I really like Heinlein books. He was first to try to make his science fiction highly based on real science as FR as it was understood at the time of his writing. He also tells a real story. This one was interesting with identical twins who could communicate across time and space allowing for light speed travel and communication.

This book is a most excellent adventure. Extremely well written and despite the quote from Punch on the back cover of “A first-class boys' adventure book”, this is a book for any gender and age (probably 12+). Much of this story is more intelligently and elegantly put than a lot of today's writing. Regarding it as a juveniles book is underselling it. If this is just for children that much of today's modern fiction books are also just for children.
I noticed that I could name at least 4 movies that had clearly taken their influence or ideas from this book. Understandable given that this story was written in the 1950's and is so powerful. The copy I read was an old edition but I expect the current version has little change. I can see no good reason why anyone would not give this book 5 stars. Well worth a read.

Another book down on my reread-Heinlein project. Only five left to go! It's a juvenile, and I don't think I've read it since I was a juvenile. But I still remembered the basic plot line. The Kindle version has some minor transcription bloopers.

The solar system has been conquered; there are even settlements on Pluto! (Brr!) But mankind has run out of room on Earth; population is coercively controlled. Although there's "torch ship" continuous-thrust technology available to allow practical travel to nearby stars, exploration is stymied due to the communication problem: even if you could punch through a radio signal back to Earth to report your results, it would take years for that signal to be received.

Solution: it turns out that telepathic communication between twins is "instantaenous" (take that, Einstein) and it doesn't fade with distance either. Teenage twins Tom and Pat are tested, and (after some drama), Tom gets picked to travel to some nearby stars on the Lewis and Clark, reporting back to Pat on Earth.

Complication: Einstein is correct about time-dilation effects. As the ship accelerates to near-lightspeed, many years pass on Earth while only days go by on board; Pat ages much faster than Tom. This leads to some strife, but (fortunately) relatives can be taught the telepathy trick as well.

I remembered disaster striking the mission; what I didn't appreciate at the time was the sheer horror involved in Heinlein's description as it unfolded. That was kind of unusual for him, I think.

This is one of Heinlein's later juveniles, and he really hit his stride here. Yes, there are the usual Heinlein elders, speaking Heinleinian wisdom to wet-behind-the-ears Tom. Par for the course. But Tom grows up as the mission goes on, and discovers things about himself, and also the nature of duty.

6/10 en 2011. Media de los 45 libros leídos del autor : 8/10

Temática de telepatía entre gemelos, que estaba tan buscada en los años de la Guerra Fría y que aquí estaría al servicio de la comunicación en un viaje estelar.

Bueno, bien, se deja leer pero el Gran Maestro los tiene mucho mejores.

Re-reading Robert A. Heinlein’s “Time for the Stars” was a visit to the future via the past.

Published first in 1956, I read this initially in my early teens, ~1970’s. In the future it explores, mankind has developed Torchships (starships) capable of traveling to the stars. But there is no warp drive here. Heinlein anchored his story to the laws of physics. Ships could only approach the speed of light, but not go past it. Radio communications were bound by the same constraint. The crews would experience the time dilation effect where they would age slower than those left back on earth.

As this was the 50’s, these stories were a great platform to introduce the reader to the real-life implications of our universe’s physical laws.

In the story a solution was needed to allow real-time communications with the ships once they set off. It was found; twins with the gift of telepathy. This story is about two boys, Tom and Pat. One stays home and one travels to the stars…

This book was regarded as one of the author’s “juveniles” as it was aimed at the teen set. But Heinlein had a tendency to paint his younger characters as just mini-adults. They rarely behave as true youngsters. Because of this, this book still worked for me as an adult.

Don’t expect much deep characterization here, the depth here is reserved for space. It is deep and that character is explored. Golden age science fiction focused on what the readers really cared about, the ideas, not the people populating the story.

I think the author’s military background served him well in this story. It seems he asked himself, “how would this work? What makes the most sense with the parameters I set up?” It shows in some of the choices he made here.

One point that always jumps out to me when I read works in this genre from that time period is how short the book was, 184 pages. Goodness, that’s an afternoon read. Current works normally aim for the 400-page mark and many times surpass that in one if not multiple volumes.

Now I don’t mind a longer book that really mines the possibilities, but it’s nice occasionally to read a tight and focused story.

So, for a blast from the past to take you on a visit to the future, pick this one up and see how one of the masters from the golden age helped build the foundation of science fiction. Like near light speed travel, it’ll keep you young.

I read this book ages ago, when I was -indeed- a juvenile. At that time, I thought that the book was mainly about relativistic effects and 'the twin paradox'; the telepathic twins were are plot device to create that story. I only later realised it is also a 'coming of age' novel.
The part about protagonist Tom later marrying a descendant of his brother did not feel squicky to me then; I interpreted this as a weird consequence of the whole twin paradox: Due to time dilation the great-grandniece is sufficiently separated to be no true 'close family'.

As 'coming of age' novel this book may not be especially bad, it is mainly really outdated and very much written from a non-universal American perspective. The alienating effect of time dilation is done quite well, the best parts of the book IMHO. I also remember the observation that 'time and space do not exist, we live in just a mathematical abstraction'.
My biggest problem is the enormous plot hole at the end:  The ship and its crew arrive at a final planet, things go badly wrong, people die, mutiny ensues, the Captain frantically tries to contact Earth - and then it is revealed that back on earth instantaneous interstellar travel has been invented, and the remaining crew is rescued. Given that the crew only spent a few days or weeks at this final planet, that instantaneous interstellar travel would already existed when they arrived, before thinsgs went wrong and people died. The ship that rescued them could even have awaited their arrival.

Slowly but surely, my obsession with young adult space stories will knock every Heinlein juvenile book off my to-read list. A month or two ago, I read Podkayne of Mars and while I did enjoy the audio format and the underlying world-building, the characters grated on me. I'd read and heard from several sources that Heinlein's treatment of his female characters can be a huge turnoff and he's two for two on that note for me thus far. I'm not going to go over why I felt the way I did about Podkayne but in Time for the Stars, though it was far less frustrating, I was still not satisfied with the female presence in the book. But I'm getting ahead of myself, what's the book actually about? It's a futuristic Earth setting where families are allowed only a certain number of children before they get taxed. Identical twins Tom and Pat are asked to come in for some testing by a huge research organization, one whose mission is to fund the projects that have projected results so far into the future that no one else will fund them. Through the testing, Tom and Pat find out they are telepathically connected. The foundation intends to explore the galaxies to find potential colony planets and uses telepathic pairs to communicate between ships and between ships and Earth when radio transmissions no longer work. I don't want to spoil which twin goes to space and which stays behind because I enjoyed that aspect of the story. I cannot think of another instance of a book where identical twins do not really get along. Heinlein adds in a realistic amount of sibling manipulation that rang true to life. ("Do your chores, Dad will be home soon." "Why? If I don't, I know you'll just do them for me." - Me and my sister)

The science and philosophy are very much present in this novel and some of it went over my head. Faster than light, simultaneity, time, relativism, the science of aging, and various equations and theories are all present and accounted for but never in a severe infodump kind of way. The book is set up as a diary written by the twin in space. I am not sure if it is broken up as such in the traditional book as I listened to the audiobook but the scientific conversations were usually just that--conversations between the twin and someone else on the ship. However, there is very little action to keep the book going. The interest lies in the world Heinlein has created and the scientific offshoots. I was fascinated by the idea that as one twin was aging "regularly" on Earth, the other was aging at a far slower rate, so much so that the twin in space had to do the telepathic work with several generations down the line. What action there is is backloaded. His books, to me, feel like someone is writing about a fantastic futuristic world and then realizing halfway through that there's supposed to also be character building and plot movement.

On to the creep factor. There was just an episode of 30 Rock on television wherein Liz Lemon realizes that she is dating her third cousin. They say, "On the count of three, say how many cousins removed we'd have to be to try to make this work." He says fifth and she says never. I really think my answer is also never. There are several pubescent boy relationships in this book as well as adult relationships but there is one that relates to the 30 Rock episode I just spoke of. I won't ruin it for any potential readers but Heinlein basically glossed right over the relation aspect and it felt cut and dried in the most awkward way possible. I actually said, "Whaaaaaaat? Dude." to my car stereo. You're going to marry your relation, no matter how distant? Ew.

Back to Heinlein's treatment of women. Here's the gist: If you want to read any of his books, just think to yourself, "Am I okay reading a book where no female character will ever be completely rational? One where she will never be seen as anything other than a gender stereotype or achieve life goals beyond society's expectations during the forties and fifties when these books were written?" If the answer is yes, then read away. As I've said, Heinlein creates some interesting scientific worlds and stories. However, if you're answer is no then these books will be a nightmare for you. There are entire conversations about the best way to tell a mother that her son/s are joining a space program but also how to manipulate her irrational emotions. A grown woman wants to join a specific mission and another character tells her to check with her husband. (who also tells her later that they will be moving back to Earth to raise their family and she will not be working anymore) The mission finds a planet and fights in a battle but both times women are excluded from the teams--until one planet is deemed "safe enough that even the women could go!" Being a woman in Heinlein's world just seems like it would be so depressing. Who wants to achieve their dreams of being independent and going into space? Not so fast, vaginas!

I believe this is the first audiobook I've listened to that is narrated by Barrett Whitener, and I enjoyed his narration for the most part. Though they are not coming to me at the moment, there were a few words he pronounced in a weird way (maybe alternate pronunciations?) and several of the characters sounded the same. At one point, I wasn' t sure if the captain had an American, British, or Australian accent. He is a conversational narrator so his voice was/is well-suited to the diary-entry format of Time for the Stars.

As is the story with Podkayne of Mars, there is enough fun world-building present that I wish Heinlein would set more books in this world, perhaps even incorporate some of the same characters. I have a feeling my wish will come true with the rest of his young adult books. I anticipate each one will be a fun sciencey adventures/feminist's nightmare.

Also seen at The Readventurer.

An engaging story of space travel from the perspective of a young telepath in a crew searching for extra-solar planets to colonize. Complicating their journey is relativity and the speed of light, and adventure meets with tragedy more than once.

The novel also explores themes of obsolescence and technological progress. (For a more modern exploration of these themes in a extra-planetary travel adventure story, try The Long Earth series by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter).

The occasional background 1950s sexism is present, but not intrusive. Women have important roles as engineers, physicists, and scientists, and essential roles in telepathic communication, but they are shown as subservient to men in personal relationships.

Robert A. Heinlein's "Time for the Stars" is one of his Young Adult (YA) books (first published in 1956). Because it's YA, I was a bit leery of it. But, since I liked it so much in my youth, I thought I'd give it a try again. Yep. It's still a very well done book. What's nice (and this is pretty much the norm for Heinlein), is that his Young Adults are ACTUALLY both Young Adults (not older children) and intelligent ones, at that. So, the book's a pleasure to read. However, for those with thin skin, be warned that the book is a bit over 62 years old, and Heinlein missed part of the boat regarding the roles of women: even though he puts many of them in upper level, responsible jobs or positions, he still has a tendency to revert them to Stepford Wife behavior when a male gets involved. Again, this book was written in a very different time from today, so it's nothing to ding him for. But, it is worth mentioning. I'm rating the book at a Very Good 4 stars out of 5.

Ce roman ressemble à un "20 000 Lieux sous les mers" dans les étoiles. La notion du temps qui passe différemment plus on se rapproche de la vitesse de la lumière est traitée de manière très intéressante et c'est le thème central ici ; plus, en fait, que l'exploration et après avoir refermé le livre, je me dit que ce roman a sans doute été une des inspirations d'Interstellar, le film avec Mathew Mc Conaghey et Anne Athaway, les pitchs ont quasiment identiques.
C'est vraiment un très bon bouquin.

This science-fiction novel was exactly what I was looking for at this time. It dealt with mankind's first exploration of planets outside our solar system. What I especially loved was the author did not burden the reader with tons of technical language. It was kept to a bare minimum. I'm so glad that I read TIME FOR THE STARS (1956) by Robert Heinlein.

Time for the Stars was written by Robert Heinlein for juvenile readers in the 1956. However, it has continued to remain in print for over 50 years and it is certainly being enjoyed by adults. This reader was totally captivated by its very interesting premise, and by Heinlein’s excellent writing and story-telling skills. The tale takes place in the future when Earthlings had traveled beyond our solar system attempting to find “Sol-type solar systems” with “Earth-type planets” suitable for colonizing to relieve Earth’s desperate overpopulation problem. Large space ships (torch ships) that accelerate gradually to extreme (but sub-light) velocities carry a large crew on these long journeys. Radio communication between these space ships and Earth is impossible because radio waves travel too slowly. However, a unique program to use telepathic twins, who can communicate with each other instantaneously at any distance, was adopted to solve the communications problem. Several pairs of twins were used by each ship to ensure a continuous communication link with Earth. One twin from each pair would stay on Earth, while the other twin from each pair would serve on the space ship. The telepathic pairs would transmit any and all necessary information between the ships and Earth. Of course space exploration is concomitant with difficulties, consequences and dangers. The journeys last for many years, but due to the relativity effects resulting from the extreme travel velocities of the torch ships members of the crew age more slowly than people age on Earth. Therefore, the twins on board the featured ship in this story age about 4 years during their journey, while their siblings on Earth age about 70 years. Exploring the potentially habitable planets also proves dangerous because of toxic environments or dangerous inhabitants. The book initially focuses on one pair of twins, who have just graduated from high school. Then the story follows the twin that is chosen for the voyage, and the reader is treated to his amazing adventure through space and several solar systems. Eventually, the brother who stays at home grows old and feeble, and maintaining their link becomes difficult. Heinlein gives the reader a feel for life on ship and the environments of the planets that are explored. He also does a nice job with the science of the ship and space travel, without overburdening the reader. Yes, the details sometimes pull the reader back in time, such as the mention of microfilm for records, which certainly would not be used in this future time frame. However, it should be no surprise that Heinlein presents a very interesting and very satisfying story for the reader. I recommend this novel to anyone who likes science fiction. Hey, we should all read these classic gems.