This was a Heinlein young adult novel I hadn't read before, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes, it definitely showed its age in places, including gender relations. However, I remind myself the social mores are on a pendulum and who knows what the future will hold.

I loved the idea that telepathy affected how physics worked. I also liked seeing how the main character matured during the course of his adventures. While the ending gave me a bit of a twinge, I did the math and decided it wasn't so bad after all.

I'm not sure I would suggest this for young people today as they don't have the historical/cultural background. I would strongly suggest this for adult science fiction readers who don't mind a young protagonist.

Pat y Tom son dos gemelos inquietos y con cierta audacia, que cierran y conforman un cuadro familiar numeroso. En su casa las cosas marchan regular, pues sus padres hacen lo que pueden para sobrellevar el gasto. Y es que en la actualidad que les atañe, se impone unas tasas extras a las familias con más hijos de lo esencial; todo supervisado por el departamento de control de la población. Un día, un cargo de la Fundación a largo plazo (presidida por Howard, el pionero de la conquista de otros planetas ‘historia del futuro’ I; relato 4), los visita para que se embarquen en una expedición (con el nombre del Proyecto Lebensraum, que mediante 12 naves, explorará tantas estrellas tipo Sol como sea posible), dónde deberán comunicarse con la tierra los pares telepáticos, por separado, para que los ecos de descubrimientos lleguen instantáneamente, sin demora alguna (ya que lo transmitirán más rápido que la luz actual).

El presente libro del decano de la Sci fi, nos enmarca un futuro con sobre población, dónde ya no es posible vivir más en el planeta Tierra, por lo cual, hay que ir a conquistar las estrellas, pero de un modo diferente hasta ahora (turismo, estaciones espaciales...con Marte, Venus y Júpiter totalmente poblados por colonos inmigrantes), ya que se precisa ir mucho más allá de los límites establecidos. Heinlein nos presenta un mundo con soldados de la paz (uno de ellos el tío de los gemelos protagonistas), que han erradicado las guerras y conflictos. Pero ahora deben buscarse medidas para sobrevivir, ya no por el simple gusto de la colonización y su conquista, por necesidades vitales (al igual que lo tocara en la lúcida ‘Granjero de las Estrellas’, con los pioneros de la emigración, o la soberbia ‘Hº del futuro’, con la conquista de las estrellas, y las más próximas).


La obra consta de tres partes intangibles; costumbre Heinleiniana. En su primera, algo breve, nos expone la situación social y nos presenta a la familia protagonista; dónde la permanente voz narradora es Tom. Es un tramo en donde el escritor introduce su vena más crítica y su particular análisis filosófico de vida, aludiendo a los impuestos que deben pagar las familias numerosas y su preferencia para emigrar a las estrellas más cercanas, o las reflexiones de su padre (un mini alter Ego de Heinlein, al igual que su tío David; pues ambos esbozan brevemente su perorata recurrente), que habla acerca de los beneficios de ser pobre: formación de carácter, acostumbrarse a buscárselas por sí solo; además de la libertad que hay en ello (nuevamente, muy en la línea de Capra), así como los orígenes de la fundación que los selecciona. Aquí también se hace incidencia sobre la Telepatía, sus principios y enigmas, ‘su tangibilidad’ y el porqué de sus potenciales. Heinlein debate y plantea ciertos aspectos (como la investigación de la naturaleza tiempo, mediante los pares o la mal diagnosticada locura en el pasado, cuando pudieran haber sido casos telepáticos), pero deja al lector su opinión personal. Esta división incorpora los típicos ‘escarceos’ e intercambios de gemelos; cosa que puede considerarse muy tópica, pero recordemos que es una obra muy temprana; y claro, siempre con la chispa de Heinlein en sus diálogos. Si bien, aquí algo menos chulescos de lo normal.
Lo que puede considerarse el segundo tercio, el más extenso, narra de primera mano todo, el diario de a bordo (y nunca mejor dicho, pues Tom está escribiendo un registro de sus memorias desde el principio; por orden del psicólogo de la nave) de la tripulación, la adaptación, convivencia de Tom y cia (unos 2000 tripulantes); que estarán viajando durante más de 60 años; alcanzando varios planetas, e inspeccionándolos. No esperemos ver grandes aventuras, ni cantidad de escenarios. El protagonista absoluto es la ‘Elsie’ (la nave Arca), con sus dimes y diretes: noviazgos, matrimonios, camaradería y disputas, bajas físicas, distribución de trabajo y estudios, llegando hasta una huelga a bordo. Tom reflexiona acerca de ello, y recae en el paso del tiempo, ya que conforme los años van pasando (para él meses), se va alejando de su compañero telepático, y requerirá de otros similares, dentro de su jerarquía. Nuestro primer par gemelo se ‘encuentra’ suspendido, mientras que el segundo desarrolla su vida, conformando una familia y vida, alejadas cada vez más de su antigua vida y rutina.
Pero está claro que para Tom los años no han pasado (ni física ni casi mentalmente).
En la última, hay una incursión en Centauri, dentro de Tau Ceti, en la que son agredidos por los nativos anfibios del planeta (curioso observar lo ‘precursor’ que era, pues describe prácticamente a un famoso Pokémon clásico de nivel inferior). Todo ello, representa un gran caos en la, ya frágil, vertebra humana que conforma la nave, pues la plantilla ha ido pereciendo, o perdiendo su poder. Y entonces, es cuando habrá un intento de motín, seguido de un desenlace efectivo, reflexivo y de oficio; muy irónico y que condensa el significado de la futilidad, o no, de nuestras heroicidades. Heinlein echa el resto en el presente tramo, con un cierre que suma mucho a la novela, de halo adulto y sobrio, con dos escenas breves, pero de intensa atmósfera y mensaje. Lo que sería una epístola previa a las Epopeyas de Long y los eternos.

Aun poseyéndolo, esta obra del maestro (a diferencia de las otras), se aleja del constante mensaje crítico - social y su lado más profético, aventurero y vibrante, pero conservando su esencia sobre los principios de libertad y valor por uno mismo), para plantearnos, centrándose especialmente, en el paso de los años, los cambios, el desgaste y distanciamiento de las relaciones y situaciones; con el replanteamiento de una vuelta a la nueva vida, su enfrentamiento y toma de riendas. Similar en estructura y planteamiento a la obra maestra ‘Puerta al verano’ (recordemos que se guardan pocos años), con un tono más sereno, pero de igual tinte personal; es otro de los libros del maestro que pudieran clasificarse como ‘intimista’, al narrar una historia personal de primera voz, con los devenires de los cambios drásticos en la vida de alguien y su entorno. Con ello, no hay más de un personaje de peso en la novela, sino que recae en su voz narrativa. Aquí Tom ‘está viviendo en un presente congelado’ en el tiempo al ser el par por el que no ha pasado el tiempo, y en ‘Puerta al verano’ es Dan, por su decisión de hibernarse literalmente. Sin ser tan efectiva como la citada ni con tanta intensidad, por frescura o ímpetu de los protagonistas, es una buena novela del Heinlein más sobrio, personal y costumbrista.

“No me gustan los secretos, antes prefiero deber dinero. No es posible devolver un secreto; pero lo prometimos”
“El hombre tiene derecho a morirse de la manera que más le guste, es lo único sobre lo que no hay impuestos”
“el aprender no es un medio para un fin, es un fin en si mismo”
“Todo el mundo encuentra grietas en su valor de vez en cuando”
“La gente generalmente cree todo aquello que se le dice muy pronto en su vida y con suficiente frecuencia”
“Tienes afecto por él; todos sentimos afecto a las cosas a que estamos acostumbrados, a los zapatos viejos, viejas pipas, incluso”

Nearing the end of his series of "Juveniles" (only two more to go!) Heinlein does something slightly different in this novel. It's interesting to see how his novels get progressively more complex and for slightlier older readers and here he gives us what is really a bit of a downbeat depression fest for young adults.

In this novel we follow a couple of Twins who have telepathic powers and as telepathy is instantaneous and therefore faster than the speed of light and is irrespective of distance, these twins become a kind of two-way radio for interstellar spaceships. So one twin stays on earth and the other one goes on the ship as a way to solve the problem of long distance communication.

This central conceit is pseudo-scientific, of course, but the idea explored about relative ageing between the twin on the ship and the one on earth is an interesting one. Time passes differently so while one is a young man the other one is already a decrepit old man. Meanwhile scientific discoveries on Earth happen much faster than the ship-bound people can accompany as more time passes on Earth, meaning that by the end of the book they are ancient relics 30 year old bodies. Also space-faring is dangerous, depressive and everyone you love dies. Fun times!

Imagine being in the 25th century, yet somehow, everyone has the 1950s mindset. Looks to me, Heienlein couldn't see true equality in his future.

Picture this: fathers puffing on pipes, wives and children needing husbands consent for every decision, men consent needed for all women to leave the spaceship and explore a new world (men decide if it is too dangerous for women i.e. "they will be allowed once it is safe"), the cook on the spaceship is a stereotypical woman named Mama O'Toole.

Musings such as "I hope the girl can cook like her mother", "a woman has to look up to her husband" (said by a woman). Men are making decisions left and right, and women are, well, mostly cooking and looking pretty with button noses and blond hair, blue eyes.

That being said, if you can get over the whole dated social setup, there's a genuinely exciting story here. The exploration of space, the adventures, telepathy, etc., kept me going.

If you're up for a dose of classic sci-fi with a hint of "Father Knows Best," give it a shot. Just remember, it's a product of its time.

And then read some Arthur C. Clarke who always stands the test of time, probably because he himself was not so 'stereotypical'.

This was my first Heinlein novel. It probably deserves only 3 stars, but I'm giving it 4 because this novel showed me why Heinlein is one of the fathers of science fiction. The world-building of the future is done so well, especially in the case of the science and the explanation of it in ways that allowed me to suspend disbelief. The motivations behind why the characters in the book were sent to space made logical sense, and the exploration of what happens to time when you are traveling at the speed of light were fascinating. Additionally, as a coming of age novel I could imagine this resonating with young people (boys, in particular) as we get inside the narrator's head as he experiences his growth from adolescence to adulthood while in space.

Where this book loses stars is the dated feel to it. Though the science seems advanced, the social aspects of the world are clearly colored by the time that Heinlein wrote it. This is a future where women still defer to their husbands and hold domestic roles almost exclusively (with a few exceptions). The social relationships are what makes this book feel less futuristic than it might. Combine that with the fact that there only substantial character is the main character, the character building falls a bit short. Lastly, the end of this novel... wtf? I won't spoil it, but it seemed very strange.

Still, I will definitely read more Heinlein after this!

It's amazing how abruptly RAH switched gears when he wrote Starship Troopers. Most of the previous decade was spent writing young adult books. After reading reviews, Time For The Stars seemed to be the YA favorite. So I thought I would give it a read. Big mistake. Most of the book was endless banter/chatter between the young protagonist twins. And it was only a few short pages that described reptilian and amphibious aliens killing humans and destroying some equipment. Most of todays young adults want killer zombies, interplanetary travel and ferocious aliens with lots of blood and guts strewn across the galaxy. This is Leave It to Beaver in space. Don't waste your time.

The review above pretty much says it all. This books has been reprinted time and time again for over fifty years. It is one of Heinlein's better juveniles.

I recommend Heinlein's "juveniles" for every sf reader--I personally feel they represent some of his best work. They can be read and enjoyed by adults; except for the age of the main characters, this books is as good as many adult novels published today.

Great story with unexpectedly accessible subplots involving well developed smaller Sci-Fi ideas... woven into the complexities of time travel and near faster than light travel. I really liked this one and fear that a generation of Sci-Fi readers don't know what they are missing, especially if they don't their toes into the Golden Age of science fiction.

Would highly recommend this one.

Originally posted at FanLit:
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...

Time for the Stars is one of my favorite Heinlein Juveniles, and I like his juveniles better than his books for adults, so I guess that makes Time of the Stars one of my favorite Heinlein works. It’s got everything that makes his stories so much fun to read, especially for kids. Likeable heroes, sweet relationships, real emotions, a touch of romance, a bit of physics, spaceship travel and exploration of distant planets. (And also, as usual, there’s a hint of incest — romance with a cousin — and a few complaints about taxes. It is a Heinlein novel, after all.)

In Time for the Stars, twins Tom and Pat join an experimental scientific study to see if telepathy might be a viable way for Earth to communicate with her exploring spaceships. It’s thought that if telepathy could work for anyone, it would be identical twins. Tom and Pat are excited to be involved, but they know this means that one of them will get to explore space while the other one has to stay home to be the other end of the telepathic line. This fact has a lot of ramification for the brothers. First of all, the boys have to decide who gets to go. Second, the one who leaves will probably never see his family again. Third, the boys will now age at different rates because of relativity, so even if the one who leaves ever comes back, he will be much younger than his twin.

All of this gives Time for the Stars an emotional texture that makes this story feel weightier than your average YA SF adventure. Also, Time for the Stars is not just a story about exploring space — it’s about family, friendship, loneliness, love, guilt, and the power of the human mind. In fact, I think Heinlein spends more time exploring the brain than exploring distant galaxies.

Time for the Stars is an entertaining and moving YA space adventure that will probably please most adults as well as kids. I listened to Barrett Whitener narrate Blackstone Audio’s version. I thought his voice, tone, and cadence were perfect for this emotional story.

Pop culture is often dismissed as simply low culture – in contrast to the high art of opera or classical music or abstract expressionism. And there’s good reason: As long-ago scifi author Theodore Sturgeon once pointed out, “Ninety percent of everything is trash.”

A simple tour through the cable channels, or spin of the radio dial, will prove Sturgeon right, and in the mass of modern pop culture it’s much harder to filter out the signal from the noise. In classical music, for example, the bad symphonies simply never get played because time has winnowed the field to only the best.

But even if pop culture doesn’t always deliver quality, it does have something else to offer: a window on the modern world. Though movies, books and music take time to work their way from inspiration to dissemination, they still have a relatively brief gestation, and taken as a whole, they reflect and amplify some oftentimes hidden aspects of our culture.

Since this is a science fiction and fantasy column, it’s pretty obvious what the focus will be, but the same arguments apply across a much broader spectrum – and the same insights emerge.

Recently, publishers sent me a couple of books by writers from the so-called Golden Age (which shines much more brightly because, like classical music, the trash has been forgotten). The first, “The Voyage of the Space Beagle” (Orb, $14.95, 215 pages), by A.E. Van Vogt, holds up remarkably well, while Robert Heinlein’s “Time for the Stars” (Orb, $14.95, 244 pages) shows it age. Nonetheless, both share a quality that is almost always missing from modern scifi: optimism.

In both books, there’s a sense that problems will be solved, both individually and collectively. The future is bright, human beings are capable (if not exceptional) and the triumph of progress (and thus the good) is inevitable. You can read far and wide in 21st century scifi (especially that with a serious intent) and not find much to bolster any of those beliefs.

Two other veterans who worked in the 1950s (“The Voyage of the Space Beagle” came out in 1950, “Time for the Stars” in 1956) combined for a new book, “The Last Theorem” (Ballantine Books, $27, 299 pages). It’s not up to their best work, which is not surprising, but even so, that sense of optimism shines through. Human beings will still struggle and make mistakes but Arthur C. Clarke (who died recently) and Frederick Pohl not only acknowledge, but celebrate, humanity’s abilities.

Most writers whose careers are firmly rooted in the 21st century have little truck with such sunny outlooks. At a surface level, the books are full of blood and pain. Authors make sure that their heroes fight realistically – the crunch of bone, the burst of blood, the tide of pain, are always meticulously recounted. But beyond that, there is an underlying despair that humanity will ever get it right. If it’s not environmental disaster, it’s the inability to control technology; if it’s not escaped microbes gone wild, it’s war with civilization-destroying weapons.

And that, to this American who remembers when the United States did not invade foreign countries for no apparent reason (from Vietnam to Iraq), when the promise of technology was greater than the dangers of terrorism, when Mother Nature seemed to be kind rather than vengeful, is more than a little depressing. For if the light shone on modern culture by science fiction in particular and pop culture in general is so obscured by the grey fog of despair, does it mean that the 21st century world is on the way to giving up? If the heroes can’t solve the problems, or are turned into antiheroes who cannot find a way to glory without compromising their ideals and values, then who will stand up and lead? If these dark visions are correct, what will the world our children and grandchildren inherit really look like?

Of course, every older generation always thinks the world is going to hell in a hand basket – and the phrase itself gives the lie to its prediction. I don’t even know what a hand basket is, which reminds me that the pessimism of the elders does not necessarily doom the young ones. And in fact, there are some science fiction authors who still cling to the old tropes, the vision of humans as problem-solvers and not carriers of a culture-killing disease.

At the top of that list for me is John Scalzi, who has a new book out (“Zoe’s Tale” (Tor, $24.95, 336 pages)) that brings a different narrator to some of the events from the satisfying “The Last Colony.” “Zoe’s Tale” isn’t completely successful, as its depiction of its female teen-age heroine seems to me – someone who has coached teen-age girls for more than 20 years – impossible to credit, but it is still a book in which problems are solved, and positive resolutions are reached.

The same is true Scalzi’s “Agent for the Stars” (Tor, $14.95, 352 pages), which he wrote more than a decade ago but is just now getting widespread distribution. “Agent for the Stars” is also funny, and not in a dark, vein-slicing way, which is another rarity as the young century wears on.

A pair of writers – Gary K. Wolf and Archbishop John J. Myers – went all-out for the past with “Space Vulture” (Tor, $24.95, 333 pages), an unabashedly old-fashioned space opera with heroes, villains, coincidences, and all the trappings of old-time science fiction – and old-time westerns, as far as that goes. But simply re-working the old themes doesn’t make this book more than just a diversion, while the Isaac Asimovs and Clifford D. Simaks of the ’50s and ‘60s were reflecting the underlying positive attitudes of an entire culture.

Scalzi echoes that optimism, but the vision of most of the writers working in this pop culture field is generally darker, more depressing and seldom ends well. Even when the heroes win, the scars take long to heal, and there’s no sense that the most serious problems will be solved, or that progress has been made. Usually, in fact, the protagonist is pretty much back where he started, after much pain and suffering, and more blows to any belief that the world can be made a better place.

Of course, it’s not possible for scifi and fantasy writers, or anyone involved in pop culture, to truly shift the direction of the great mass of people, and if they are too far from the edge of the pack, they will simply be ignored. Nonetheless, the message that’s being sent – that the future is dark and getting darker -- is not one that should be ignored, as it’s just one more warning sign that the road the worldwide culture has been traveling does not appear to lead to many happy endings.

Published in 1956! This story is packed full of scientific conceptualisation. Telepathy to one side, this exploration of scientific implications is quite impressive. I especially thought that some of the psychological ideas were ahead of their time.

The main characters and their relationships are a little shallow, but the plot is interesting and does drive the story.

Where this novel definitely fails is that the author comes across as though he probably was against giving women the right to vote. There are very many terrible chauvinisms throughout the story, quite unfortunately.

I really enjoyed this book. Although some of the science may have been over my head, Heinlein does an excellent job of keeping it interesting and gives me a sense of learning something. It’s relevant information that is not wasted in useless prose. Likewise, the plot keeps moving with wonderful twists.
No spoiler here but I do have two caveats. One would be the out-of-the-blue ending which had me scratching my head and needing to verify who a certain character was again. The second was the occasional way Heinlein characterizes women. In some instances they are strong and equal to heir male counterparts which is good. But in emergencies a common theme is the old adage, “get the women below to safety,” rather than having them help.
Still, neither will ruin the story for me and, as mentioned, I enjoyed it very much.