Dimension X: The Roads Must Roll (Robert A. Heinlein, adapted by Ernest Kinoy))

[james_davis_nicoll]

(no link for this at Archive.org that I saw)

Automobiles and trains have been replaced by the Roads, vast moving structures [1] on which the entire economy of the US depends. The Roads themselves depend on their engineers and rather like the attempted coup d'état in "The Long Watch", some of those engineers feel that their efforts should be rewarded with political power. Hijinks ensue.

There's the same tension between the regular workers on the Roads and the elite college-trained engineers seen in "The Green Hills of Earth." Hmmm. And the guys trying to take over are not the blue-collar joes but the better off engineers.

Interestingly, the program to create a cadre of extremely loyal engineers post-dated the big strike of 1975, when the workers went on strike for decent working conditions. I guess the idea was to make sure that never happened again (the coup is the work of someone too old to have gone through that program, I think).


1: Powered by solar power in the original, I think, or at least they had solar screens on the roof.

Comments

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Not in The Roads Must Roll, but Heinlein did get the awesome storage technology later in Friday, where the 'Shipstone' super-battery is a background feature. In the meantime, I've forgotten the title of the story in which the Douglas-Martin Sunpower Screen is invented.

[(Anonymous)]

"Let There Be Light" is the title. This story was unaccountably left out of The Past Through Tomorrow, so it's harder to get ahold of than most Heinlein.

[chrysostom476.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's all that unaccountable. "Let There Be Light" is not very good.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks. It's in my collection somewhere, but that's quite a lot of digging. It's not actually bad or anything, just not particularly noteworthy Heinlein.