Rating: 
Summary: Good YA Sci-Fi
Review: Matt, along with Tex, Oscar and Pierre, join the Interplanetary Patrol. The four make their way through training and embark upon their first tour of duty.I have mixed feelings about this book. Originally I was going to dock a few stars for it's rather pedestrian story, rife with simplistic mentalities of the 40s and 50s. Then I found myself remembering my reading adventures when I was 11 or 12. I would have loved this book. Even now, years later, I briefly wished that I too could join the Interplanetary Patrol and zoom around the solar system. Heinlein wrote great escapism for boys (and perhaps a few men). My main complaint is the truly abominable deus ex machina ending. While it doesn't completely taint the book, it's bad enough that I cannot, in good conscience, give this book 5 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent!
Review: One of my favorites by Heinlein, this book is a great one kids who are getting interested in Sci-Fi. It contains a pretty good adventure story, with enough military sci-fi flavoring to keep you interested throughout the portion of the book where our hero is being trained. I finished this, and I had to track down the short story "The Long Watch" by Heinlein, to read it again so I fully understood the references contained within Space Cadet. You may also wish to read it first, it can be found in "The Past Through Tomorrow" by Heinlein, as well as several other of his books, I'm sure.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Space Cadet is about a young man trying to make it in the Space armed force. It is very entertaining to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Solid, but Uninspiring
Review: Space Cadet is the story of Matt Dodson's training in the Space Patrol, a kind of peacekeeping force which serves the solar system as a "repository of weapons too dangerous to use." Heinlein cleverly points out the limitations of America's "current" (1949) military strategy, and shows how he would handle the disposition of weapons of mass destruction. Asked why he wants to become a Patrolman, Matt grudgingly admits that "people look up to an officer of the Patrol." The Patrol is composed entirely of officers, all of them volunteers, all of whom go through the same rigorous and at times almost sadistic elimination process Matt does. Besides grueling physical tests, an extensive battery of psychological and intellectual exams are used to narrow down the pool of candidates. There is a strong emphasis on education, moral responsibility, and esprit de corps. Heinlein does a good job of describing the Patrol and its ideals, the painful rigors of training, and a cadet's first experiences with space flight, zero gravity, and spacesickness. Heinlein shows his open-mindedness when our heroes are stranded on Venus, where the natives are friendly, collie-like creatures (all of them female) with their own language, their own traditions and taboos, and a command of technology that is both radically different from and superior to our own. On the other hand, human females are almost totally ignored (there are none in the Patrol). Characters come and go, as is typical of the service, with no more development than might be expected within so short a time period, but the focus is on the process of training cadets, rather than on the cadets' growth as individuals. Matt himself is engaging enough, as is his friend Tex, whose tall tales provide a touch of folksy humor, but roommates Oscar and Pete come off as little more than stuffed shirts. There's not a lot of slam-bang excitement, either; the conflict is largely internal as the cadets struggle to be all they can be in a generally peaceful social order. Absent the rabid militarism of the better-known Starship Troopers, this book is a pleasant, enjoyable diversion for young readers, but offers little in the way of big surprises, spine-tingling adventure, or even abstruse science. In the final analysis, Heinlein takes so few risks with this story that it fails to reach the heights of adventure and speculation that we look for in such a book. Teenage boys should enjoy this novel, but it's doubtful that they'll remember it very long.
Rating:
Summary: One of Heinlein's better Children's Stories
Review: This book is an excellent adventure in the Heinlein series. He once again creates a captivating set of charecters that drwas the auidence in. The story is set in space, as the main charecter is attempting to become a part of the elite space patrol. It is a story about duty, honor, and becoming a man with responsibility
Rating: 
Summary: One of the most disappointing Heinlein books
Review: This book seemed like just another rehash of the basic training storyline from Starship Troopers. But there's less to it than in Starship Troopers. I don't like the characters. The only one that says anything other than the "gee shucks, we're in the space patrol" line is an utter creep and many of the scenes just drag along. I heard that kids have liked this book and it seems more written for teenagers than adults, but there's not a lot to recommend. Only in the last 30 pages does the book pick up and start doing things, but up until then it's training, training and more training. For better Heinlein books of this style try either Starship Troopers or Podkyne of Mars.
Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest Sci-Fi Novels I have ever read!!
Review: This book was absolutely great. I had read "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "Starship Troopers", both of which I trully enjoyed. I had finished reading all the books I had and was looking through the bookstore when I came upon this one, I gave it a shot, and I am glad I did. I am now looking through Amazon hoping to find a sequel to this by Heinlein (though I doubt there is one). Anyhow I bet I'll probably read this one again before summer is over.
Rating:
Summary: Typical Heinlein...and that's good!
Review: This is an extremely dated, simplistic story...but, as with all Heinlein books, it's well worth the reading!
Rating:
Summary: A Heinlein masterpiece of simplicity
Review: This may be the last Heinlein novella written in his 'young boys' Amazing-magazine era, or it may be the first book he wrote as he started aiming for a little older audience. I don't know how to judge - I read Stranger when I was 10 so my views are clouded. Needless to say, this is a truly great piece of science fiction. There is no gibson-esque drug use, no later-Heinlein gratuitous sex, no Neal Stephenson rock and roll... and yet, there is a true innocense to this book. It is like the fabled children's story written for adults, something like what Harry Potter almost accomplished. You read it, you watch Wennie-the-pooh, you listen to that one favorite piece of music... you can't help but smile, can't help but enjoy it. This is the quintessential story of Starship Troopers... except with people fighting with but their wits and their innate charm, not a bazooka and a jumpsuit. THIS IS NOT A BOOK FOR YOU BIG FLYING SHIP XWING FANS! This is for the Hari Seldon fans, the people who read Stranger in a Strange Land and like Jubal Harshaw the best. Ahhh, the innocense of youth!
Rating:
Summary: Matt Dodson and Tex Jarman meet for the first time
Review: What if there was an organization that was part local police force and part U.N. peacekeeping force? That's Robert A. Heinlein's Interplanetary Patrol in the classic 1948 science fiction novel Space Cadet. It's the story of two prospective cadets. Matt Dodson and Tex Jarman meet on the way to the Patrol Academy, which like the Air Force Academy, is in Colorado. The other candidates, Girard Burke, Oscar Jensen, and Pierre Armand, are taken under the wings of various oldsters-- cadets who've graduated but haven't yet been commissioned.One of these oldsters, Cadet Sabatello, is the adviser for Matt, Tex, Oscar, and Pierre. Their tests range from the ridiculous to the sublime. The drop test is the hardest of all. They're soon graduated and go to the Academy's school ship, the P.R.S. Randolph, and they're later assigned to various ships. Burke resigns and turns up on Venus. There's trouble in the equatorial region of Venus and Burke's responsible for it. Matt, Tex, Oscar, and Lieutenant Thurlow, go to down to Venus to check it out. Their jeep lands in a sink hole and sinks. Oscar breaks his arm in the disaster, Matt and Tex take a comatose Lieutenant Thurlow through the Venerian jungles. Oscar summons the little people and they take them to their city underneath a Venerian lake. They finally return to the jungles of Venus and recommission the P.R.S. Astarte, a ship that was decommissioned over a hundred years earlier. I've read this book so many times since 1978 that I've lost count and I think it would make a good movie.
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