More Heinlein

Remember a few weeks ago when I spent a weekend reading a bunch of Heinlein (and other) books? Well, since then, I've read even more Heinlein. Specifically, I've burned through ten books, which means that the end is in sight. It also means that I have several more books to talk about!

Also, if you're interested, I've been commenting on the news at my new blog, creatively entitled Newsy.

Sixth Column, by Robert A. Heinlein

The gimmick here is that the United States has been completely overrun by a foreign power (which destroys almost the entire military), and a tiny cadre of soldiers and scientists has to come up with some way to fight back. They end up inventing a variety of physics-defying devices and sneaking them into society by creating a phony religion. This is almost the only time in a Heinlein book where religion is spoken of approvingly, although I think it's probably a mistake to extrapolate too much from that.

It's an odd book to read, because it was originally written as a serial in 1941, and turned into a book in 1949, so it's got racial terms that are somewhat, er, antiquated. Specifically, it's full of people fuming against the "Asiatics" that have enslaved their country. It makes a modern reader somewhat uncomfortable.

Red Planet, by Robert A. Heinlein

This is practically the archetype of a good juvenile science fiction novel. It's got plucky heroes (for some reason, plucky heroines usually end up in fantasy novels), it takes on a different planet, and even though the setting is futuristic, the characters still get to discover even more that they didn't know about their planet. It's basically a frontier society and ends up with Mars declaring its independence from Earth (so it's not that unlike a precursor to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress).

Farmer in the Sky, by Robert A. Heinlein

I've read a letter written by John Campbell (editor of "Astounding Science Fiction") early in the history of science fiction, encouraging his writers to do more "space exploration" stories on the theory that readers needed to get acclimated to the idea that space could be explored before writers could move on to more expansive stories. The underlying theory, that stories should go farther as time went on, is shown here: Heinlein's last book was about a relatively-tamed Mars. In this one, humanity has moved on to terraforming one of the moons of Jupiter.

This is one of the most boy-scout-intensive books Heinlein wrote, which has led some people to object on the grounds that so many of his early heroes were boy scouts. This doesn't seem entirely fair, since they were explicitly juveniles; being written for younger readers, it only makes sense that they'd have young heroes. Plus, Farmer in the Sky originally appeared in Boy's Life Magazine, the official magazine of the Boy Scouts of America, so you can see how a heavy Scout element might have been called for.

This is also a good example of a hero completely oblivious to the fact that a girl likes him romantically; this shows up a few times in Heinlein books. And now, apropos of nothing, I'm going to complain about a central plot element:

At the beginning of the book, Bill's widower father George announces that he's going to Ganymede and Bill can't come. From what we learn later, it appears that George's plan was to remarry, telling Bill at the last possible moment, and then leave the planet with his new wife and stepdaughter, leaving Bill alone on Earth, which would have certainly made him feel abandoned, not to mention how he would feel about George's attitude towards his dead wife. George is mostly pictured as a good father, but I can't believe he put together such a terrible plan. On this rereading of the book, it colored all my feelings about how George acts; he's much more self-centered than I thought. Especially since Bill turns out to be a much better farmer (in the sky!) than George or the new family.

Space Cadet, by Robert A. Heinlein

This is absolutely straightforward science fiction, which later got adapted to become the "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet" television series. If you've read a lot of science fiction, it'll probably seem commonplace, but it's really one of the books that defined the genre. It also has one of my favorite Heinlein scenes, where someone is being tested to see whether or not he's good enough for the Space Patrol, and he's given a pinball-like game with an elaborate series of instructions on how to score. The gimmick is that he reads the instructions carefully enough to tell that there's really no way to get any points, and he was really being tested on whether he followed and understood instructions.

Podkayne of Mars, by Robert A. Heinlein

I don't mean to say that science fiction never has female protagonists. It's just less common. This is told mostly from the point of view of Podkayne, who's eight years old in Martian years, which translates to, um, fifteen or so in Earth years. It's a nice touch, having the narrator not using the years that the readers expect. Podkayne gets into all sort of trouble, little of which appears to be her fault, and it ends with her sociopathic brother Clark (11 earth years old) hopefully learning to be somewhat human.

Podkayne of Mars, is one of those controversial books, since it originally ended with Podkayne dying, and Clark taking over the narrative. Heinlein reluctantly changed the ending to sell the book, and he also made the moral clearer, putting in a speech in which Podkayne and Clark's uncle Tom berates their mother for, basically, not spending enough time with her children. Baen books had a contest in which people got to read both the original (Poddy dies) and the revised (Poddy lives) ending and write essays about which they liked better. Most people felt that the story worked better with Podkayne dying, and I have to say I agree.

In my Heinlein-purchasing spree, I ended up with two editions. The first is the trade paperback where Baen announced the contest, and the second is the regular paperback with the results. It's got both endings, several essays on both sides and an entirely unsatisfactory mish-mash ending in which the revised ending (with the lecture) is kept, but with all references to Podkayne's miraculous survival excised. Although I prefer the author's original intent, I enjoy having as many versions as possible.

Waldo & Magic, Inc., by Robert A. Heinlein

Here's something unusual: Heinlein writing fantasy. The first novel in this book is "Waldo," which incidentally gave its name to a kind of gizmo called a, um, "Waldo". The second novel is set in a world where magic not only exists but it unionized. Unsurprisingly, as soon as Waldo discovers that magic exists, he immediately deduces that it follows, yes, scientific rules.

The Puppet Masters, by Robert A. Heinlein

This was made into a movie in 1994 -- other movies based on Heinlein stories include Starship Troopers, Destination Moon and I maintain that the Kevin Kline movie Dave was clearly inspired by Double Star. That last part isn't universally accepted, though. Anyway, the main character is a super-secret agent working for a shadowy governmental agency that's run by his father (elements which would later show up, more or less, in the later Heinlein novel Friday). One thing I found interesting, having just read Podkayne of Mars was the fate of the father. Here, look at this:

"Dad," I sobbed, "don't die. I can't get along without you."

His eyes opened wide. "Yes you can, son." He paused and labored, then added, "I'm hurt, boy." His eyes closed again.

I could not get any more out of him, though I shouted and screamed. Presently I laid my face against his and let my tears mix with the dirt and blood.

That's the ending of the penultimate chapter. He's dead, right? And now Sam doesn't have his father to lean on anymore, is the head of the department, and can move on. Except that two pages later, on the last page of the book, there's this:

We said good-bye to Dad last night at Pikes Peak Port. He corrected me. "So long, you mean. You'll be back and I intend to hang on, getting crankier and meaner every year, until you do."

I said I hoped so. He nodded. "You'll make in. You're too tough and mean to die. I've got a lot of confidence in you and the likes of you, son."

See? It looks to me like Heinlein wrote the book so the Old Man died, but then got pressured into shoehorning a happy ending back in.

Between Planets, by Robert A. Heinlein

What do you do when Earth and Venus are at war, you're a citizen of both, and all you want to do is get to Mars? Apparently, you jump through a million hoops, have endless problems getting through customs, and put up with a lot of people pretending to be your friend so they can steal the maguffin -- I mean, "special ring with military secrets encoded in it". Starman Jones, by Robert A. Heinlein

Max Jones has perfect memory, which means that he can rise from stableboy (on a spaceship) to astrogator. I find this plot slightly less convincing than the similar "Misfit" (where instead of eidetic memory, Andy Libby is a Lightning Calculator; Max isn't a mathematical genius just because he's memorized logarithmic tables). It's a pretty good story, but I find it pretty convenient that while Max was kidnapped, his archenemy committed suicide. That way, Max can rise to a position of importance without soiling his hands with the messy business of revenge.

This is also another of the stories where the protagonist is completely unaware of why the attractive young lady (who's extremely wealthy this time) would want to spend time with him.

Assignment in Eternity, by Robert A. Heinlein

You know, there's a lot of points in which Robert Anson Heinlein is similar to Robert Anton Wilson. It's not just the way they both quote Korzybski all the time, either -- the stories in this volume are generally about the idea that humans have all sorts of untapped potential and could teach themselves telepathy and that sort of thing. In fact, in Lost Legacy (one of the two novels in this book), the story of Mu, the lost continent of Atlantis, which got destroyed when the residents couldn't agree on whether all of humanity should get the fancy powers -- well, it's not all that different from the backstory of Illuminatus. It seems like this volume comes between the early juveniles and hard science fiction and the later works like Time Enough for Love. This impression is wrong, though, because Assignment in Eternity is much too early for that. It just shows that Heinlein was thinking of more existential ideas while he was still mostly working on straightforward sf.