Tip the Wink

Time for the Stars by Robert A. Heinlein. Scribner’s & Sons, 1956. Juvenile novel # 10 in the series. Published in both hardcover and paperback that year by Scribner’s as part of the Heinlein juvenile series.

Continuing my survey of Robert Heinlein’s set of twelve juvenile science fiction novels, we now reach number ten. Since I started reading these out of order, there will be just one more after this, followed by a summing up.

The story is an exploration of the Twin Paradox, which explains how relativity works. If you had identical twins, and one of them accelerated away from Earth and the other stayed home, so much more time would pass on Earth than in the spaceship that the Earth twin would be a hundred years old when the space twin came home, only a few years later. Heinlein took this concept and made it a real story with characters — and he made the twin thing relevant by using twin telepathy, which is instantaneous, as a means of communicating between Earth and ship.

The Plot
The Long Range Foundation (LRF) is a non-profit organization that funds expensive, long-term projects for the benefit of mankind. It has built a dozen exploratory space ships to search for habitable planets to colonize. It is found that some twins and triplets can communicate with each other telepathically, and the process is both instantaneous and unaffected by distance, making it the only practical means of communication for ships traveling light year distances from Earth. Before announcing the discovery, the foundation first recruits as many of these people as it can. Testing shows that teenagers Tom and Pat Bartlett have this talent and both sign up. Pat, the dominant twin, manipulates things so that he gets selected as the crew member, much to Tom’s annoyance. However, Pat has a skiing accident at the last minute so that Tom has to take his place.

On board, Tom is pleased to find that his uncle Steve, a military man, has arranged to get assigned to the same ship. The trip is fraught with problems as trivial as an annoying roommate and as serious as mutiny. The ship visits several star systems, including Beta Hydri. Due to the nature of relativistic travel the twin who remained behind ages faster and eventually the affinity between them is weakened to the point that they can no longer communicate easily. Some of the spacefaring twins, including the protagonist, are able to connect with descendants of the Earthbound twins. Tom works first with his niece, then his grandniece, and finally his great-grandniece.

The last planet scouted proves to be particularly deadly. Unexpectedly intelligent and hostile natives capture and kill a large portion of the remaining crew, including the captain and Tom’s uncle. The reserve captain takes charge, but is unable to restore the morale of the devastated survivors. When he insists on continuing the mission rather than returning to Earth, members of the crew begin to consider mutiny. Shortly after he notifies Earth of the dire situation, they are surprised to hear a spaceship will rendezvous with them in less than a month and wonder how that can be possible.

Scientists on Earth have discovered faster-than-light travel, in part due to research into the nature of telepathy, and are collecting the surviving crews of the LRF torchships. The explorers return to an Earth they no longer recognize, and in most cases, no longer fit in. Tom, however, returns to family and makes the adjustment.

My Take
As with the other Heinlein juveniles, this is an enjoyable book, though the telling sags in places. There is good characterization, and a few twists. The plot mostly centers on Tom, who is on the ship, but there are sections on discovered planets, which are well done, and back on Earth, which are less interesting. Still, a strong entry in the series.

We now have just one more of Heinlein’s juveniles to go before I do a wrap-up. Next time: Have Space Suit–Will Travel.

Tunnel In the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein. Scribner’s & Sons, 1955. Juvenile novel # 9  Published in both hardcover and paperback that year by Scribner’s as part of the Heinlein juvenile series.

The Plot
BACKGROUND: The novel is set in the future, when overpopulation on Earth has been lessened after the invention of teleportation, called the “Ramsbotham jump”, which is used to send Earth’s excess population to colonize other planets. However, the costs of operating the device mean that the colonies are isolated from Earth until they can produce goods to justify two-way trade. Because colonizing requires practical infrastructure, the colonists employ “technology” from the frontier era, such as horses instead of tractors.

THE STORY: Rod Walker is a high school student who dreams of becoming a professional colonist. The final test of his Advanced Survival class is to stay alive on an unfamiliar planet for between two and ten days. Students may team up and equip themselves with whatever gear they can carry, but are otherwise completely on their own. They are told only that the challenges are neither insurmountable nor unreasonable. On test day, each student walks through the Ramsbotham portal and finds him or herself alone on a strange planet, though reasonably close to the pickup point. Rod, acting on his older sister’s advice, takes hunting knives and basic survival gear rather than high-tech weaponry, on the grounds that the latter could make him over-confident. The last advice the students receive is to “watch out for stobor.”

On the second day, Rod is ambushed and knocked unconscious by a thief. When he wakes up, all he has left is a spare knife hidden under a bandage. In his desperate concentration on survival, he loses track of time. Eventually he teams up with a student from another class who tells him that more than ten days have elapsed without contact, he realizes that something has gone wrong with the portal that was supposed to recover them, and they are stranded.

They start recruiting others to build a settlement for long term survival and Rod becomes the de facto leader of a community that eventually grows to around 75 people. Disagreements reveal the need to elect a government for the new town. Rod has no taste for politics or administration, and is happy to have Grant Cowper, an older college student and born politician, elected mayor. Grant proves to be much better at talking than getting things done. Despite disagreeing with many of Grant’s policies, Rod supports him. Grant ignores Rod’s warning that they are living in a dangerously hard-to-defend location and that they should move to a cave system he has found. When a species previously thought harmless suddenly changes its behavior and stampedes through their camp, the settlement is devastated and Grant is killed. Rod is put back in charge.

Heinlein tracks the social development of this frontier community of educated Westerners deprived of technology, followed by its abrupt dissolution when contact with Earth is reestablished when a working temporary gate appears. All of the students go back to Earth willingly except for Rod, who has great difficulty reverting from the status of head of a small, but sovereign state to a teenager casually brushed aside by the adult rescuers. Still, he has no choice.

After nearly two years of isolation, the culture shock experienced by the survivors highlights for them and the reader the pain and uncertainty of becoming an adult, by reversing the process abruptly—Each of the students goes from being a self-responsible member of an autonomous community back to being regarded as a callow youth.

Years later, Rod is briefly depicted accomplishing his heart’s desire; the novel’s ending finds him preparing to lead a formal colonization party to another planet.

My Take
As with the other Heinlein juveniles, this one was well received by SF reviewers. I agree, this is a good one. Heinlein bears down pretty hard with his political and social-cultural agenda, and there have been comparisons with The Lord of the Flies, which was published the same year. However this novel is much more upbeat in it’s portrayal of humans creating a isolated society. For once I remembered reading it many (many) years ago, and enjoyed it.

We now have just two more of Heinlein’s juveniles to go before I do a wrap-up. Next time: Time For the Stars.

Between Planets by Robert A. Heinlein. Scribner’s & Sons, 1951. Juvenile novel # 5 Originally serialized in Blue Book magazine in 1951 as “Planets in Combat”. It was published in hardcover that year by Scribner’s as part of the Heinlein juveniles.

The Plot
The scientist parents of Don Harvey withdraw him from his high school in New Mexico in the middle of the term so that he can travel to their home on Mars. It is hinted that his parents want him “out of a potential war zone”, where he would be viewed suspiciously because of doubts about where his loyalties lie. At his parents’ behest, he visits an old family friend who asks him to deliver a ring to his father. But both Don and the family friend are arrested by Earth security forces. Harvey is released and given his cheap plastic ring back, after it has been examined; he is told that his friend has died of “heart failure.” It is only later that he realizes that all deaths can be described that way.

Harvey boards a shuttle to a space station orbiting the Earth. The station doubles as a transshipment terminus and a military base, armed with missiles to keep restive nations in check. On the trip up, he befriends one of his fellow passengers, a Venerian “dragon” named Sir Isaac Newton. Sir Isaac is a renowned physicist who can speak English using a portable device.

Harvey gets caught up in the Venerian war of independence when the station is captured by the colonials in a surprise raid. Most of the other travelers are sent back to Earth, while a few decide to join the rebels. Harvey is in a quandary. The spaceship to Mars has been confiscated, but he remains determined to get there, by way of Venus if necessary. Because he was born in space, with one parent from Venus and the other from Earth, he claims Venerian citizenship; more importantly, Sir Isaac vouches for him. He is allowed to tag along, which turns out to be very fortunate for Harvey. The rebels blow up the station to stir up trouble for the Earth government. When the shuttle returns to Earth with its radios disabled, the military assumes it has been booby-trapped and destroys it, killing all aboard.

On his arrival on Venus, Harvey finds that his Earth-backed money is now worthless. He gets a job washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant run by Charlie, a kind Chinese immigrant.

He tries to send a message to his parents, only to find all communication with Mars has been cut due to the hostilities. Harvey settles in to wait out the war, but the war comes to him when Earth sends a force to put down the rebellion. The Venerian ships are destroyed in orbit and the ground forces are routed. Charlie is killed resisting the occupying soldiers. Harvey is rounded up and questioned by a senior security officer, who is very eager to get his hands on Harvey’s ring. Luckily, Harvey had given it to a friend for safekeeping and he does not know where the friend is or whether she is even alive. Before he can be interrogated with drugs, he escapes and joins the Venusian guerrilla forces.

In time, he is tracked down by the leaders of the resistance, who turn out to also be looking for the ring. Isobel and her father (who is an important member of the rebels) are safe at the very base where Harvey is taken.

The seemingly valueless ring turns out to be carrying the secret of scientific breakthroughs resulting from archaeological studies of an extinct alien civilization on Mars. With Sir Isaac’s assistance, it is used to build an advanced spaceship that is much faster than any other vessel in existence, with revolutionary weapons and defenses also derived from the new technology. As the only combat veteran, Harvey is recruited for the maiden voyage of Little David, manning a dead man’s switch, with strict orders to blow up the ship if it is in danger of being captured. Little David intercepts and defeats a task force of warships on their way to Mars to crush the revolt there.

 My Take
Despite it’s rather abrupt ending, Between Planets was well received by science fiction reviewers upon it’s release, and compared favorably to all SF released in the year, adult and juvenile. Once again, Heinlein loves to show off his hard science fiction chops. That both Venus and Mars are depicted as habitable, now known to be untrue, in 1951 when this was written it was an acceptable idea. This book really moves the series along toward adult science fiction, and that trend will continue in the following books. In that respect I see it as a turning point. Once again, I liked this one quite a bit.

We now have just four more of Heinlein’s juveniles to go before I do a wrap-up. Next time: Tunnel In the Sky.

Farmer In the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein.  Scribner’s & Sons, 1950, hardcover and paperback. Juvenile novel # 4

This, the fourth of Heinlein’s YA (juvenile) novels, is about a teenaged boy and his family who emigrates to Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, which is in the process of being terraformed. A condensed version of the novel was published in serial form in Boys’ Life magazine (August, September, October, November 1950), under the title “Satellite Scout”. The novel was awarded a Retro Hugo in 2001.

The Plot
On an overcrowded Earth, food is carefully rationed. Teenager William (Bill) Lermer lives with his widower father, George. George decides to emigrate to the farming colony on Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons. After marrying Molly Kenyon, George embarks with Bill and Molly’s daughter Peggy on the ‘torchship’ Mayflower. During the trip all the children attend class; also, to combat the boredom of the long trip, the Boy Scouts among the passengers form troops.

When they arrive on Ganymede, an unpleasant surprise awaits the newcomers. The group is much larger than the colony can easily absorb and the farms they were promised do not yet exist. In fact, the soil has to be created from scratch by pulverizing boulders and lava flows, and seeding the resulting dust with carefully formulated organic material. While some whine about the injustice of it all, Bill accepts an invitation to live with a prosperous farmer and his family to learn what he needs to know, while his father signs on as an engineer in town. Peggy is unable to adjust to the low pressure atmosphere and has to stay in a bubble in the hospital. When the Lermers are finally reunited on their own homestead, they build their house with a pressurized room for Peggy.

A rare alignment of all of Jupiter’s major moons causes a devastating moon quake which damages most of the buildings. Peggy is seriously injured when her room suffers an explosive decompression. Even worse, the machinery that maintains Ganymede’s “heat trap” is knocked out and the temperature starts dropping rapidly. George quickly realizes what has happened and gets his family to the safety of the town. Others do not grasp their peril soon enough and either stay in their homes or start for town too late; two-thirds of the colonists perish, either from the quake or by freezing. The Lermers consider returning to Earth, but after Peggy dies and in true pioneer spirit, they decide to stay and rebuild.

The colony gradually recovers and an expedition is organized to survey more of Ganymede. Bill goes along as the cook. While exploring, he and a friend discover artifacts of an alien civilization, including a working land vehicle that has legs, like a large metal centipede. This proves fortuitous when Bill’s appendix bursts and they miss the rendezvous. The shuttle picks up the rest of the group and leaves without the pair. They travel cross country to reach the next landing site from which Bill is then taken to the hospital for a life-saving operation.

 My Take
Farmer In the Sky was well received by science fiction reviewers upon it’s release, and compared favorably to all SF released in the year, adult and juvenile. Though Heinlein loves to show off his hard science fiction chops in these books, some of what appears in Farmer In the Sky is either unlikely or impossible, specifically the alignment of the three moons. Still, there is no sense of “wrongness” while reading, and I liked this one quite a bit.

We now have just four more of Heinlein’s juveniles to go before I do a wrap-up. Next time: Between Planets.