The Great Heinlein Juveniles Plus The Other Two Reread 10: Time for the Stars

[james_davis_nicoll]

In which archaic sexism and racism provide unwelcome distraction from dubious physics: Time for the Stars by Robert A. Heinlein


As ever, corrections will not be dealt with until I get home tonight.

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I did learn something embarrassing from this, which is that I have been conflating Beta Hydri and Beta Hydrae for years. FOR YEARS.

Typo patrol ,delete after reading

[hazelchaz]

hostile, well-organized native.
s/b
hostile, well-organized natives.

Re: Typo patrol ,delete after reading

[hazelchaz]

just as irrelevant as the mutiny
s/b
just as irrelevant as the mutiny.

Re: Typo patrol ,delete after reading

[hazelchaz]

he telepathic communication
s/b
the telepathic communication

[(Anonymous)]

The one thing I remember from this is the way that the Pat-Tom dynamic turns out to be different than Pat (and the naive reader who takes Pat's narration to be fact) believes; particularly how Tom apparent victory in the competition to be allowed to go off into space is really Tom's victory, as he gets both to stay home where it's safe and comfortable, and get sympathy for being done out of his dream. I need to read this in the next few months since it will be a prime example in my next con talk, of how knowing equations doesn't mean you understand relativity.

[chrysostom476.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Dad would also protest the explicit subsidization of children through tax deductions?

In any case, a tax seems a lot less heavy-handed than an outright limitation of children, like you see in a lot of these "overpopulated Earth" futures.

[rozasharn.livejournal.com]

I noticed that he had a stamp for "Paid under Protest". How many things did he stamp with that?!

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

Everything, one assumes. Grocery receipts, electricity bills, diner tickets. Everything.

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

He must have been a lot of fun at parties.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Since very similar character traits come up again in Have Space Suit and Stranger in a Strange Land, and since the character in Stranger who has this trait is not only supposed to be the voice of truth ex cathedra within the novel, but appears to be Heinlein's Mary Sue...

... was there one left in his effects, next to the brass cannon? Maybe something he ordered from an ad in a John Birch newsletter?

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

His beer glass was stamped PARTIED UNDER PROTEST.

[tandw.livejournal.com]

Snerk.

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

Great-uncle? About 12.5% shared genetics (assuming no inbreeding in between), which is the same as a first cousin. Marriage to the latter is squicky to some people, but legal in most of the world right now.

(Something that people often forget in SF/Fantasy where long lives/time dilation/time travel/whatever is involved: increasing the number of generations between people is equivalent to moving outward.)

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

Was it I Will Fear No Evil where the protagonist stopped the action to complain about restaurant chairs, and explain to the reader that if you kicked up a fuss about every single thing people would see how right you were? I read it as a young teen, and that, and not any of the squirmy sex stuff, was the end for Heinlein and me. Even at the time I could tell that this was somebody who thought that his food tasted funny without the familiar tang of waiter spittle.

[(Anonymous)]

It's not so much the degree of genetic closeness (and I presume time dilation took care of the age gap), but the "with whom he has shared an intimate mental connection since she was an infant" that is the source of the squick.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much of that is from Admiral King? Browbeat a subordinate until they do the job perfectly.

On the other hand, when Heinlein travelled, allegedly he learned the names of all the waitstaff and porters and so forth, and personally thanked them for their work.

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

I'd think that you'd _expect_ marriage sorts of relationships to arise from the intimate mental connection, and that the Long Range Foundation's ethics board having a bad case of the stupids because so many of the original telepath pairs were twins is the kindest explanation.

So I think it's plenty squicky but not especially for the marriage at the end.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I didn't like the book much as a kid, but didn't realize why. When I reread it as an adult, it looked like it was a weird exception to science fiction because getting out into space was no fun whatsoever.

Offhand, I can't think of any other stories which made space so unappetizing except for Malzberg's astronaut stories. "Scanners Live in Vain" doesn't count because space is incidentally painful-- it's going to be good once the pain problem is solved.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Ben Franklin was the youngest boy, not the youngest child. FUCK YOU, HEINLEIN.

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

His ideal was to be a bigger asshole than he ever permitted himself to be? I'm not sure if that says good or bad things about him.

[monte davis (from livejournal.com)]

it would be obvious the star would not last long enough for complex life forms to appear

Ummm... based on your sample size of how many star systems with complex life forms? We do not know enough to form a sensible opinion about whether our planet was precocious or rode the short bus... nor enough about the range of extremely specific possible star + planet histories (even for F, G and K stars) to make a good estimate of when the clock starts.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

This blog now has TV commercials. James, you're coming up in the world.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I remember being surprised about that when I applied for a marriage license. You can't marry your uncle or aunt in Massachusetts, but you can marry your first cousin. There are many US states where you can't, though.

[(Anonymous)]

On the other hand he did that in South Africa - treating the porters, etc. more politely than they usually are, by SA standards, is not all that great...

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

It's actually more in this case, as Pat and Tom are identical twins.