Name: Double Star
ISBN: 9780345330130

Robert Anson Heinlein

A twenty-second-century actor is taken to Mars to assume the identity of a prominent Earthman who has disappeared

Double Star

Janice Hopper

A "prince and the pauper" kind of story, where Joe Schlub has to stand in for Mr. Famous because Reasons. And then things get more and more complicated.

It was fine, actually less dated than I expected for a 50+ year old book. It had the conventions of its time (smoking, Martians, habitable Venus, cavalier attitude toward its one female character, etc.)

Robert A. Heinlein

One minute, down-and-out actor Lorenzo Smythe was - as usual - in a bar, drinking away his troubles as he watched his career go down the tubes. Then a space pilot bought him a drink, and the next thing Smythe knew, he was shanghaied to Mars. Suddenly he found himself agreeing to the most difficult role of his career: impersonating an important politician who had been kidnapped. Peace with the Martians was at stake - failure to pull off the act could result in interplanetary war. And Smythe's own life was on the line - for if he wasn't assassinated, there was always the possibility that he might be trapped in his new role forever!