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Author Topic: Robert A. Heinlein's "Space Cadet"
Robert Nowall
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This book blew my mind when I happened to pick up a school library copy when I was nine or ten. Quite literally (and certainly literarily), it's the hinge on which my life swings. I'd been reading through the works of Marguerite Henry ("Misty of Chincoteague" and others) and, looking for more, I let my eye wander along the shelf where they were racked, found this book, and wondered if it was any good.

Boy, was it ever!

After reading it, I promptly took out and read the other five Heinlein titles...then, round that time, it dawned on me that I could go to a bookstore and buy books, I went out and bought every Heinlein title I could find in paperback.

This one, however, stayed with me, and I reread it every few years. The plot fascinated me. It's essentially the story of Matt Dodson, a cadet in the Interplanetary Patrol, from getting in to about to graduate to full-fledged patrolman. It's also his passage from adolesence to adulthood.

And the details along the way fascinated me. The story of Ezra Dahlquist...the elaborate test and instructions in Chapter 2...the "pie with a fork" routine...the space suit drill in Chapter 7...the adventures on Venus...these and lots more interested me no end.

All these years later, I know things didn't happen this way...that the science is creaky and old...that the planets and space travel itself are nothing like Heinlein described them here. Even calling someone a "space cadet" has become an insult. But that never bothered me any.

It's back in print in a hardcover edition from Tor. I do regret that it's just the novel, that there's no accompanying essays on its importance as literature and science fiction.

If you haven't read this book, this is a good time to start. And for those of you a lot younger than I am, this'll be your way of understanding what got your predecessors in the field so interested in the first place.


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mikemunsil
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Good book!

I had a similar experience with Andre Norton's Sargasso of Space (1955), which I must have read in '65 or so.


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Minister
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Yeah, that one was good. I was probaby really launched into all this by Heinlein's Have Spacesuit Will Travel, though several of his others still remain among my all-time favorite novels.
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Gnomeinclaychair
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Gosh, I love Heinlein. I haven't read much of his YA stuff, but I've read all his adult work.
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Elan
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The first science fiction I ever read was "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeline L'Engle, in fifth grade. The second science fiction book I read was in middle school. It was "Farnum's Freehold" by Heinlein. It sold me on science fiction as a genre, and stuck with me a long, long time. I confess I now find his style unappealing and sexist. But while I was new to the genre, I loved his work. He IS one of the giants.
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Matt Lust
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Just to defend heinlein was he truly sexist?

Sure he wrote most of his opus's (opui? what is the plural) with "demure" female characters but when you actually look at his female characters they are powerful demonstrations of Heinlein's view of Free and Unfettered female spirit both socially and sexually as his cultural context would allow.

Take For Us The Living his very first attempt to get published. (For those of you who don't know of this book let me provide important background information this was in 1939 and in this book he uses many of the tricks and philosphical points in this one that are sprinkled throughout the rest of his works.)

He uses the time travel trink (ala Farnham's) to send the MC to the future where he meets a woman who saves him from exposure. This woman makes her living "dancing" this is the euphamism Heinlein uses for the eroctic acts both solo and in duo that the woman uses to pay her bills.

Heinlein has the character become jealous then resolve his jealously as a vestige of a time long passed (ala Stranger in a Stragne Land or Time enough for Love)

Now if you have read much Feminist literature, you will know that you can find some who see this type of work as Chauvinist but still others who see a Female who is sexually free to be as sexual and erotic as she desires to be the right of every woman.

Further more in Time Enough for Love Lazurus Long declares that "Equality is a disaster for women" insisting that given their control over reproduction and sexual intercourse should make them far more than equal with men (ala the ancient minonian culture where the saying goes women ran everything and men jumped bulls by day and the women by night)


Best


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rcorporon
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The only Heinlein I have read is "Starship Troopers." (then I saw the horrible, horrible movie). The book was great.

Any suggestions for a relative RH newbie?


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Matt Lust
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It really depends on why you read Sci-fi

I read Sci-fi because I like social criticism. My favorite authors are those that take a in depth view of a near future human society and examines how they live (its the sociologist in me i guess).

Therefore I like his book's like Stranger in a Strange Land or For Us The Living.

Others might like his light hearted works like Job or Friday.

But in all truth most of RAH's books are questioning or making fun of something that someone else holds dear. Its just that some are less explict about it.

[This message has been edited by Matt Lust (edited December 08, 2005).]


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Robert Nowall
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Start with his "juveniles," a series he published from 1947 through 1959. They are, in order:

"Rocket Ship Galileo"
"Space Cadet"
"Red Planet"
"Farmer in the Sky"
"Between Planets"
"The Rolling Stones"
"Starman Jones"
"The Star Beast"
"Tunnel in the Sky"
"Time For the Stars"
"Citizen of the Galaxy"
"Have Space Suit---Will Travel"

(Avoid "Starship Troopers" and "Podkayne of Mars," sometimes considered part of this set, until you are better acquainted with these works.)

You might pick up his adult novels published in the fifties: "The Puppet Masters," "Double Star," and "The Door into Summer," written when Heinlein was at the height of his powers.

Of course, there's his masterpiece, "Stranger in a Strange Land." This is available in short and long versions---I recommend the long version: it reads more smoothly than the short version.

Of his sixties works, you might start with "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress." The rest, and the later works from the seventies and eighties, might be worth a look once you're hooked, if you get hooked---till then, stay away from them.

You will also encounter several collections of short stories. Since we no longer have the option of seeing these things in a magazine a Heinlein story at a time (among the Asimov and VanVogt and the others), I'd recommend checking these out only after you've sampled the novels. But if you must, check out "They," "Solution Unsatisfactory," "The Green Hills of Earth," and "All You Zombies."


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Matt Lust
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I really disagree with recommendations to only read a certain type of heinlein and or in a certain order.

I'm younger than Robert is but the very first Sci-Fi i read was Farenheit 451 in the 6th grade. I never found the YA SF to be worthwhile even Yolen's stuff was distinctively kiddish.


As for RAH I hate his YA stuff in comparison to any of his adult stuff. I didn't even make it through my first reading of Have Space Suit will travel.

My first piece from RAH was Starship Troopers and I loved it. My next read was Moon was a harsh mistress, then Stranger in a Strangeland.
I own three different versions including an unabridged audio copy of Time Enough for Love.
Then there's Job which is an pretty good allegory to the biblical story but a good twist on the ol God v Devil thing.


I could go on but I'm not. I just don't believe there is a right way to read a Master like RAH.

[This message has been edited by Matt Lust (edited December 14, 2005).]


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Robert Nowall
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To each his own...but I never cared much for "Fahrenheit 451." The third or fourth non-Heinlein science fiction book I read was "The Martian Chronicles," and that was much better. Then in the early eighties I went through one of my periodic track-down-everything-there-is-to-find-by-a-particular-writer phases with Bradbury, and found much more that was good and great.

I enjoyed several of Heinlein's later works, particularly "Job" and "To Sail Beyond the Sunset"...but, had I picked up either of those as my first Heinlein, I doubt if I would have stuck with him, or possibly with SF at all.


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tchernabyelo
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Am I correct in thinking that Heinlein wrote a novel called "The Day After Tomorrow" (long before the recent film of that name)?

I had to review it once for a magazine. I believe I referred to it as the worst SF novel I'd ever read.

Of course, I haven't read anything like as much as most people here... but still... it was (IMHO) devoid of any redeeming feature that I can recall.


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Robert Nowall
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Yup. "The Day After Tomorrow," also known as "Sixth Column," was Heinlein's earliest published novel, first published in 1941 in Astounding under the pen name of "Anson MacDonald." (It was revised somewhat for book publication later.) I wouldn't say it was completely devoid of interest, but it seems bad compared to what he would do a few years later.

I find it interesting that, in the era when Heinlein was considered the top science fiction writer, he would produce work like this (and "Beyond This Horizon," published not long after) that seems to me of an inferior grade, especially compared to his other works, or other works by other authors published at the same time. I have no idea how well (or badly) this particular novel was received at the time.

There was one earlier novel, "For Us the Living," not published until recently. For you non-fans, do not waste your time on this, it's even worse than "Sixth Column." For fans, it's worth a skim, especially as several passages shed new light on some details of his later works.

(You may guess that, from my demonstrated knowledge of this, that I've spent a lot of time contemplating Heinlein and his works. You'd be right.)


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Matt Lust
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For the Record Sixth Column and For US The Living aren't bad books, they're actually quite good for what they are, products of their time. Though For Us The Living definitely strives to take in one sweeping motion everything he does in his later works.

I have to again stress strongly that unless you read RAH for the same reasons as Robert that you should not take his advice as more than advice.


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