Have Space Suit - Will Travel; Space Cadet, by Robert Heinlein

[rachelmanija]

Have Space Suit - Will Travel was my favorite Heinlein when I was a kid, and it generally holds up. It’s very bright and cheerful and likable, except for the genocide

Comments

[tool_of_satan]

I assume that, at the very least, Heinlein intended the genocide aliens to be creepy. I’m not sure if the other issues I mention were intentional.

I think it was all intentional, but I have no evidence[*]. I'm pretty confident that he intended the creepiness, given that Kip, despite loathing the Wormfaces, is unsettled by their casual genocide (unless I am misremembering this).

The middle section, after Matt’s learned the basics and is studying math and so forth, was a bit dull, enlivened only by a scene I was probably not supposed to laugh at in which he goes back home and his mom is hilariously horrified when he earnestly explains how he maintains the orbiting nukes that will destroy their hometown in case of war, and is baffled when this upsets her.

That section could have been written a lot better, but I found it interesting as an example of anti-American exceptionalism (er, that's "anti-[American exceptionalism]", not the other way).

[*]Thus qualifying me to write a biography.

[rachelmanija]

Yeah, Kip is freaked out by the genocide, especially since the Genocide Aliens have the tech to just exile them somewhere where they can't harm anyone, and decide to slooooowly freeze the entire planet instead. I think it's safe to say Heinlein thought this was creepy. What I wonder is whether Heinlein thought maybe the Wormfaces weren't all evil.

[tool_of_satan]

Well, he did have Kip think about the fact that humans didn't worry too much about how other animals felt before doing things like clearing land, and comparing that to the Wormfaces' actions. So maybe more extremely self-centered than evil?

[spectralbovine]

It’s very bright and cheerful and likable, except for the genocide.
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[rachelmanija]

Very true!

[lnhammer]

I know I read Space Cadet as a teen, but I have no memory at all of anything in it.

Which probably goes to show just how bland it is.

---L.

[veejane]

What's funny is that my whole family describes somebody acting stupidly as "You're such a space cadet." But I think I am the only one who can be described as a science fiction reader, and I hate Heinlein.

...Although come to think, hating Heinlein and using one of his titles as an insult are consistent behavior, except I think this family habit predates my ability to read.

[smillaraaq]

Along with the Heinlein book, the phrase was used as part of the title of a loosely Heinlein-inspired 1950s TV/comic/radio franchise, and appears in the stupid/spaced-out insult sense at least as early as the mid-50s in "The Honeymooners", so they could have easily picked up the term without ever reading his stuff.

[cmattg]

I think it's worth pointing out - when *Space Suit* was published, the idea that the All-Powerful Aliens would be neither Benevolent Space Brothers nor Incomprehensible Supermen was fairly new and radical. Heinlein goes out of the way to point out that the Three Galaxies tribunal isn't an Ultimate Judging of Ultimate Justice, it's a bunch of *people* deciding as best they can whether the new neighbors are going to be too much of a problem.