This was, hands down, my favorite Heinlein book as a teen. I read it at least 4 or 5 times. I really need to read it again as an adult, but Heinlein .This was, hands down, my favorite Heinlein book as a teen. I read it at least 4 or 5 times. I really need to read it again as an adult, but Heinlein ... always an iffy proposition. Though this is one of his early juvie novels, so it's safer than, say, Time Enough for Love.
Two teenage boys, part of the human colonies on Mars, are sent away to boarding school in the biggest city on Mars. In between getting into trouble with the new, insanely strict headmaster, they find out about a plot that could endanger both humans and the native Martians. It’s up to these two boys to save their hometown and their Martian friend from the nefarious forces of evil.
Heinlein is especially imaginative here, with the unique Martian civilization and the realistic (at least for the time) details about humans trying to survive in the hostile environment of Mars. There's a pretty heavy gun ownership rights theme running through this book that may irk some readers, the sexual roles are straight from the 1950s (Red Planet was written in 1949, so understandable enough), people in authority tend to be corrupt and/or incompetent, and you have to be able to suspend disbelief in light of what we now know about life on Mars. Other than that, it's a rockin' story!
But no matter what, I will always adore Willis the Martian with my entire heart and soul. [image] Sing ¿Quién es la Señorita? one more time, Willis!...more
In Double Star, a 1956 Robert Heinlein novella, Lawrence Smith (aka Lorenzo Smythe or "Lorenzo the Great"), Review also posted at Fantasy Literature.
In Double Star, a 1956 Robert Heinlein novella, Lawrence Smith (aka Lorenzo Smythe or "Lorenzo the Great"), an out-of-work actor, accepts a job to impersonate a man for a few days, without, perhaps, asking as many questions about the job as he should have. He promptly finds himself whisked off to the planet Mars, standing in for one of the most important political figures in the solar system, who has been kidnapped. Larry's first task: fool the Martians during a vitally important Martian adoption ceremony. But somehow one appearance as a double leads to another, and another...
My (self-imposed) mission was to find a Robert Heinlein story where the enjoyment of the tale isn't swamped by the offensive content for which Heinlein is, unfortunately, well known. Double Star, I think, does the job pretty well. There are a couple of instances of eyebrow-raising dialogue, and the women mostly have secretarial-type jobs, but it's par for what you'd normally expect to see in 1950's books (even science fiction; the imaginations of mid-century SF authors had their limits), and nothing was too far out of line.
Heinlein gets on his soapbox a little about personal freedoms and politics, but it's all good since the main message is equality for all races, including Martians and Venerians (aliens from Venus). A few outdated technologies like microfilm and slide rules appear alongside the spaceships and ray guns, but it doesn't ruin the fun. It's actually pretty amusing in a retro kind of way.
This is a quick and humorous read, not terribly challenging, but enjoyable, and there are some interesting ideas about how acting a role can change you as a person, the importance of the political process, and the impact one person can have....more
This is the Heinlein book where evil alien slugs take over everyone's brains, causing nationwide chaos.
[image] This novel was written in 1951 and is seThis is the Heinlein book where evil alien slugs take over everyone's brains, causing nationwide chaos.
[image] This novel was written in 1951 and is set in 2007 (whew! no mind-controlling slugs around yet ... at least not that I'm aware of. Though the current state of politics makes me wonder ...). The story is told from the viewpoint of Sam, who works in a secretive national security agency under a boss he calls the Old Man. Sam, the Old Man, and an excellent (and very sexy) agent called Mary head to Des Moines to investigate a flying saucer rumor and - more importantly - find out why six other agents sent to investigate before them have disappeared without a trace.
They discover the alien slugs hard at work, busily attaching themselves to the back of every human they can (once they attach, they control that person's mind and have access to all their memories and skills, so they can use the people they control to capture other people long enough to stick a slug on their neck). They manage to escape and report to the President of the U.S., who can't be convinced to declare a state of emergency. So our intrepid team goes back to Des Moines to try to get more evidence of the alien invasion ... and things start to go wrong from there.
I loved this old pulpy SF novel when I was a teenager. The four stars are based on that teenage love because it's pretty dated, but if you don't mind the 50s attitudes sprinkled with Heinlein's off-beat views on libertarianism and sexual mores, it's still a pretty fun read....more
Teenage Tadiana: YES! Way Station! All the stars! I love this story of Enoch Wallace, a Civil War veteran whose home is being used as an interstellar Teenage Tadiana: YES! Way Station! All the stars! I love this story of Enoch Wallace, a Civil War veteran whose home is being used as an interstellar way station, a stopping point for alien travelers journeying from one part of the galaxy to another. As part of the deal, Enoch never ages while he is inside his home. For 100 years Enoch isn't bothered by anyone--he lives in the backwoods and the local people leave him alone--but eventually the government becomes suspicious of Enoch's agelessness and the fact that no one else on earth is able to enter his house. Ever.
Older, more cynical Tadiana: Hmm. Way Station. Pretty good SF. Loved it when I was a kid, but it's kind of old-fashioned, informed by the Cold War. 4 stars.
Teenage Tadiana: *shrieks* 4 STARS! You're crazy! This book is the best! I love all the different types of aliens--they're really alien. And the PRESENTS they give to Enoch. SO cool. /gushing
Older Tadiana: Yeah, the aliens and their incredible gifts were pretty cool. But hillbillies? And a mute girl with the ability to charm off warts and fix broken butterflies, for realz?
Teenage Tadiana: C'mon. This book won the Hugo Award in 1964. Back when the Hugo meant something! And how can you not love Enoch's funeral for an alien that combines this: "In my father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you" and this: "Here lies one from a distant star, but the soil is not alien to him, for in death he belongs to the universe.”
Older Tadiana: *sighs* Okay, back up to 5 stars. I hope you're happy.
Teenage Tadiana: Pffft. You know I'm right....more
The original short story Nightfall is brilliant and deserves five stars. This novel, based on that short story, only gets 2 stars. It was bloated and The original short story Nightfall is brilliant and deserves five stars. This novel, based on that short story, only gets 2 stars. It was bloated and forgettable. Don't bother with it unless you're an Asimov completist. If you've never read the short story, you need to go find it. It's in a lot of SF collections and should be readily available....more
Shards of Honor (often packaged with Barrayar and sold as Cordelia's Honor) is one of those SF space opera books that I love beyond reason and pull off my bookshelf every few years to reread, contentedly immersing myself in Bujold’s well-imagined world and the relationship between two characters I adore.
A bit of background: I started my VORKOSIGAN SAGA experience years ago when I grabbed A Civil Campaign off the library shelves, and was introduced to the very short, brilliant, terrifyingly competent and wildly adventurous Miles Vorkosigan. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, that book was not the best place to start with this series; it assumes a lot of background knowledge about the characters and events in their lives and really isn’t characteristic of the series, with its focus on romance and social satire over adventure. I was a little mystified but interested enough to check out more books in this series from the library.
And eventually I ended up here, with Shards of Honor, and Cordelia Naismith and Aral Vorkosigan’s first meeting. She’s the Betan captain of a surveying team exploring an uninhabited (she thinks) planet; he’s the commander of a Barrayaran military outpost on that planet. (Beta is extremely socially progressive; Barrayar has a rigid, traditional and militaristic society.) Their groups clash in a deadly meeting, and Aral and Cordelia are abandoned among the dead and wounded. They need to cooperate to survive. As they trek to Aral’s camp, running into deadly alien animals along the way and surviving on scanty rations, they gain respect for each other, and love starts to develop. Cordelia is loyal to Beta, however, and more, she can’t imagine living and raising a family in the paternalistic society of Barrayar. That and the conflict between their worlds pull her and Aral apart.
I totally fell in love with these two characters and their adventures, a mix of political intrigue and battles, both in space and on land, and between individuals as well as societies. Cordelia’s and Aral’s unusual romance went straight to my heart, and their respective moral dilemmas were heartrending. Shards of Honor might not be the best book in the VORKOSIGAN SAGA, but it’s the one most beloved by me. ...more
4+ stars. Barrayar--a Hugo winner and Nebula nominee back in 1991--is a book that improved dramatically for me on reread. It's more interesting, subtl4+ stars. Barrayar--a Hugo winner and Nebula nominee back in 1991--is a book that improved dramatically for me on reread. It's more interesting, subtle and complex than I initially gave it credit for. And it's fascinating to see the development of Cordelia and Aral's characters from their initial beginnings in Shards of Honor, and their growing relationships with each other and with the people around them.
The first half of Barrayar is a little on the quiet side, more deliberately paced, as Cordelia, a woman with socially liberal views, comes to terms with her new life as Lady Vorkosigan in the rigidly traditional and militaristic society on Barrayar. Her husband Aral is appointed as regent to the child emperor of Barrayar, which puts Cordelia and Aral in the bull's eye of political machinations ... which become more dangerous than either of them anticipated. Readers who are familiar with Miles Vorkosigan from the later books in this series will get the beginning of his story here, and it's well worth your time.
The second half is a whirlwind, a heart-stopping adventure with Cordelia and her new friends at the center of a desperate plan that has far-reaching implications for the entire planet of Barrayar. The first half might be a bit slow-paced for some, as it sets up the second half, but it's worth the wait!
Cordelia is a character for the ages, an outspoken, unstoppable force whose steely determination is combined with intelligence, a warm heart and concern for the people around her ... other than those that are causing trouble for Cordelia or those she loves.
"He tried to hurt Aral through me. I found that . . . annoying. I wish you would cease trying to annoy me, Count Vordarian, I'm afraid you might succeed." Her voice fell further, almost to a whisper. "You should fear it, too."
Aral is a great foil for her, a strong character in his own right, but it's Cordelia who's at the center of this story. I'd love to meet her. She'd probably kick my butt into shape in a dozen ways I didn't realize were needed until she pointed them out to me....more
$2.99 Kindle sale, Dec. 11, 2018. While this offbeat time-travel novel is a sequel of sorts to Doomsday Book, they have completely different vibes, an$2.99 Kindle sale, Dec. 11, 2018. While this offbeat time-travel novel is a sequel of sorts to Doomsday Book, they have completely different vibes, and it's not really necessary to have read Doomsday Book before this one. This is one of my favorite books in the world, but it's kind of an odd one that probably won't work for everyone. It's a little bit madcap farce, with people running and time-hopping around trying to find some obscure, ugly piece of Victorian art; it's got a bit of romantic comedy, a bit of mystery, and a lot of this and that kind of all mashed together in a way that can seem confusing at times, but in the end is ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT.
$1.99 Kindle sale, Jan. 21, 2019. Maybe my favorite time travel book ever (and I do like me a good time travel tale), Doomsday Book won both the Hugo $1.99 Kindle sale, Jan. 21, 2019. Maybe my favorite time travel book ever (and I do like me a good time travel tale), Doomsday Book won both the Hugo and Nebula (as well as several other awards) in the early 1990s when it was published.
Kivrin is a history major at Oxford in a near-future world where time travel machines are controlled by universities and used for research purposes. Kivrin is traveling back in time to live in a medieval English village for a few weeks, but things go just a bitextremely wrong. She arrives and (despite all the inoculations she received) immediately falls very ill. She can't understand the language of 1300's England. Her clothing and appearance aren't right, and the villagers are rather suspicious. (Apparently the university's research into medieval England wasn't as accurate as they thought.) Because she was so ill, she's not sure where her drop off/pick up point is, so she can get back to modern times.
And then it turns out that she's not even in the time period she was supposed to arrive in, and a major disaster (view spoiler)[the Black Death bubonic plague pandemic (hide spoiler)] is already on its way.
A lovely and heart-wrenching story, highly recommended. It's much more about the characters than the hard science. Kivrin's - and the villagers' - bravery in the face of death and tragedy hit me right in the heart....more
Hard SF novel about the colonization of Mars. An initial group of 100 colonists, men and women, is shipped off from Earth to Mars to try to terraform Hard SF novel about the colonization of Mars. An initial group of 100 colonists, men and women, is shipped off from Earth to Mars to try to terraform the planet and make it a better fit for human life. Kim Stanley Robinson explores all of the science involved in doing that, as well as the political collusions and maneuvering involved, and the relationships and psyches of several of the colonists.
This is a well-known and respected SF novel: thoughtful, scientifically-minded and very detailed, if a little dry at times. There are two sequels; I bogged down in the second one and never got to the third, but this one is still downstairs in my collection of SF novels. I should probably reread it sometime; I'd probably do better with it now than I did back in the 90s when this came out. :)...more
I first read Starship Troopers as an impressionable teenager. My dad had a lot of SF books around the house, particularly Heinlein's, and I read most I first read Starship Troopers as an impressionable teenager. My dad had a lot of SF books around the house, particularly Heinlein's, and I read most of them, except the especially sexy ones that he hid from me. (I read several of them later and hated them. But that's a different story.) And I have vague memories of liking this book - a lot.
So when I decided to reread it as an adult, I was expecting some old-fashioned shoot-up-the-aliens classic pulp SF, like, say, The Puppet Masters.
What I got was a lot of this: [image]
Not much of this: [image]
And you can forget about this: [image]
Basically it's one long military lecture wrapped in a paper-thin science fiction plot. I was surprised by how little action there was, and how much pontificating on military strategy and training. More than half of it reads like a textbook. It's not as painfully tedious as the infamous 100-page John Galt lecture in Atlas Shrugged (what is??), but it's pretty bad unless you're actually interested in military theory, from a proponent's point of view.
As many reviewers have mentioned, this is one of those cases where the book has virtually nothing in common with the movie, other than the name and a few basic plot details. I'm pretty certain that Heinlein is rolling in his grave over Paul Verhoeven's satirical treatment of his military screed.
And I'm still confused why Teenage Me thought this was a great book ......more
Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽
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