Category Archives: Robert Heinlein

Heinlein’s Birthday

1 Reply

Today, July 7, marks the 115th birthday of one of the most influential science fiction writers of the 20th Century. I’m talking, of course, about Robert A. Heinlein.

Last year (or was it early this year? times flies whether you’re having fun or not), I set out to read (or reread in most cases) the Heinlein juveniles in order of publication. The intention was to blog about them. I’d written the first post in this series a number of years ago, on The Rocketship Galileo, but life got in the way, and I never went past the first post.

I was trying to either reread or read for the first time a number of works by my favorite classic authors, and Heinlein was one of them. (Asimov, Anderson, Herbert, Varley, and Williamson were among the others.) I was partly successful.

Things have been hectic the last few months, but they should slow down by the end of the summer, and I’ll try to get started on some of the Heinlein juvenile posts. No promises at this point, though. I do want to give a quick shout-out to Heinlein, though. It was his novels in the libraries of the junior I attended in 7th grade and the middle school in 8th grade that really had an impact on me. Not all of them were juveniles, but many were.

Happy Birthday, Heinlein

Leave a reply

Today, July 7, is the birthday of Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988). He was one of the most influential science fiction writers of the previous century.

It’s become fashionable to hate on Heinlein these days. Many of his ideas aren’t currently in vogue, and he’s been called “racist as f***.”

I don’t agree with all of the positions he held, and there are some of his works I haven’t liked and one or two I’ve detested. But for the most part, I really got into his stuff. I certainly don’t agree with some of his critics. Continue reading →

Happy Birthday, Heinlein

4 Replies

Robert A. Heinlein

Today, July 7, is the birthday of Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988). It’s become fashionable to slam him now that he isn’t around to defend himself. It seems the words of Marc Antony still are true “The evil men do live after them; the good is oft interred with their bones” (Julius Caesar, Act III, scene 2, lines 3-4).

Granted there are some Heinlein works I have no intention of rereading or even reading in the first place, but there is no denying he cast a long shadow over the genre. When you still have detractors over thirty years after your death, you have had an impact. Continue reading →

Blogging the Heinlein Juveniles: Rocket Ship Galileo

Leave a reply

rocket ship galileoRocket Ship Galileo
Robert A. Heinlein

I’ve been intending to start this series for a while, and I planned to have this post up in January. (I read the book in January. Does that count?) However, my wife had rotator cuff surgery, so I’m a little behind in my blogging. The plan is to read the juveniles in the order they were written and blog about each one.

The first Heinlein juvenile I read was Have Spacesuit Will Travel. I was in seventh grade. The junior high library had a small selection of them, and I think I read all of them that year. Then we moved, and the selection at my new school wasn’t as extensive. I continued to read them through high school, although I never read all of them.

In 1947, Heinlein began writing an annual novel for Scribner’s, aimed at what would now be called the YA market. The first of these was Rocket Ship Galileo. Continue reading →

Coming Home to the Moon

2 Replies

Apollo’s Outcasts
Allen Steele
Pyr Books
Hardcover, $16.95, 330 p.
ebook  $9.99 Kindle Nook

Jamey Barlowe was born on the Moon, in the lunar colony Apollo, but has lived almost all of his life on Earth.  For his sixteenth birthday, he’s going back.

He doesn’t know this, and it’s not the sort of birthday surprise you want to have.  Jamey’s father works for the International Space Consortium.  Dad has just become a wanted man along with a number of his coworkers.  They signed a petition protesting a position taken by the Vice-President.  The President has just died, allegedly by assassination, and the new Commander in Chief is rounding up her political enemies. 

Jamey and one of his sisters, along with the children of several ISC employees, are hurriedly evacuated.  Jamey’s other sister gets bumped from the ride to make room for a girl named Hannah. 

Jamey doesn’t realize just how much his life is about to change, nor how much he’s about to be forced to grow up.  None of the kids do.

Jamey has been unable to walk on Earth; it’s a common result of being born on the Moon.  His legs aren’t strong enough to support his weight in terrestrial gravity.  Once he gets to the Moon he makes up for lost time.

Apollo’s Outcasts is a what we used to call a juvenile but these days is known as YA.  It’s very much in the vein of the classic Heinlein juveniles, and that’s a good thing.  We could use some more of that type of science fiction. I was at times reminded of “The Menace from Earth”, Space Cadet, and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.  To name a few.

Steele does an excellent job developing Jamey’s character as well as that of his friends.  They all grow and mature, and usually not without cost.  More than one will not live to the end of the book, and the survivors have to learn to cope with death and grief.  The story moves along at a good clip, and there’s enough gosh-wow moments to keep things interesting when the action slows down.

There’s also plenty of action, especially when the political situation deteriorates to the point that the rogue President sends troops to the Moon to take over the colony.  By this time, Jamey is a member of the Rangers, and while they weren’t intended to be a military force, they take on that role.

Steele has done his research on what a lunar colony would probably be like, which lends an air of verisimilitude to the book.  In fact, the only place I had a problem was in Jamey’s disability on Earth.  I would have thought that if he couldn’t walk on Earth, he would have had greater difficulty learning to walk on the Moon.  For that matter, I would have thought he would have been more handicapped on Earth than he was shown being.  But I’m not a physiologist, I’m a physicist, so I might be missing something.

I’m not sure if there are sequels planned or not.  Most of the major plots threads are tied up neatly.  I’m not really sure where the story could go.  Regardless, I enjoyed this one immensely, and I hope sales are good enough that we see more of this sort of novel from Steele and/or Pyr.

I would like to thank Meghan Quinn of Pyr Books for providing me with a review copy of Apollo’s Outcasts.