Have Space Suit, Will Travel
by Robert A. Heinlein
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Book Summary Information
Author: Robert A. HeinleinEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-02-08
ISBN: 1416505490
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Gallery Books
Book Reviews of Have Space Suit, Will Travel
Book Review: Be Prepared! (And Who Knows What Will Happen)
Summary: 5 Stars
This, along with Tunnel in the Sky, gets my vote as the best of the juvenile (YA) books that Heinlein wrote. As usual, calling this a juvenile does it something of a disservice, as the book is fully readable by anyone from ten to ninety year-olds.
Kip Russell is not your typical teenager - he's not only quite intelligent, he's resourceful, honest with himself, goal-directed, and not only has dreams but realizes that it takes work to make those dreams a reality. One of those dreams is being able to take a trip to the moon, and as the family finances (clearly visible in the basket his father keeps for income) obviously won't provide enough for such a trip, he decides to enter a contest where the first prize is such a trip. But he doesn't just send in one entry and hope that Lady Luck will smile on him - he works at it, eventually sending in several thousand entries, each with a different slogan for the soap company sponsoring the contest. Does he win? No, but he does get one of the second prizes, a real, honest-to-god space suit. When it arrives, Kip sees that it is not in current `space-worthy' shape, a disappointment - but he methodically sets about correcting the deficiencies in the suit, till he finally has something worthy of the name.
Up to this point, this is something that could happen in the everyday world - but now Heinlein throws in a whopper of a `coincidence' (a coincidence that couldn't have happened unless Kip was prepared, Heinlein's point) - while testing his suit, calling out on the built in radio, Kip gets a reply, not from some passing airliner, but a real, live UFO, piloted by, of all things, a twelve year old girl, Peewee, and with a truly alien passenger, the Mother-Thing. From here, things develop rapidly, leading to the Moon, Pluto, the Greater Magellanic Cloud, and `Wormface' villains, with many an adventure and `miraculous' escapes, and with the fate of not just Kip, Peewee, and the Mother-Thing hanging in the balance, but the very existence of Earth.
Heinlein's craftsmanship shines throughout this book. His characters are well developed - the depiction of Peewee as an obnoxious-but-lovable prodigy is superb, the Mother-Thing will live long in your memory, Kip is very easy to identify with, and it is very instructive to see how he changes during the course of the book. The situations Heinlein places them in all develop logically, and the scientific details he throws in are very accurate. Here we find the description of the design, capabilities, and deficiencies of the space suit - remarkable close to today's suits (though not really surprising, as Heinlein was involved with some of the engineering research into high-altitude pressure suits during WWII), written in such a manner as to remain totally engrossing - one of Heinlein's great talents, as few could write about such things without boring the reader to death. Calculating the travel time to Pluto at a constant boost is not only accurate, but helps highlight another part of Heinlein's message on the value of education and confidence in one's own abilities, as Kip performs this calculation in his head, without recourse to his slide-rule (yes, that's dated, but is immaterial to the point raised). The prose style is typical Heinlein, easy, Mid-West folksy, and there is quite a bit of ironical humor suffusing this book. Of course the title is a take off on the TV show Have Gun - Will Travel, which young readers today will have never heard of, but it was a pretty good show in its day, and many of the personal qualities of the Paladin of that show are highlighted within this work.
Heinlein never seemed to have very `villainous' villains, and the Wormfaces and their human accomplices here are no exception, but the reason for this may just be (in Heinlein's view) that those who would commit crimes against others are people (or aliens) that have regard only for themselves, are out to satisfy their own desires without regard to other's rights or for any larger purpose. Heinlein's outlook on such people is that they are necessarily weak because they have no inner compass, no internalization of the benefits of the society they live in, no guiding light beyond themselves. Heinlein hammers this point home in his depiction of the human accomplices here, showing them to be remarkably stupid in an area that really counts - what makes life worth living.
As usual in a Heinlein novel, he presents some items that will make you think. Kip's family organization is not typical, his father's ideas on how to raise a child are quite different from the norm, and his opinions about the adequacy of the public school system will resonate with (or disturb) any parent reading this. Kip's father's approach to income taxes and the IRS should also raise some questions about the proper role of government and just what actions private citizen can or should take when dealing with such entities. Whether mankind as a species `deserves' to survive, given our violent and bloody history, whether our trait of stubborn determination in the face of overwhelming odds is a good or bad thing, whether the seemingly ever-increasing rate of technological development will help us or eventually overwhelm us if not balanced by a concomitant development of ethical standards that are actually adhered to by all come in for a telling examination.
A grand, rollicking read, fun for everyone, with a lot of heavy-duty philosophy lying just under the hood
--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
Summary of Have Space Suit, Will Travel
A classic novel from the mind of the storyteller who captures the imagination of readers from around the world, and across two generationsFirst prize in the Skyway Soap slogan contest was an all-expenses-paid trip to the Moon. The consolation prize was an authentic space suit, and when scientifically minded high school senior Kip Russell won it, he knew for certain he would use it one day to make a sojourn of his own to the stars. But "one day" comes sooner than he thinks when he tries on the suit in his backyard -- and finds himself worlds away, a prisoner aboard a space pirate's ship, and heading straight for what could be his final destination....
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