests it on the Space Shuttle Discovery. He causes even more trouble when he releases the designs for it on the public Internet and decides to build his own starship out of a thankfully new and unused septic tank. Oltion, who has designed a popular “trackball telescope” that he put in public domain, is interested the effects of freely distributed inventions. Here, he pushes the idea to a galactic scale. This is the kind of story that any of the Golden Age science fiction writers would have been proud to have their names on.
February 8, 2023
Allen Meisner creates a hyperdrive and tests it on a shuttle. The government tries to clamp down on this discovery. Meisner and shuttle pliot Judy Gallagher escape with the hyperdrive and do some exploring. On the trip they encounter some interesting aliens in the form of butterfly and a tree like being. The only problem I see in this is the government reaction. Would they get all paranoid and try to clamp down on the hyperdrive? Meisner is successful in leaving the plans for the hyperdrive on the Internet for anybody to build. Still the government tries to imprison him. Besides that the novel is pretty interesting.
March 29, 2021
Interesting story, but not a collection of stories
This is an interesting story, but the volume title makes it sound like the book contains a collection of short stories, not just a single short story and a bibliography.
This is an interesting story, but the volume title makes it sound like the book contains a collection of short stories, not just a single short story and a bibliography.
September 17, 2016
Another entertaining novel from Jerry Oltion. Allen Meisner is a card-carrying mad scientist. Really, he has a business card whitch identifies him a a member of INSANE: International Network of Scientists Against Nuclear Extermination. He has invented a hyperdrive, a device which can fling a spacecraft from one place to another faster than light, opening space to real exploration. He tests it on the space shuttle, instantly blinking them thousands of kilometers from their orbit, and triggering a crisis. The war-hungry United States government assumes some hostile force, probably the French, has destroyed the shuttle. This leads to increasing complications for Allen and Judy Gallagher, the shuttle commander. They form an unlikely alliance, and romance, as they flee from the oppressive government. Eventually, they flit off in a hyperdrive equipped spacecraft of their own: the Getaway Special.
Mr. Oltion combines several familiar science fiction tropes: the lone scientific genius, the homebuilt spaceship, a spunky, adventurous girlfriend, the folly of government poised on the brink of war, first contact with alien species, and the judgement by aliens that humans might prove so primitive and bloodthirsty a species that we might have to be exterminated.
I had great fun reading the three novels I could find by Mr. Oltion. They evoke old-school science fiction, the thrill of invention and discovery. I look forward to more.
Mr. Oltion combines several familiar science fiction tropes: the lone scientific genius, the homebuilt spaceship, a spunky, adventurous girlfriend, the folly of government poised on the brink of war, first contact with alien species, and the judgement by aliens that humans might prove so primitive and bloodthirsty a species that we might have to be exterminated.
I had great fun reading the three novels I could find by Mr. Oltion. They evoke old-school science fiction, the thrill of invention and discovery. I look forward to more.
September 16, 2011
Vaguely similar in premise to Red Thunder, The Getaway Special is about a scientist who invents a very cheap hyperdrive, and the consequences of his invention.
Unlike our hero’s predictions, the revelation of the hyperdrive leads to instant mayhem as the powers of the world are brought to the brink of war. The fragile balance of power from before is shattered. The US government persecutes the inventor and the commander of the space shuttle on which the experiment was performed, forcing them to go underground. This is followed by a Heinlein-esque jaunt around the galaxy and discovery of new beings.
While not perfect, I found that The Getaway Special embodies a Golden Age optimism about our future which kept bringing a smile to my face. Sure, it is cliché that the inventor and the shuttle pilot (yes, she’s female) become lovers. Sure, it is cliché that they make a spaceship out of readily available materials (a septic tank among other things). But this does not detract from the fun of the story.
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1128
Unlike our hero’s predictions, the revelation of the hyperdrive leads to instant mayhem as the powers of the world are brought to the brink of war. The fragile balance of power from before is shattered. The US government persecutes the inventor and the commander of the space shuttle on which the experiment was performed, forcing them to go underground. This is followed by a Heinlein-esque jaunt around the galaxy and discovery of new beings.
While not perfect, I found that The Getaway Special embodies a Golden Age optimism about our future which kept bringing a smile to my face. Sure, it is cliché that the inventor and the shuttle pilot (yes, she’s female) become lovers. Sure, it is cliché that they make a spaceship out of readily available materials (a septic tank among other things). But this does not detract from the fun of the story.
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1128
September 11, 2014
If you've read Oltion's Anywhere But Here, this is the preceding volume, written in 2001. But each book can stand alone.
Our heroine is a shuttle pilot, our hero a genius scientist. One day he stumbles across a really easy way to build a hyperdrive. With handwaving worthy of a 1950s novel, they're off to space for some adventures.
It feels a bit silly throughout, and it IS silly, but as things roll out Oltion takes some care with the science, being careful with such things as relative velocities, what happens in zero G, etc.
There's some grand adventure with, er, what they meet. And we get into what happens back on earth now that space travel is cheap and easy. Let's just say that stability is not what it is.
This isn't any kind of SF epic, but it's fun to read.
Our heroine is a shuttle pilot, our hero a genius scientist. One day he stumbles across a really easy way to build a hyperdrive. With handwaving worthy of a 1950s novel, they're off to space for some adventures.
It feels a bit silly throughout, and it IS silly, but as things roll out Oltion takes some care with the science, being careful with such things as relative velocities, what happens in zero G, etc.
There's some grand adventure with, er, what they meet. And we get into what happens back on earth now that space travel is cheap and easy. Let's just say that stability is not what it is.
This isn't any kind of SF epic, but it's fun to read.
March 17, 2011
Eugene author Jerry Oltion's sci-fi novel is a riot -- based on the premise that someone invents a space ship that anyone can build using a septic tank and a few electronic parts from a Radio Shack store. Soon the galaxy is full of space cowboys pioneering new planets, and Earth is in chaos.
December 5, 2012
Great fun, and although there were a few technical glitches related to the qualifications of pilot astronauts, terminology, etc, they didn't damage my suspension of disbelief enough to wreck my enjoyment of it.
July 7, 2015
This classic feeling piece of science-fiction adventure is filled with surprising twists and turns that take it to delightful places. I'd say more -- but spoilers. In short, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
December 11, 2015
This is kind of a weird book. I love reading about space travel but this book was very disjointed. The whole plot with Earth didn't make sense. I also doubt that a septic tank could really travel around space, but hey I'm no scientist. It was a cute read but I would say it's more like 2.5 stars.
March 1, 2008
Oltion is definitely a hidden gem in the sci-fi genre.
August 29, 2012
This one was just a really silly, but fun, read. Reminded me of Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews