Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 24MAR2025 – Heinlein Juveniles

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Hmm reording in my preference

Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958)
Citizen of the Galaxy (1957)
Starman Jones (1953)
Time for the Stars (1956)
Farmer in the Sky (1950)
Tunnel in the Sky (1955)
The Rolling Stones (1952)
The Star Beast (1954)
Space Cadet (1948)
Rocket Ship Galileo (1947)
Between Planets (1951)
Red Planet (1949)

And yes Space Nazis is silly NOW but it was written in 1947 and so is a reasonable period thing. That said it still is a bit of a loser as a story:-) . Have Space Suit is clearly the best of the best. I read both Between Planets and Red Planet, but other than the Venusian Isaac Newton I remember little. For a Heinlein piece of writing that tells me it was unremarkable (although likely superior to many “Hugo” award winners since the early 2000’s)

As to Starship Troopers that is a special case and I need to recuse myself from that judgement. You see it was the first Heinlein I read when I purchased it for 75 cents at a book fair in 6th grade. So I did read it in the time period for a Juvenile. It certainly has many of the Heinlein juvenile tropes with a just out of teenage protagonist (The literary types if they deigned to read Heinlien might call it a Bildungsroman). There is NO sex and perhaps a little romantic/sexual tension.

One might argue that Starship Troopers being an intentional polemic to duty is of a larger import than the Juveniles, and yet Have Space Suit deals with the complexities of who rules and how they rule with Three Galaxies, Citizen of the Galaxy takes on slavery and the fact of people ignoring it for their own profit, Starman Jones deals with the issues of having cheated to break out of an unfair system and the consequences (admittedlythey DO get Deus ex Machinaed out of the way), I can’t say I wouldn’t give Starship Troopers to a young person (Having myself benifitted from it although the powered armor was more of interest than the politics to a 6th grader). And it sits closer to the Juveniles in style and feel than either Stranger in a Strange land or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. If I must put it in the Juveniles it goes before Have Space Suit. But as I noted I am biased and one never forgets their first love.

As a separate issue should Podkayne of Mars be in this list. It is an oddball (and not published for the same publisher) but yet other than a female protagonist it certainly fits the mold as well as Starship Troopers.

The Juvenile Novels of Robert A Heinlein – A Short Discussion

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I had so much fun with the Heinlein short stories that I’m rolling into the Heinlein juveniles.  I think many people understandably feel that the juvenile novels may be Heinlein’s best work.  I confess I’m of two minds about that.  They have different properties and leave room for adult novels to show their quality in a different way.

But let’s see where we can go with these stories.  I think I’ll rank them best to worst according to my incredibly sensitive literary faculty.

 

Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958)

The Rolling Stones (1952)

Farmer in the Sky (1950)

Starman Jones (1953)

Citizen of the Galaxy (1957)

Tunnel in the Sky (1955)

Red Planet (1949)

The Star Beast (1954)

Space Cadet (1948)

Time for the Stars (1956)

Between Planets (1951)

Rocket Ship Galileo (1947)

 

I’ve left out Starship Troopers (1959) because although Heinlein included it in his juvenile series.  I think it’s actually one of his adult stories.

Now my order is obviously idiosyncratic and to be perfectly honest most of the stories are fairly equally good so it’s a very rough sorting.  I did put Rocket Ship Galileo last because now, space nazis do seem a bit silly to me.  But at the time the story seemed just fine to adolescent me.  Maybe depending on the day “Tunnel in the Sky” and “Citizen of the Galaxy” could switch places on the list.  And maybe a few other ones too.  But let’s go with this.

The only story that I think I can objectively hold up as accurately ranked is my first choice, “Have Space Suit—Will Travel.”  I think Heinlein did excel his usual juvenile story here.  The protagonist, characters and plot devices are especially enjoyable and I can say even now, a sequel or two in this universe might be a fun read.  Who knows, maybe one day I’ll contact the Heinlein estate to find out if they have any provisions for making that part of his intellectual property available to “respectful” collaborators.

I gave copies of all these books to my grandsons as soon as they were old enough to read.  I consider them excellent company for growing boys.  Just looking at that list of names makes me think of picking up “Starman Jones” or “The Rolling Stones” just to relive the feeling of reading them for the first time.  They are each a touchstone to a very happy time in my life when the local library had a whole shelf of these Heinlein stories just waiting for me to read them and move onto the next one.

One other word on these books.  Of all the books, I think “Between Planets” was the only one I never reread.  I remember it took place on a Venus that was tropical in climate.  There was a Venusian named Sir Isaac Newton, I believe, but I don’t remember very much else about the plot other than some kind of interplanetary political intrigue.

So, what is your order of excellence?  And what is your rationale?  And where exactly do you stand on the “Starship Troopers” question?  And what is your opinion on space nazis.  Leave your comments in the comments section below.

The Green Energy “Transition”

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Here’s an excellent article that takes an objective approach to energy policy.  It looks at energy sources as an historical phenomenon.  One of my favorite quotes is, “We find a useful referee in this war of words with the recently released Eye on the Market 15th Annual Energy Paper by Michael Cembalest, J. P. Morgan’s chairman of market and investment strategy. As this 70-slide, deep-dive report pointedly notes, “after $9 trillion globally over the last decade spent on wind, solar, electric vehicles, energy storage, electrified heat and power grids, the renewable transition is still a linear one; the renewable share of final energy consumption is slowly advancing at 0.3%–0.6% per year [emphasis added].” One does not need a mathematics degree to understand that such anemic growth rates are not the hallmarks of an “unstoppable” juggernaut. Hence, Cembalest’s bottom line: “Growth in fossil fuel consumption is slowing but no clear sign of a peak on a global basis.” That is to say, no “energy transition” is in sight.”

I like a business analyst that has a rye sense of humor; “an unstoppable juggernaut.”  The Germans being the hyper-obedient victims of their past behavior have gone down the green road with both feet.  They shut down their nuclear power plants and without Russian gas their economy has been crushed.  They don’t have enough heating energy for their homes and they can’t run their heavy industries like auto manufacturing and chemical synthesis without fossil fuels.  I wonder if they were smart enough to leave the nuke plants intact just in case they came to their senses.  Nah, they’re too smart to have left themselves a emergency exit.  I’ll bet they knocked them down.

The gist of the essay is that there’s never a transition from one energy source to the next.  The old one keeps on at the same lever or even increases.  Eventually an even more productive successor just step changes itself into prominence.  Human muscle didn’t disappear when animals were domesticated.  Wind power didn’t eliminate oxen.  Neither did steam.  And steam still powers many applications even though fossil fuels became predominant.  And one day oil and gas will be overshadowed by nuclear or geothermal or whatever larger source is engineered.  We want more power not less.  That’s the lesson.

Guest Contributor – Milo Mindbender – 23MAR2025 – The Vote

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I am of the belief that voting is one of only two times the government actually asks for your opinion, the other being jury duty. If you don’t vote you shouldn’t bitch about what the government does, since you chose not to express any of your ideas.
I also do not believe that the franchise should be free to all. If you are not a taxpayer, but are voting you are asking the public to cash checks you have no financial standing in. By limiting the franchise to tax payers you reduce the influence of those who do not contribute. I can hear the gnashing of dentures now “What about the retirees?”, they earned the franchise during their working years and should retain it in their “Golden Years”, maybe establish something similar to the 40 quarters to be eligible for SSI, require 3 years of being a net tax payer in order to establish the franchise right. Make everyone “Get some skin in the game” to quote a former President.

Bridging the Generations (Part 3)

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Sorry I was missing from the site most of the day but today was a grandson visiting day here at the Compound.  Tertius (the third) is currently twelve years old.  And that works out because I can still keep up with him in a baseball catch and shooting pool without looking too feeble.  Against all odds (the recent weather forecast) the sun was out and it was about fifty degrees.  And after two half-hour catches, I can proudly say my right shoulder and elbow are both reasonably intact.

Camera Girl provided the requested bill of fare (spaghetti and meatballs, cookies and cream ice cream, lemonade) and I provided the requested cinematic presentation (extended version of “The Two Towers).  The conversation was limited to an in depth discussion of how Elrond and Aragorn could be related, his current progress in school band (baritone horn) and the trade-off between a lot of snow (which he likes) and not getting out of school until late June (which he is against).  I tried introducing the question of dark matter but I didn’t seem to spark his imagination with it.  Probably needs some background in physics first.  I guess seventh grade science isn’t that advanced.

I’m happy to find that we have maintained good relations and I recognize several of my traits in him (the poor kid) and am highly pleased that we both enjoy a baseball catch as a good way to pass time and get a little exercise.  Now, if he were sixteen, I’d probably be too old.  And come to think of it sixteen-year-olds have other interests than playing sports with old fogeys.   But currently I can throw it far enough and fast enough to keep him interested in the game.  And it’s actually good exercise for me too.

And at 6:30 pm I drove him home to his parents and told Camera Girl that all is right with the world and we must have done something right to have such nice grandkids.  To be honest, she probably did something right.  I’m just born lucky and hang around with the right people.

So, I checked the news to see what I missed today and so far, I don’t see anything new.  Trump, blah, blah, blah.  Musk, blah, blah, blah.  Resist, resist, resist.  Rinse, repeat.

I was glad to see there was a fair amount of interest in the Heinlein post.  I figure a lot of folks from our generation were fans back in the day of RAH.  I’ll say that reading his stories gave me an interest in space and when the time came to think of engineering as a profession, his stories made it seem more interesting than it might have without his influence.  Of course, he didn’t warn me enough about how stupid everyone in the executive suite would be.  But maybe it was a different time.

So now we have to prepare for our visit from Quartus (the fourth) in the next couple of weeks.  We have to nail down the menu.  I already know his choice in movies.  He’s going to demand at least a triple feature of Godzilla movies (Lord help me).  As far as sports it may be something esoteric.  Sometimes the kids have toys like tops or yo-yos or other less recognizable geegaws.  But now is the time to go through the research stage so that the actual event goes smoothly.  Who knows?  Maybe bowling or laser tag will be on the agenda.  Well, I better rest up.