After rereading Starman Jones and writing a review it occurred to me that the Heinlein juveniles are better than ninety percent of all the Young Adult (YA) science fiction that\u2019s come out since. \u00a0So my idea is not to just look at plot but really give a thorough analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of these classic stories.\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at \u201cThe Rolling Stones.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Stones are a family of \u201cLoonies.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s what the human inhabitants of Earth\u2019s Moon call themselves.\u00a0 In his Future History Heinlein has decided that the Moon is officially named Luna.\u00a0 Roger and Edith are the parents of Meade, Castor, Pollux and Lowell (or as he\u2019s nicknamed Buster).\u00a0 And Hazel Meade is Roger\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n
Roger is an engineer by profession but lately his job has been writing a television (or whatever they call it) serial called Scourge of the Spaceways.\u00a0 He despises the vapidity of the show but the hefty paycheck has hooked him.<\/p>\n
Edith is a medical doctor and housewife who manages to keep the individualistic personalities of her children from wreaking havoc with her husband\u2019s ideas of domestic sanity.<\/p>\n
Meade is the oldest, recently graduated from high school and a social butterfly.\u00a0 Castor and Pollux are identical twins high school juniors.\u00a0 They are precocious engineering inventors who have made a good amount of money on an invention and are aching to break out on their own and make their fortune out in the far flung reaches of the solar system.\u00a0 Buster is a four-year-old who is either a chess prodigy or can read his grandmother\u2019s mind.\u00a0 Finally, Hazel is one of the original \u201cFounding Fathers\u201d of the Luna Revolution (which Heinlein later back filled in his novel \u201cThe Moon is a Harsh Mistress\u201d).\u00a0 She is a senior citizen but because of the preservative effects of living on the low gravity Moon she is quite lively and also extremely outspoken on everything from child-raising to larceny.<\/p>\n
Heinlein creates a story about a middle-class family leaving their comfortable but boring environment in order to head out into the frontier of the solar system and experience life as a family and a crew.\u00a0 Roger and Castor (and later Meade) handle the astrogation.\u00a0 Hazel and Pollux run the engines.\u00a0 Edith is the ship\u2019s doctor, cook and also Buster\u2019s mom.\u00a0 Buster is (as his father notes in the crew list) supercargo.<\/p>\n
But really what Heinlein is trying to point out is that the family hasn\u2019t fared well under the modern lifestyle and living life together as a team can allow a father to get to know his children.\u00a0 And allow them to find out more about their parents than just how much they are willing to spend on useless junk.\u00a0 All the children benefit from the skills, talents and experiences of their parents and grandmother and the adults are enriched by the challenges of the trip and the chance to influence the choices their children make.<\/p>\n
Of course, this is an altogether outlandish odyssey that they are on and apparently bankrolled by the amazingly lucrative writing contract for Scourge of the Spaceways.\u00a0 Perhaps this is in a way a stand-in for Heinlein\u2019s own lifestyle which was made possible by his well-paying books.\u00a0 And considering the paucity of other money coming in from the commercial enterprises that the Twins attempt you could be excused for thinking the whole trip was a bust.\u00a0 But it\u2019s the setup we\u2019re supposed to enjoy.\u00a0 Seeing the Twins through the eyes of their grandmother as she attempts to extricate them from a legal mess that their ingenuity and inexperience combine to create, we see that this family is resourceful and interesting even when they fail.\u00a0 These are the story elements that give the book its character.\u00a0 The action, such as it is, is light and only occasionally rises above familial squabbling.\u00a0 But Heinlein paints an entertaining picture of his Swiss Family Robinson in space.\u00a0 Despite the futuristic backdrop and the extraordinary qualities of the individuals, the ethos and character of the family is mid-twentieth century American and it is a charming world that Heinlein has reimagined in the unrealizable future of his era.\u00a0 The children despite their precocity are decidedly normal and compared to today\u2019s versions, decidedly a breath of fresh air.<\/p>\n
And whereas he did manage to tie Hazel somewhat into his other books, I had hoped he would have had a follow-on novel of the brothers in their grown-up stage pursuing fame and fortune while trying to avoid execution.\u00a0 Some more exciting adventures in this frontier environment wouldn\u2019t wear out the welcome for the Stone family among Heinlein readers.\u00a0 In fact, one day I might write some of those stories, although if the copyright forbids, I\u2019ll have to alter them to the extent of calling them Castor and Pollux Rock or Boulder or Pebble.\u00a0 Either way the characters are too good to waste.<\/p>\n
A remarkable thing about this book is that it introduced the science fiction creature the flat cat that was stolen by Star Trek and turned into the Tribble.\u00a0 Of course, Heinlein was gracious enough to permit the theft but it just goes to show you how impoverished Hollywood really is.<\/p>\n
The Rolling Stones is different from the other Heinlein juveniles in that the adventure is muted.\u00a0 But I believe it has its own charm that is completely character driven.\u00a0 The showcasing of a normal functional family is especially enheartening today when they are almost completely missing in books and films.<\/p>\n
Highly recommended for children and adults.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After rereading Starman Jones and writing a review it occurred to me that the Heinlein juveniles are better than ninety percent of all the Young<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,237,242],"tags":[68,92,2031,38,1355,711,265,2030],"class_list":["post-7994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-reviews","category-sff-book-reviews","tag-book-review","tag-heinlein","tag-heinlein-juveniles","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-robert-a-heinlein","tag-science-fiction","tag-the-rolling-stones"],"yoast_head":"\n