You might think that I would get tired of Heinlein, but nah. To tell you the truth, when I was younger I didn't care for Heinlein too much. As I get older and crankier (or as I slowly morph into my father 2.0), Heinlein's writings speak to me more and more. The times, they are a changin'. Good to see that so many of his novels are available on the Kindle for a pittance, otherwise I'd ultimately end up trying to figure out where to put 30 some odd Heinlein novels.
It's easy to figure out why I liked this one. Imagine that you had this career choice that sung to you, but no real way to get from where you are to where you want to be. How do you get there? Or do you get there at all? That's the whole point of the book, in a nutshell.. A high school kid trying to make his way forward in the world, armed only with guts, intellect, and raw effort. Heinlein always tries to make the point that these things pay off in the long haul, despite how things look at any given moment.
Have Space Suit, Will Travel is one of Heinlein's Juveniles, a series of books written especially for young men and women. To that end it is kind of a watered down version of normal R.H., but make no mistake! This book is an adventure yarn, and Heinlein makes no bones about throwing in lots of technical details. He even slips in his criticisms of the (then) current generation of spacesuits and how they could be improved. He also chucks in some quick math problems, and note scales. He really did seem to think that the average high school student should have an excellent grasp on Physics, Calculus, Latin, and possess a wide variety of journeyman level skills (electronics, navigation, mechanics etc).
Guess I should brush up on my Latin.
Given that this book is many decades old now, it was as expected rather devoid of grammatical, spelling, or other editorial errors that can make reading books more of a chore than a pleasure. R.H. did rely on some technological deus ex machina in order to advance the plot on several occasions, but I'll allow it because he does make some attempt to explain geometrically how a ship could travel across the universe breaking lightspeed laws by traveling linearly in a noneuclidean fashion (has to do with the curvature of the universe and space-time, as well as extra-dimensional travel). Plot devices with an attempt at explanation trump plot devices with no apparent explanation every time.
I'd rate this book on my standardized bell curve about a 57 or so. It was better than the average book, but not enough to put in the realm of some of my more favorite R.H. novels, like Starship Troopers or The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.
Guess I should brush up on my Latin.
Given that this book is many decades old now, it was as expected rather devoid of grammatical, spelling, or other editorial errors that can make reading books more of a chore than a pleasure. R.H. did rely on some technological deus ex machina in order to advance the plot on several occasions, but I'll allow it because he does make some attempt to explain geometrically how a ship could travel across the universe breaking lightspeed laws by traveling linearly in a noneuclidean fashion (has to do with the curvature of the universe and space-time, as well as extra-dimensional travel). Plot devices with an attempt at explanation trump plot devices with no apparent explanation every time.
I'd rate this book on my standardized bell curve about a 57 or so. It was better than the average book, but not enough to put in the realm of some of my more favorite R.H. novels, like Starship Troopers or The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.
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