Customer Reviews

Heinlein's Children: The Juveniles

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This book is a detailed look at those works that Heinlein wrote during the period of 1947-1962 that were specifically intended for the juvenile market, though the books themselves frequently went well beyond what is normally considered appropriate material for such readers.

Major gives very detailed plot summaries of these books, so this book is not appropriate for those who haven't already read them. For those who have, the question becomes: does Major provide any new insights or facts about these books that could further your insight and/or enjoyment of them?

There are a few things shown here that are not all that obvious: the fact that these works were essentially limited to 70,000 words or so by the conditions of the publishing industry at that time, and this limitation did have an effect on these books, most especially on their endings, which many critics have faulted as being rushed, time-compressed, or not fully fleshed out. In light of this limitation, many of these endings show a great economy in wrapping up Heinlein's plot threads, so that his books didn't just `end', they did have conclusions, though the compression he was forced to use did frequently reduce the emotional impact and reader satisfaction from what they could have been. I know this was something I felt, anyway, when I first read these works as an adolescent. He also goes into some detail about the editorial restrictions Heinlein worked under from a certain editor at Scribners, and points out the differences between the `edited' version of Red Planet with what Heinlein originally wrote.

Major also tries to show the inter-relationships between the various envisioned worlds that these juveniles portrayed, as to some degree they form a separate `series', though Heinlein obviously did not try to shoe-horn everything into one consistent future world.

As far as this goes, this is all very good. However, when Major gets around to trying to analyze what is good and bad about these works, problems appear. The most striking of these is that Major apparently totally buys into Alexei Panshin's analysis of the three-stage Heinlein competent man, and references it in the commentary of just about every book. He also obviously has a very poor opinion about Heinlein's later works, and continuously makes some rather snide comments about what he sees as trends in these juvenile works as later becoming out of control in those later works. While his opinion of these later works may be perfectly valid, presenting such comments about books that are not analyzed here is equivalent to a drive-by-shooting. He also adds some not very complimentary commentary about Heinlein's cultural knowledge level without any solid backing (and other analyses I've read indicate that Heinlein was very well read and buried many references inside his work to such items).

Major also frequently tries to relate these stories to things that were happening in the `real' world at their time of writing. In some cases this works reasonably well, in others not, but they also often illustrate Major's political leanings, which are quite distant from Heinlein's. Occasionally he does present some item of history that is not well known, and does manage to relate it to what Heinlein wrote, but many times the language and tone used for this becomes quite annoying.

The commentary on the first few Heinlein juveniles, from Rocket Ship Galileo up to about The Star Beast, is quite limited, providing little insight into what is good and bad about these works. However, the analysis becomes much more detailed and robust for the last four juveniles: Citizen of the Galaxy, Have Space Suit - Will Travel, Starship Troopers, and Podkayne of Mars.

Although these faults detract quite a bit from the utility of this work, I did find his commentary on Starship Troopers to be better than many others that have tackled this work. Some of his criticism validly shows some real flaws with this book, most especially that too much of it is `lecture', `telling rather than showing', and his comments on the political ideas of this book are not done at the `rant' level, but rather as logical arguments - refreshing when compared to too many others I've seen, and he does properly debunk the fascist label that has too often been attached to this book.

Not a first-rate work of analysis, but does provide some new insights, and puts together in one place a very detailed summary of all of Heinlein's `juveniles', which at least some people think were his best works.

-- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

This book remains in print and can be had from Nesfa Press. Just look it up. Don't be taken in by professional rip off artists.

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I was not halfway through the first chapter of Heinlein's Children when I realized that I had conceived a profound personal dislike of Joseph T. Major.

Whether it was the tone of his writing, the many errors of fact over which he was stumbling, the skew of his perspective, or his recurring citation of Alexei Panshin to the exclusion of all the other reviewers and scholars who have ever published on Heinlein's work (and I bear no grudge against Mr. Panshin, with whom I have met and conversed quite amicably over the years), I'm not sure what figured most in developing my sudden but definite animus against the author of this work.

But there it is, and there it stands. Other reviewers here on Amazon.com have gone into some detail on the faults to be found in Mr. Major's collection of essays, and at this time I don't care to expand upon them save to say that I share those observations - and more.

I add that the potential for a damned good book is within this text. It begs for detailed editing and revision to make it what it should have been, and it would certainly benefit from the input of someone who has a better grip on the body of literature already extant on Robert A. Heinlein's life and labor.

There is no regret in having purchased Heinlein's Children, and I am certain that others interested in Mr. Heinlein's work will find this flawed study of his juveniles worth the time and effort required to bull one's way through Mr. Major's prose.

But it's not going to be a joyful experience for most readers attuned to Robert Heinlein's style of expression, his cogency, integrity, intelligence, and scrupulous respect for his readers' dignity and worth.

It should be noted that David M. Silver of the Heinlein Society reviewed this book very gently in the July 2006 edition of the Society's newsletter, but lacking Mr. Silver's personal acquaintance with the author, I'm afraid I have no impetus to be as kind.


ADDENDUM: In all fairness, I've got to append this note and up my assessment of the book by one star.

One of the things David Silver had written about *Heinlein's Children* was that the later chapters - each a more or less self-contained essay on one of Heinlein's juvenile novels - were a good deal better than the first few.

With that in mind, I picked up this massive text again and thumbed at random to the chapter on *Citizen of the Galaxy*.

And came instantly to wonder whether I was reading the same writer's work.

The later chapters - on Heinlein's later juvenile novels - are quite good. Much better informed, with much more thoroughgoing reference to earlier reviewers' observations (including those other than Alexei Panshin) on the works under discussion.

Which gives me to wonder just why the hell Mr. Major didn't go over those earlier considerations of the first of Heinlein's "boys' books for Scribners" to bring them up to the same level of quality to be found toward the back of *Heinlein's Children*.

Those earlier chunks of this book were apparently published as self-contained fannish articles, and really do not function properly as chapters in what would otherwise be an uniquely valuable consideration of a critically important author's successful effort to introduce millions of young people - remember, "the golden age of science fiction is TWELVE" - to this genre.

This is damned strange. The common practice in the book-writin' trade is to use the first chapters to "hook" the reader, and (ceteris paribus) the greatest and most fastidious polish is applied to those first chapters.

So why in the first chapters of THIS book did Mr. Major (and his editors) dodge the responsibility to do a more workmanlike job on the discussion of *Rocketship Galileo* and *Space Cadet* even if - objectively, dispassionately - we can all agree that neither of these two novels were up to the quality level of even *Red Planet* much less *Have Space Suit - Will Travel*?

If for no other reason, this book would sell better if Mr. Major had enjoyed the torment of an editor willing to whip him to the word processor and stand over him with due diligence.

If you grew up with these books, or discovered them late, "Heinlein's Children" is a good book to reintroduce you to them and well as deepen your understanding of the novels. It also serves as a fine reference. Major has done a good job of assembling a huge amount of material on each of the books, including their strengths and weaknesses, and on the whole -- there were only a few minor errors I could see -- doesn't falter. The author clearly loves these books and it shows. He also occasionally comes up with some obscure facts that are real gems.

That being said, I do have a few problems with it. Major is a capable writer, but needs to accept his limitations. The attempts at humor almost always feel labored at best or fall flat completely. Too often the descriptions of the plots and characters reads like a Cliff's Notes aummary, and worst of all there is not even an attempt to summarize or critically assess this period of Heinlein's peak productivity. The reader waits but it never comes. This is important because no SF writer has come close to duplicating Heinlein's feat with these books: recently a Mr. "Spider" Robinson, whom I have been assured is a capable writer, attempted a novel of sorts based on Heinlein's notes from an abandoned novel ("Variable Star"). Sadly, the result was a completely disaster. Major should have at least tried.

Moreover, the author's attempts at interpreting Heinlein's underlying philosophy go nowhere. Major gets stuck on solipsism and won't let it go. If the book were to undergo an another editing pass, he would be well-advised to delete that stuff.

So I recommend the book, but not to a general audience. Again, I cannot emphasize it enough: lacking an overall critical assessment and summary, the book disappoints. Nevertheless, for the SF fan or the budding SF writer, this is a good book to add to your gift list.