Tip the Wink

The Heinlein juveniles are the young adult novels written by Robert A. Heinlein. The twelve novels were published by Scribner’s between 1947 and 1958, which together tell, in a way, the story of space exploration. The dozen novels are not a true “series” in that they do not share any characters and do not form a strict chronological series; the later novels are not sequels to the earlier ones.

A thirteenth, Starship Troopers, was submitted to Scribner’s but rejected and was instead published by Putnam as an adult SF novel. A fourteenth novel, Podkayne of Mars, is often listed as a “Heinlein juvenile”, although Heinlein himself did not consider it to be one.

A word about endings. Heinlein seems to have his problems with them while writing these books. Of the twelve novels here, Between Planets is the worst offender. It just plain stops, when it should have had at least one more chapter, two more would have been better. Heinlein just couldn’t seem to wrap things up in many of these books. Also, if you really want to speak of endings, there is the one for  Podkayne of Mars, which Heinlein eventually re-wrote after a storm of protest from both publisher and readers. You can read all about that here.

Without further ado, here are my rankings of Heinlein’s juvenile novels:

So there it is, my personal opinion of the books and their ranking. Keep in mind these are favorites, I make no judgement as to which is the finest, most literary, best written or most impactful at the time of their publication. This is what I liked, in order.

You’re thoughts?

Have Space Suit–Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein. Scribner’s & Sons, 1958. Juvenile novel # 12 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 the last one*, number twelve.
* see note in “My Take”.

The Plot
Clifford “Kip” Russell, enters an advertising jingle writing contest, hoping to win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Moon. He instead gets a used, decommissioned space suit. Kip puts the suit (which he dubs “Oscar”) back into working condition.

Kip reluctantly decides to return his space suit for a cash prize to help pay for college, but puts it on for one last walk. As he idly broadcasts on his shortwave radio, someone identifying herself as “Peewee” answers and requests a homing signal. He is shocked when a flying saucer lands practically on top of him. A young girl (Peewee) and an alien being (the “Mother Thing”) flee from it, but all three are quickly captured and taken to the Moon.

Wormface, their kidnapper, is a creature who contemptuously refers to all others as “animals”. He has two human flunkies who assisted him in initially capturing the Mother Thing and Peewee, a preteen genius and the daughter of an eminent scientist. The Mother Thing speaks like birdsong, yet Kip and Peewee have no trouble understanding her.

Kip, Peewee, and the Mother Thing try to escape to the nearest human base by hiking across the lunar surface, but they are recaptured and taken to a base on Pluto. Kip is thrown into a cell, later to be joined by the two human traitors, who have apparently outlived their usefulness. Before they later disappear, one mentions to Kip that his former employers eat humans.

The Mother Thing, meanwhile, makes herself useful to their captors by constructing advanced devices for them. She manages to steal enough parts to assemble a bomb and a transmitter. The bomb takes care of most of the Wormfaces, but the Mother Thing freezes when she tries to set up the transmitter outside without a spacesuit. Kip is barely able to set up and activate the distress beacon, but help arrives almost instantly. It turns out that the Mother Thing has survived and though Kip suffers severe frostbite and is kept in a state of cryopreservation while the Mother Thing’s people figure out how to heal him.

Kip and Peewee are transported to Vega 5, the Mother Thing’s home planet. While Kip recuperates, “Prof Joe” learns about Earth from Peewee and Kip. Once Kip is well, he, Peewee, and the Mother Thing travel to a planet in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, to face an intergalactic tribunal, composed of many advanced species which have banded together for self-protection.

The Wormfaces are put on trial first. They promise to annihilate all other species, and are judged to be dangerous. Their planet is “rotated” out of three-dimensional space without their star – effectively an act of genocide dooming them to freeze to death.

Then it is humanity’s turn. Peewee’s and Kip’s recorded remarks are then admitted into evidence. In humanity’s defense, Kip makes a stirring speech. The Mother Thing and a representative of another race argue that the short-lived species are essentially children who should be granted more time to learn and grow. It is decided to re-evaluate humanity after “a dozen half-deaths of radium” (19200 years).

Kip and Peewee are returned to Earth with devices and equations provided by the Vegans. Kip passes the information along to Professor Reisfeld, Peewee’s father. Reisfeld arranges a full scholarship for Kip at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Kip wants to study engineering and spacesuit design.

My Take
This may have been the first of Heinlein’s juvenile novels I read as a kid, and I still remembered parts of it clearly, especially the trek across the moon in an attempt to reach Moonbase and help. Other parts I’d completely forgotten. This reading I soaked it all up and enjoyed it very much.

Note: In the opening paragraph I said this is the twelfth and last of the juvenile novels Heinlein wrote. Well, yes and no. The author intended Starship Troopers to be another one, but that was rejected by his publisher. Also, Podkane of Mars is sometimes considered one of the juvenile novels, though not intended to be one by the author. It does have an early teen protagonist, and adventures on Mars and Venus, as well as a controversial ending. More on that another time.

So that concludes my rereading of the Heinlein juvenile novels. Next week I’ll have a summing up with my favorites and least favorites, and a last few thoughts. See you then.

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.