3.5 stars. I found some of the elements really interesting and original, but the marriage just... ehhhhhhhhhhh.

Read for the Science Fiction Book Club.

For the most part, I really liked this book. I think the premise was really interesting. The characters were fun. Only two major aspects detracted from it for me.

One, I got a little tired of the womenfolk had to stay on board ship during hazardous operations. Now, I realized it was written in 1956. But, when all the other aspects of society progressed, why would women stay the same?

Two, I felt that the last 1/3 of the novel was rushed. It seemed like it could've been a much larger novel.

Still, like I said, very enjoyable.

There was a good story here involving communication via telepathy, but I confess that its age is showing. I couldn't ignore the male chauvinism in the tone. True, this is a "boys" book from the 50s, but it was just a bit much.

I felt the story was a bit choppy, but it was an interesting enough tale, so I hung on. By choppy, I mean the usual, let's skip some years so I don't have to explain much in this scene. I felt it especially toward the end in some crucial scenes where there was suddenly great detail. It was like he worked hard on some scenes and then slapped others together merely as glue.

I originally rated this as a 3, but as I write these words, I realise a 2 - "it was OK" - is what I really think. I won't drop Heinlein, but I will definitely aim for his more mature writing another time to give him one more chance.

The chauvinism reached its peak for me at the end when Tom meets his great-great-great-niece (not sure I got all the greats right) and she immediately says she wants to marry him. This isn't completely a case of kissing cousins, so I think biologically, it's OK. But she's played an important role in being a telepath with him. However, it seems like she has regarded it more as a secretarial job - something that is suitable for women. Now that they meet, she turns all helpless female and will follow him wherever he goes. Yuck.

And after the most personal of the re-reads last time (Tunnel in the Sky, over a year ago), I’m now onto a novel that is one of my least remembered, but one that clearly has connections to much of Heinlein’s past and future work.

What surprises me most here is how the book both echoes the books of the past and pre-empts many of his works of the future. Whilst the basic story outline is now seen as part of what I’m referring to as Heinlein’s juvenile template, (as in the previous novels we have the high school hero, the situation that puts him in jeopardy and the alien environment to explore, not to mention aliens to meet) there are differences.

The set-up of the wider plot is fairly simple: We are told of Tom and his brother Pat, identical twins, who are asked by the Long Range Foundation (a non-profit making organisation that funds projects for the long-term benefit of mankind) to attend some preliminary tests. The Foundation discovers that, much to the twin’s surprise, they engage in a form of telepathy between themselves. The usefulness of the twins’ skill becomes apparent when we are told that twelve spaceships are to leave Earth in the hope of discovering new worlds to colonise and so reduce the strain on resources on Earth. Time and distance do not seem to affect telepathic links, which means that messages between twins can be sent instantaneously to each other and faster than a radio message on a spaceship travelling at light-speed. Consequently Tom and Pat are chosen to act as one telepathic pair, with the eldest, Pat, travelling on the spaceship whilst our narrator, Tom, is to remain on Earth to receive the transmitted messages.

Tom is consumed by jealousy when the twins are accepted to act as long distance communicators across space. However, a skiing accident in training means that, in a bizarre twist of fate, Pat is paralysed and has to stay on Earth while Tom travels on the Lewis & Clark torchship.

Through space, as Tom travels towards Tau Ceti and closer to the speed of light, the time dilation effects become greater and Pat ages much faster than Tom. The latter part of the book is about how the two of them deal with some of the dangerous challenges that Tom faces on the frontier of space.



Reading the books pretty much in order, as I have been on this intermittent series, I now see where Time for the Stars fits into the Heinlein pantheon. Like those books before it, Time for the Stars has many of the common tropes seen so far whilst continuing to extend what has gone before – Time for the Stars is another logical step onwards from Red Planet, Space Cadet, The Space Beast and Tunnel in the Sky. As in the previous novels we have a character in a situation that puts him in jeopardy with an alien environment to explore, not to mention aliens to meet. (And, without giving too much away, there are some quite nasty ones here, a situation occurs that is written by Heinlein horribly, horribly well.)

As in previous novels, more wise mentor characters appear: Tom’s Uncle, Major Steve Lucas (in charge of security on the Lewis & Clark), the ship’s psychiatrist, Doctor Devereaux, and his fellow esper communicator ‘Uncle Alfred’ McNeil, all of whom play parts in ‘seeing Tom right’. Again, the exploration of space expands in scale whilst the core values remain as constants, with more pushing of the envelope. For example, and without making it a big deal, Heinlein sneaks in a point that Alfred is a person of colour. Heinlein also does a good job of making the exploration teams deliberately multinational.

Having noticed the similarities between Time for the Stars and the other Heinlein juvenile novels, it must be said that, rather surprisingly, more than any of the books read in order to date, this one seems hell-bent on being different. I think that it shows Heinlein more than ever determined to move away from the juvenile template used to date. Whilst the novel is a bildungsroman -esque tale, as are many of Heinlein’s juveniles, there are surprising differences here.

My first surprise was that the whole plot is told from a single viewpoint, that of twin Tom Bartlett. Not many of Heinlein’s novels tell the whole story from one perspective (others are usually given as well), so it was an interesting twist.

Another unexpected development was that whilst many of Heinlein’s heroes and heroines to date have been fine, honourable and upstanding citizens, albeit a little naïve, Tom and Pat actually start this story as being surprisingly unpleasant, though this is in part explained away by the fact that they have always had to scrabble for money, clothes and objects of personal value, being ‘unwanted’ additions to the Bartlett family. When asked by the Long Range Foundation to attend preliminary tests, one of the twin’s first actions is to make sure that they get the Foundation to pay as much as they can get away with for their time and trouble. There’s no sign of just ‘doing it for the good of society’ here. My overriding impression was that they’d take Matt Dodson (of Space Cadet) and inveigle all of his money from him, just for fun.

The differences in character do not just stop there. Unusually for a Heinlein novel, we are told of the tale from a character who is initially the submissive member of the pair. Being the youngest, Tom usually acquiesces to Pat’s wishes, including the decision of who goes to space and who stays at home. This is not the action of the usual go-it-alone type hero of earlier RAH novels.

This does not mean to say that either twin are particularly pleasant. Even their military uncle, ‘Uncle Steve’, points out to them in a discussion that they’ve ‘always been brats’. Another character in the novel says to Tom, in reference to him and his brother, that “Neither one of you is very likeable, matter of fact, and you are very much alike.”

I did like the little touches of previous stories in the book, though not all of them are as they have previously been written. Though torch ships have appeared before in Heinlein’s stories, (and will appear again), one of the most interesting parts of Time for the Stars is when, after all their efforts, new technology renders them near-obsolete. This creates a rather downbeat melancholic mood towards the end of the novel that is rather out of step of some of the other RAH juveniles. Compare this with the “Let’s get out there!” ending of The Rolling Stones/Space Family Stone novel, for example.

Robert James and William Patterson, in their Introduction to the Virginia Heinlein Edition, point out that this one is about challenging authority. Tom’s father does so, taking on the government. Tom and Pat are deliberately named after historical revolutionaries (Thomas Jefferson Leonardo Da Vinci and Patrick Henry Michelangelo respectively) who change things. Tom finds himself having to challenge the spaceship’s Captain on a couple of occasions and almost be charged with mutiny – generally a big no-no in any expedition, and a rule that would have been very much against Heinlein’s own military training.

However the book is also about personal growth and much of this is about Tom learning to be an adult and being able to stand on his own two feet – away from his domineering twin brother, and his parents. This notion of believing in your own principles and values is a central belief of Heinlein’s and will be seen in more novels in the future.

It would be wrong of me to ignore the elements that may not sit well with contemporary readers. The role of women in future exploration is still confused. Whilst Heinlein still puts them (quite rightly) in places of importance in his books, the emphasis is still on male characters, seeing things from a male perspective.

Heinlein does still try to mix things up but his actions can send mixed messages. For example, when volunteers are asked for, to go on a dangerous mission, both men and women offer their help, but it is then suggested that one female character still has to ask her husband’s permission in order to go. In another situation Janet refuses to date Tom, not because he is younger than her but because she could not date a man “who could not solve a fourth-degree function in his head”, but then follows this up with a ‘… and a wife should always look up to their husband, don’t you think?’ statement. Such comments are indicators of the time the book was written, and show you how far things have changed, but they will not be acceptable for every reader. I have said in past re-reads that Heinlein did much for championing women in a male-centric world, but here I did feel that this one seemed a little bit of a step-back.

The ending is a little jarring, though what happens on the last page will not be surprising to anyone knowing that Heinlein was writing the adult novel The Door Into Summer at about the same time, which has similar elements. This is a precursor to the multi-generational bed-hopping relationships that occur in more regularity in later novels. The importance of redheaded females begins to become quite overt, to my mind an effect of Ginny’s influence on Robert’s writing.

I’m not quite sure why I’ve forgotten so much about this one. It was popular at its time of writing, and I thought I enjoyed it when I first read it. There’s a lot of Heinlein touches to like and it is undeniable that it is written with skill and the same level of detail seen in previous novels.

This time around though, my abiding feeling at the end was that Heinlein was going through the motions a little, and perhaps his heart wasn’t in this as much as the previous nine juvenile novels. (Is this perhaps a reflection of Heinlein’s struggles to leave the juveniles and broaden his writing and his market?) Surprisingly, I don’t remember being as disappointed by this one as much on first read as I have on re-reading, though there are parts that are really good.

In summary then, to me, Time for the Stars is an oddity in that it shows many of Heinlein’s usual strengths to this point, but with the passage of time, sixty years on, ultimately it fails to impress. After the relative enjoyment of Tunnel in the Sky, this one falls strangely flat, and is therefore perhaps not the ideal place to start with Heinlein. It’s good, but not his best. Jo Walton likes it much, much more than me.

Before the genre of Young Adult existed we had juveniles. Heinlein's juveniles are an a class by themselves. Designed for younger readers, they feature teens who are faced with problems they have to solve for themselves. That doesn't mean they can't be read and enjoyed by adults, too.

I first started reading Heinlein as an adolescent, and I still enjoy reading him. He never talked down to his readers and the problems they faced are a challenge to adults, too.

This story has a little too much hard science in it to be one of my favorites. How a torch ship is powered, how faster-than-light travel works, for example, arnn't deeply interesting to me. More interesting is the situation of one twin who is cheated out of an opportunity to travel to the stars by his manipulative twin. When his twin Pat is injured in a skiing accident, Tom suddenly has the chance of a lifetime.

This book lacks the humor of Star Beast and the social commentary of Citizen of the Galaxy, but it's still a good read.

The book will suck you with a Rollercpaster of living the life on a ship to new planet exploration as well as heart ache and celebration. The ending left me feeling the mission was complete and wishing I had more. Heinlein never disappoints

I have always really liked Heinlein's stories, and he is my favorite author of all. On rereading, this story definitely shows his conservative, male oriented outlook, which was highly prevalent until recent years. This does not, however, detract from the ability to grab your attention. His ability to spin a plausible yarn of visiting other stars, and then being out-dated before the journey is over, amazes me. This is true of most of his stories - at least for me.

This is by far my favorite Robert Heinlein book I've read so far. With all his other books, I always felt something was off. Is this as thought provoking as some things I've read by him? No but it's a neat concept, with strong memorable characters, and a well paced plot.

I think the lack of ambition is what makes this story work better than the others I've read. It doesn't try to be anything more than a fun weird SciFi novel, so that's what it is and all it needs to be.

I will give you that the end made me raise my eyebrows, but after I got over my initial disgust, I realized that it was something my morals really couldn't wrap their head around and let it slide. It's one of those situations that could only happen in a Science Fiction novel, so it's a bit beyond my moral compass to judge.

I first read one of Heinlein's books in the 1970's. It was a year or so after my grandfather had died, and my grandmother let me read some of the books in his library. All of the old masters of sci-fi were represented, Asimov, Clark, Heinlein. I started reading and have loved them ever since.

Now, 50 years later, I still feel great joy when reading these books. This one is considered YA now, or possibly even middle-school, but it is a great read.

This is the the story of two brothers, twins, who are part of a long-term experiment. Very long term. They are tested for telepathy, and find that their communication system, which they thought was just whispers, is much more than that. They are hired as communications specialists, one of them will travel on a starship, exploring nearby star systems for habitable planets, at near light speeds, well as near as a rocket can get. The other will stay on earth. Over the course of the journey, one will age 4 years, while his twin will age 70.

Tom, the brother on the ship, is the narrator for the story, and it is more than just the story of two brothers, it is space exploration with all of the boredom of a long voyage, the excitement of a new planet, and the horrors that await.

Some of the story is dated, but a lot of it is still relevant today. Space travel outside of our solar system is still a fantasy, Voyager and Voyager II not-withstanding.

::This review also appears on Amazon.com::

Robert A. Heinlein, known among SF fans as “The Dean of Science Fiction”, wrote a number of classic novels and stories, a bigger number of flawed but entertaining novels and stories, and some that were just plain clunkers. This falls firmly into the last category – meandering, somewhat pointless, and without the quickly sketched-in memorable characters Heinlein at his best, or even not-quite-best, was famous for creating.

The main character is half of a pair of twins,


TWINS?!?!?" "Ah've been zick…

Tom Bartlett, who are recruited by the Long Range Foundation (LRF) because, as is common in Heinlein’s oeuvre, he and his twin Pat are telepathically linked - and, in a curious twist, telepathy potentially allows for immediate communication across Lightyears. The LRF plans to use twins like Tom and Pat as a means of Faster-Than-Light communications for their “Torchships” used to find Earthlike planets to colonize - these ships can’t break the Speed of Light, but they can push right up to it. Thanks to Time Dilation, a trip at near lightspeed can cover several Lightyears in a matter of days or weeks - but people back on Earth age at the number of years those Lightyears represent (travel to Alpha Centauri, the nearest solar system to ours, is 4.37 Lightyears, so people back on Earth will age 4.37 years). So if the mission goes as planned, the people on the Torchships will only age a couple years at most - but their twins (or other psi-pairings) will have aged decades if not centuries.



Sounds like the framework for a fascinating story, doesn't it? The problem is that the characters, from Tom on down, feel like they're out of a comic book or a Role-Playing Game. Tom's the younger twin and often feels upstaged by Pat, who seems to be something of a manipulative jerk - so he gets to go for Torchship Communicator training, and breaks his legs and later develops paralysis, so Tom's shunted in at almost the last minute to take his place.

Tom grows over the course of the novel (written in the first person from Tom's Point of View) - or at least Tom TELLS us he grows, but we often have to take it on faith as there's little external evidence! When Pat starts to age too much to continue a telepathic link to his brother, his great-grandniece Molly's brought in and trained to connect to Tom (who has learned while in space that he can link to certain people besides Pat, like the Granddaughter of a fellow telepath) - this leads to an ending that, while totally in keeping with Heinlein's...interesting views on sexuality, just gets creepier the older I get!



This is listed as one of Heinlein's "Juveniles", SF novels written for a teenage male audience in the 1940-1950s. Some of the views on sexuality (mentioned briefly above), Military/Civilian Joint Scientific Projects and Colonialism strongly suggest it's not right for teens of our generation, and I question how many adults can read this without getting both bored and feeling skeevy...

Really interesting story. Only I was a little confused at the end did Tom marry his great niece? Not to mention how the woman never get to have any fun, they are treated like 2nd class citizens always like they are fragile and can’t defend themselves. Or what’s up with having to wear hats or hair coverings ? That was Puritan times do they revert to that in the future?

I read this a long time ago. It was in my school's library and the front cover caught my attention. There were a few human visitors on board a boat. A rowing boat if my memory serves me correctly. In the background was a floating round spaceship. A sort of lifeboat from which the boatmen had left. There were tentacles thrusting up out of the water and they were about to attack the boatmen. I was captivated by space travel and dreamed of adventure on other worlds. The cover flicked the switches so I borrowed it from the library. I remember the book focused on twin boys. They had telepathic connections. One could go on the adventure to distant stars while one stayed home. The travellers could communicate by telepathy. As the ship got further away from Earth travelling in excess of light speed etc. The time lapse increases as the twins communicate. What seems like a day or two on board ship becomes months back on Earth. Lots of other concepts too. I remember I enjoyed the adventure when the travellers explored the new world they come across. Also coming to the part that the front cover depicted.


The Last Days of Thunder Child