This is the 56th in my series of Forgotten Books.

It seems hard for me to list a Robert Heinlein novel as Forgotten but with the attention given to YA books it seems to be so. The book is available as a trade paperback. Yet [Read it all...]]]> TUNNEL IN THE SKY by Robert A. Heinlein, 1955, Scribners

This is the 56th in my series of Forgotten Books.

It seems hard for me to list a Robert Heinlein novel as Forgotten but with the attention given to YA books it seems to be so. The book is available as a trade paperback. Yet many younger readers do not know the work of RAH, except for STARSHIP TROOPERS or STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND which are good books to know.

Yet his YA books may be were many of us first found him. Shortly after reading TUNNEL IN THE SKY I came to STRANGER and found it fascinating. Then the short fiction (mainly the Future History) made me into a believer. I could see the future he saw and believe that it might happen. It still might. The perils of “If This Goes On” (from REVOLT IN 2100) do not seem so farfetched.

Heinlein may have been the best of the crafty engineer gets to solve the insolvable problem and save the universe writers. His people were smart, educated, and able to cope with unusual situations. That shows up in this week’s book from the start. Rod Walker is a high school student at some future point in human development. He is taking a survival class which all future émigrés must take to go to another planet. Not that he is planning on doing this but it might happen. As part of the final exam, he and his class are to be dropped on an unspecified planet where they must survive for up to 10 days before being brought back home. Several classmates never even get to make the jump to the unknown world because they have not thought through the various aspects that must be considered and so fail the course.

Rod, his classmates and three other classes of high school and college kids are dropped across an Earthlike planet. Several die early on because they have placed their faith in guns rather than in themselves. Rod is supposed to team up with Jimmie, his best friend, but they are separated from the beginning. He does soon find another castaway, Jack, and they team up. It soon becomes apparent that the test has not gone according to plan when the recall alert does not sound. Jack and Rod decide to find more people and try to pool resources. Soon a large group has accumulated and things begin to get complicated. Up to this point Rod has taken command, mainly because no one has wanted to do it. Now, there are more people and others want to go their own way which differs for Rod’s. It becomes apparent that they must all work together in order to survive and this requires some form of government, which Heinlein sees as the most important development of Man.

Kids team up, fight, marry, have kids, and develop a workable society on their own. Eventually they do get rescued but not for years and then they have a hard time adjusting back into a world with money and the like.

It’s a fun book, easy to read, but, amazingly, when I read it again this time, there was a lot more philosophy and politics in it than I remembered when my reading concentrated primarily on plot and action.

This was perhaps the first Heinlein novel I read back in 1966 and, at first, I did not enjoy it. The reason was quite stupid at the time. Early on, the settlers are told to watch out for stobor. This annoyed the hell out of me. Stobor? Seriously? The word is ROBOTS spelled backwards and I thought that any writer who could not be more creative than that did not deserve my attention. Later a friend (I’m looking at you, Guy Plunkett!) convinced me that I needed to give Heinlein another try and I did and read everything he did up to a certain point (I WILL FEAR NO EVIL which I hated) and only some things after that (FRIDAY which I liked a lot and JOB which was OK).

Anyway, while I don’t always agree with Heinlein’s politics, etc, I did enjoy the book again this time. It was a totally new reading experience since I had not read this in more than 40 years. It is fairly available so check it out if you want to relive the old joys or, if you’ve never read it, it is worth your while.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs.

This is the 54th in my series of Forgotten Books.

The fall of 1967 was an interesting time for me. For the first time since I was 7 I was suddenly in a town of more than 20,000 people. [Read it all...]]]> Adventures in Time and Space by Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas, 1946, Random House

This is the 54th in my series of Forgotten Books.

The fall of 1967 was an interesting time for me. For the first time since I was 7 I was suddenly in a town of more than 20,000 people. I was amazed at the amount of traffic and the fact that books were sold in stores solely devoted to them. That fall, I ended up at Joskes’ Book Department down on Commerce Street in what is now the River Center Mall.

There on the shelves I found the Modern Library Giant edition of this title (retitled Famous Science Fiction Stories). The book was around 1,000 pages and filled with 33 pivotal stories from nearly everyone in the Golden Age. Not surprisingly it was under the Christmas tree that year.

You need only look at the Table of Contents to know you are in good hands: “Requiem” by Heinlein is up first followed by “Forgetfulness“ by Don A. Stuart (a pseudonym of John W. Campbell, Jr.), the “Nerves” by Lester Del Rey (the relevant story of nuclear energy going wild). Also on the first page of the TOC are three Lewis Padgett stories (Padgett was a pseudonym of Henry Kuttner), two stories by A. E. van Vogt (including “Black Destroyer” mentioned here a couple of weeks ago). “Mechanical Mice” by Maurice A. Hugi (ghosted by Eric Frank Russell), another Don A. Stuart, another Heinlein, and more. The second page had “Farewell to the Master” by Harry Bates, the source material for THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. L. Sprague de Camp, more van Vogt, another Heinlein (“By His Bootstraps”, one of my favorites by Heinlein under this pseudonym), Fredric Brown’s “The Star Mouse” (another favorite), and closes with S. Fowler Wright, another unjustly forgotten writer.

There are 997 pages of text in addition to the introduction. The stories mostly came from Campbell’s ASTOUNDING though AMAZING and PLANET STORIES are represented. Pound for pound this is the anthology of Golden Age fiction against which all others have to be compared. It has been reprinted many times over the years and is generally available on ABE, eBay and other locations. To me, it was such an iconic book that when it came time to name our science fiction and mystery bookstore, we came up with ADVENTURES IN CRIME AND SPACE and it was perfect.

Be aware, however, that paperback editions frequently contained only selections from the total volume. So you might find Selections From or More Selections From. Go for the full volume, you will not be disappointed.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs.

The first issue of Amazing Stories is just one of the items in Texas A&M's speculative fiction collection.

The ever-prolific DAMIEN BRODERICK has released yet another book, this one a collection of SF criticism.

Damien, an Aussie who now calls San Antonio home, selected the essays contained in the newly released “Chained to the Alien: The Best of Australian Science Fiction Review.” Inside, [Read it all...]]]>

Damien Broderick: Champing at the bit (inside the pipeline)

The ever-prolific DAMIEN BRODERICK has released yet another book, this one a collection of SF criticism.

Damien, an Aussie who now calls San Antonio home, selected the essays contained in the newly released “Chained to the Alien: The Best of Australian Science Fiction Review.” Inside, ASFR critics weigh in on the works of authors including Robert Heinlein, J.R.R. Tolkien, Samuel Delany and Joanna Russ.

The book is published by Borgo/Wildside.

“That’s my fifth book for the year, and another three champing at the bit in the pipeline,” Damien said in an e-mail. “Is it possible to do that in a pipeline? Perhaps only a bit.”

We’ll not set any rules for what Damien can or can’t do inside the pipeline, as long as he keeps the tomes flowing.