Have Space Suit, Will Travel

Rating:
Summary: For many years my favorite
Review: Not a true review but I cannot resist. Although not perfect, for many years this was my favorite Heinlein novel. I have, however, finally read it too many times. Even after all these years I know what is going to happen next from page to page to such an extent that I am unable to finish the book for the first time ever. Prime Heinlein though.

Rating:
Summary: if not for this book...
Review: ...I might have had a social life in high school. Instead, I read all the sci-fi I could get my hands on and wore lime green tube socks way into tenth grade. This was the book that made me realize not only that science was way cool (I can say that now that I have dispensed with the aforementioned tube socks) but that we never really know our parents. Now that I am looking to become a parent in the ever so near future, it gives me hope that my kid may some day read Have Spacesuit and realize that his old man is more than just the familial breadwinner.

Rating:
Summary: A childhood favorite I still love to read
Review: Kip and Peewee were kidnapped by hostile extra-terrestrial invaders, only to find that after defeating them with the help of "the mother thing," a being from the Vega system, they have to defend the earth in a trial. The trial concerned nuclear weapons (this being that period of Heinlein's life when he tried to "save the world"). Intermixed in the story is a look at how a 1950's person saw the near (50 to 100 years or so) future, as well as the universe. A hyperspace hypothesis that included time travel was mentioned but glossed over, and the main character misunderstood the theory of relativity, probably on purpose. Most interesting was the growth and maturation of Kip, an 18 year old who nearly slept through most of his schooling, then all of a sudden took seriously math and science, and how to deal with life in general, because his father insisted. He used the new-found knowledge to survive in the universe. After having saved the world, getting into MIT with a full scholarship turned out to be comparatively simple.

It's the kind of story you would give your junior high child to read if you want her or him to grow up to be an engineer.

Rating:
Summary: Is this the best of Heinlein's juveniles?
Review: ---
Or does that honor go to CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY (1957)? The weary old man who looks back from more than four decades' distance finds the story of Thorby Baslim the more interesting, but the kid who came across HAVE SPACESUIT, WILL TRAVEL in the first real library he'd ever entered (with that black and yellow and red Scribner's dust jacket, illustrated by Clifford Geary) demands prior consideration. I fell instantly in love with the story of Kip Russell and gutsy little Patricia Wynant (Peewee) Reisfeld, who represented to me the essence of that unassuming courage and simple decency to which any honorable adolescent boy should aspire.

Other recent reviewers have summarized the novel well enough on this Web site, so I won't recapitulate. I *will*, however, remark on the fact that Robert A. Heinlein is the only writer of my experience to have tucked the proverbial "expositional lump" into a juvenile novel and successfully delighted the majority of his readers thereby, going on for ten pages -- *TEN* solid *PAGES* -- about the design, maintenance and repair of a vacuum suit, and not only kept the pace of his story but used every lick of that engineering tutorial to strengthen the suspense and enhance the reader's involvement in what happened later to the protagonist, his allies and his opponents. Hellacious writing, "juvenile" labeling be damned.

(Incidentally, youngsters reading this review might like to know that Heinlein was a graduate of the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, and was trained there as an engineer. Pulmonary tuberculosis resulted in his medical discharge from the Naval Service in the '30s, but he gave up a prosperous writing career at the beginning of World War II to join fellow SF writers Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where he did much work on high-altitude pressure suits -- what we would call space suits today. As such, Heinlein made a personal professional contribution to the technology that today allows shuttle and space station astronauts to spacewalk in safety and comfort, and his technical expertise is undeniable in the pages of HAVE SPACE SUIT, WILL TRAVEL.)

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Rating:
Summary: An heroic quest, a wild toot
Review: I first read this book in 7th grade. Now I'm 41, and when I re-read it, the novel still leaves me with a sense of awe and deep pleasure akin to the special feeling I get from The Wind in the Willows or The Hobbit. The storyline flings the heroes further and further away from home, and the stakes rise steadily, making for a riveting read. This technique - the expanding sphere of influence of the action - means that the book must keep one-upping itself to deliver. Which it does, admirably.
The novel has some unforgettable prose: at one point the hero says of the villain/monster, 'I had a dirty hunch I knew Wormface's home address." Capturing perfectly the book's Boy Scout sense of morality and adventure, he asks his companion, who is tying a knot on their vital oxygen tank, "Is it a square knot?" Peewee answers, "It was a granny, but it's a square knot now." This coming of age novel has some thoughtful insights into young Kip's budding sense of ethics, like when he is given a chance to speak in defense of the mailicious race that planned to destroy humanity and he decides not to: he reasons that there are limits to mercy and that, "when you see a black widow, you step on it."
This book will forever be in my pantheon of cult classics, because it helped me fall head over heels in love with reading, and I have never lost that feeling.

Rating:
Summary: A fine Heinlein juvenile--teenager saves the world!
Review: Kip Russell lives in average small town America with slightly eccentric father and loving mother, when he wins a space suit in a competition. He rehabilitates same and is suddenly kidnapped and finds himself in an alien spaceship headed to the moon. He teams up with a supergenius little girl and a friendly alien to defeat the aliens and save the world.

While this is a simple adventure story on its face, it has deeper levels. First of all, there are discussions of science which are interesting and educational--look at where Kip figures to himself that they are really going to Pluto, and how he schemes to fill the cell he is in with water so he can float out the top.

There are also social messages woven in. Kip learns to appreciate his parents a bit more--to him, they are just "his parents", but through hints dropped several times in the book, we come to appreciate his father far more than for just, rather oddly, bundling up a box of small change and shipping it off to the IRS every April 15. Even if we were not explicitly told about Mr. and Mrs. Russell towards the end (and, frankly, I wish we weren't, it is too unsubtle), we would come to appreciate them for the way they steered Kip to maximize his potential. However, they were less successful in making Kip a social individual, and that is what starts to change during the novel.

At the start of the novel, Kip displays really good relations with adults, but limited, and not so good, relations with his peer group. Kip starts out a bit of a loner--he has friends, but none seem really important to him (certainly no one helps him in Oscar's renovation). At the end, he's more assertive and, having identified himself with humanity in the climactic scene, may have found himself quite a bit more. I suspect there's a lesson for Heinlein's juvenile readers there, many of whose spiritual home was in the stacks of the library. Nothing wrong with that, but . . . Heinlein manages this better than he does in Glory Road, where Scar comes home, wins the lottery, kicks sand on the bully, etc., etc.

A good read, but then go back and read it again.

Rating:
Summary: My personal introduction to SF
Review: I think I must have been around 9 or 10 when I read "Have Space Suit Will Travel". I found it in the school's library and was immediately taken with the book. I must have read it and re-read it a dozen times by the time I moved on to Junior High. Heinlein took a common theme in boy's literature- the young boy who goes off to sea- and moved it into the twenty-first century in this tale of a boy who finds himself suddenly swept off Earth and involved in a struggle far away in space.

I recently gave a copy to my nine year old nephew who is similarly entranced with the book; not bad for a sci-fi epic written over fifty years ago. Any book that can drag a twenty-first century schoolboy away from the high-tech amusements of today certainly qualifies as a classic.

Rating:
Summary: The One That Started It All for Me
Review: As a 13-year-old (30 years ago), I devoured this book and became hooked on Science Fiction for life. Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury and Herbert followed, along with many more by Heinlein. But this is the one that captured my imagination. I recently bought it for my own 13-year-old and she has had the same experience. Good story telling holds up.

Rating:
Summary: A showcase of Heinlein's storytelling prowess
Review: Have Space Suit--Will Travel represents Heinlein at his storytelling best. Free of the esoteric themes that would appear in his later writings, this book is pure science fiction seemingly written solely for the enjoyment of the reader. Originally published in 1958, the story stands up well even today and will surely be read and enjoyed by untold generations to come. I am sure that many a young person read this book and yearned to reach the moon in the decade before the Eagle finally landed.

This is generally classified as one of Heinlein's juvenile books, but Heinlein's writing is for all ages. I am sure the book appeals to many young people because its protagonists are themselves young people: Kip is a high school senior, and Peewee is a girl of about twelve. Kip develops an overpowering urge to go to the moon, and he is lucky enough to win a real space suit in a contest. Heinlein's description of the many different features of the suit is fascinating. Resigning himself to selling the suit for college tuition money, Kip goes for one last walk; somewhat playfully calling out on the radio, he is surprised to hear an answer to his call. He is amazed when a space ship soon lands in his backyard and a decidedly alien creature comes out and collapses. A second ship lands, an entity gets out and conks Kip on the head, and the next thing Kip knows he is trapped inside a space ship on his way to the moon, suddenly in the company of a little girl. His captors are "Wormfaces," a species of alien that has been in hiding on the moon, looking at the earth with evil intentions. Peewee introduces Kip to the "Mother thing," a Vegan entity (and interstellar policeman) who radiates love and warmth, effectively communicates with the pair in a bird song type of speech, and inspires undying love and devotion. The book revolves around the youngsters' attempt to rescue the Mother Thing from the Wormfaces and eventually return to earth. Along the way, they endure captivity on Pluto, stare death in the face a few times, and ultimately find themselves representing Earth in an interstellar courtroom, the very future of earth shakily balanced in their own young hands.

There are juvenile elements here, such as Kip's tendency to hold back-and-forth conversations with his space suit (whom he dubs "Oscar"), but Robert Heinlein does throw in several sections full of mathematical formulas, high-level theorizing, and advanced scientific concepts. I dare say that these areas of tecnospeak will turn off some young readers and may well stymie a good number of adults. Aside from the mathematics of the thing, Heinlein can make any kind of scientific notion sound feasible and believable, and that is part of his magic and effectiveness. Most of all, though, Heinlein presents vividly real characters doing exceedingly interesting, heroic things. Heinlein's couple of technical forays may be literary speedbumps, but young readers will revel in and be inspired by this book. Adults who have not yet lost all of their imagination will also relate to the main characters well and delight in a good story line which takes the reader from the earth to the moon to Pluto to another galaxy and back again.

Rating:
Summary: Great book for adolescents & teens
Review: Robert Heinlein wrote two kinds of science fiction: adult and adolescent. Have Space Suit, Will Travel is one of the best for the younger reader. It's a great adventure story, and has a lot of good lessons for today's teens, who seem to think they can have the world for nothing. Lessons like "you are the result of your decisions" and "your education is up to you" and so forth. It also holds a lot of hope for humanity as we grow up and join the other beings in the Universe.