Time for the Stars is one of the lesser Heinlein juveniles, with much of the good and bad that comes with that micro-genre. It's a fine read that would be much better if it ended two pages sooner. Pat is a twin, growing up in an overcrowded and poor family on an overcrowded and poor Earth. In the initiating drama, it turns out that Pat and his twin Tom have a telepathic link, and this rare link is absolutely instantaneous. Telepathic twins are the key to space exploration via near-lightspeed torchships, while also serving as a neat illustration of the twin paradox caused by time dilation. The twin who undergoes acceleration will appear not to age against the one who stays behind.

So the good news is that it's a Heinlein juvenile. It's quick, it's fun, it does a solid job explaining the scientific conceit at the heart of the story and having an optimistic attitude. Space exploration is cool and full of father figures, but it's also incredibly dangerous, and every planet the crew lands on takes a toll. Pat is also slightly deeper than the psychological puddle that narrates most of these stories, even if it's literally lampshaded in a psychoanalysis session. And while there are creaky 1950s gender roles, lots of women show up as competent experts. It's a far cry from the active misogyny of some period fiction.

The bad news is that the story is too quick. Things that should sting a little more, like a plague that wipes out half the crew, or an attack by aquatic aliens which halves the crew again, don't land with much impact. The story undercuts its theme of heroic sacrifice, and a near mutiny lead by Pat, by having the torchship rescued by a next-generation FTL cruiser. They're returned to a world which has passed them by, less than a footnote rather than the grand explorers they expected to become, even if FTL telepathy inspired the breakthrough to FTL drives.

And then there is the final turd in the punchbowl. To quote Erika Chappell, "Robert A. Heinlein [is] the father of hard science fiction, weirdo libertarian nonsense in science fiction, and putting your kinks directly into science fiction. 2 outta 3 ain't bad." So when the redhead twins showed up on page 15, I chuckled. When the story ended with our narrator's busty great-grand niece, who he'd been telepathically communicating with since she was a kid, proposing marriage to him, I about tossed the book out a window. I can think of at least three Heinlein stories off the top of my head, which conclude by using technology to transform the perfect little girl into the perfect wife in a way that is not technically incest, but definitely morally feels like incest. And I really didn't need that in my light science-adventure story.

It has probably been forty years since I first read this novel, so I was interested to see what I made of it in my middle-age. I'm happy to report that it was still enjoyable, albeit in a different way. The concept of space travel, and the adventures Tom enjoyed, originally blew my mind and influenced my own early sci-fi short stories. Considering it was published in 1956, some of Heinlein's ideas still stack up, although his depictions of social hierarchy are obviously archaic, ie women still needing permission from their husbands 150 years in the future. There was also a lot more onboard-spaceship activity than I remember. Still, Time For the Stars scratched a nostalgic itch and cured me of the notion that this was the greatest sci-fi novel evvaaaaa. Clearly I still love it, but with a wiser head than as a pimply teenager.

Interesting but dated!

- Good afternoon, may I talk with Professor Einstein?

- Speaking.

- Ah, I just wonder if I could have a few minutes of your time sir, this won't take long...

- And who are you, young man?

- Oh, I'm sorry, I should have said. My name's Bob Heinlein. You wouldn't have heard of me...

- On the contrary, I know exactly who you are. I bought a copy of your novel Space Cadet for my godson's eleventh birthday, and he was most complimentary. In fact, he said it was the best thing he'd ever read.

- Oh gee, wow, I mean, I don't know what to say, gee...

- Now, now, Mr. Heinlein, let's not get too carried away by an eleven year old's literary preferences. I believe you wanted to ask me something?

- Ah, yes sir, I'm working on another novel and I just wanted to check a couple of things. In my book, there's a pair of twins. One of them takes off on a spaceship which can travel at nearly the speed of light, and the other one stays on Earth.

- The Twins Paradox, then...

- Yes sir. I got the idea from one of your books. The twins have telepathic powers...

- They can read each other's minds?

- Yes sir. Now, as the spaceship accelerates, the twin on Earth starts to experience the other one as gabbling, and the twin in space experiences his brother as drawling.

- That would indeed be a consequence of time dilation due to Special Relativity. So far, you seem to have done your homework.

- Thank you sir. Wait, I don't think I mentioned this. Communication between the two twins is instantaneous...

- Hold it there, young man. Instantaneous communication is not a meaningful concept in Special Relativity.

- It isn't?

- No, because events which are simultaneous in one frame of reference will not be so in another.

- Oh. Darn. You're sure?

- I'm afraid I am.

- That's... hm... that's real unfortunate. Holy Toledo! I thought I'd read that darn book so carefully... anyway, let me tell you some more of the story. Time passes much more slowly for the space twin. So only a year or two has gone by for him, but his brother's already dead.

- That must be very upsetting for him.

- It is! But then he discovers he can communicate with his brother's daughter, his niece.

- Telepathy is a genetic trait?

- Ah, yes sir. But they carry on moving through space, and she gets old too. But now he can communicate with her daughter, his grand-niece.

- I am not quite sure I understand where this story is heading.

- Well sir, they have more adventures on other planets, and his grand-niece gets old, but now he's communicating with her daughter, she's this cute little girl with pigtails and braces on her teeth...

- It sounds very charming, young man. I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to excuse me, I...

- Wait sir, I'm almost finished. He comes back home to Earth, and everything has changed, and all the people he knew when he left are dead. But his great-grand-niece has grown up to be this gorgeous curvy redhead, I have this thing for curvy redheads if I may say so, and she's been reading his mind since she was a little girl and she's fallen in love with him. And due to time dilation they're actually the same age, and really it's not incestuous or anything because, well, great-grand-niece isn't as close as cousin and you can marry your cousin in most states. I checked that. So he marries her and they live happily ever after.

- So what do you think? Hello? Are you still there sir?

- Hello? Sir?

- Sir?

Viajar por el espacio, descubrir nuevos mundos, colonizarlos y experimentar el mayor de los placeres del hombre que es saciar su curiosidad. En este libro Heinlein nos explica sus ventajas y sus inconvenientes. Desde la pasión por la aventura, como los pioneros terrestres se adentraban en las junglas, en los mares y en las grutas, hasta conocer cada detalles y aprovechar cada recursos.

Con sus obvios inconvenientes de lo desconocido, encontrar la muerte de mil formas que no habíamos imaginado, hasta viejos miedos que arrastramos y conocíamos, pero pensábamos lejanos por no estar en nuestro círculo habitual. La aventura puede ser emocionando, pero al mismo tiempo reclama su precio, ya sea en vida o en tiempo.

Uno de los problemas habituales de los pioneros es la falta de medios con las que se encuentran. Ya que su aventura se inicia en un punto muy determinado de la tecnología y mientras ellos avanzan en su aventura, paralelamente la tecnología sigue creciendo en el lugar de origen, haciendo muy pronto obsoletos los medios de los pioneros.

El viaje en el espacio, ofrece los problemas relativista que se ven plasmados en el libro por las diferentes generaciones que nacen, crecen y mueren en el lugar de origen, mientras el aventurero viaja son su reloj congelado, ajeno a los diferentes estadios de presente, pasado y futuro.

Si a todo esto le añadimos la telepatía, se crea un mural espléndido en el que uno se queda absorto, como sucede en la lectura de este libro, que aunque pueda parecer juvenil, destila grandes ideas tecnológicas, sociales y morales que nos harán pensar.

Lo he disfrutado, este autor no deja de sorprenderme.

All of these Heinlein "juveniles" have shared the common trait of having some really long expository dialog and shifting away from our main character's storyline to delve into other topics. I'm also seeing a weird trend towards, "Hey, my cousin is pretty hot." This book takes the cake in that department in an ending that left all of us reeling. Other than that bombshell, the premise of the book won't impress any long-time SF readers, but it'll still blow young reader's minds.

It bears repeating: I'm thankful for these Heinlein "juveniles" and I now completely understand his popularity as an author with a whole generation of SF readers. I was a Harrison and Asimov kid and didn't encounter him until reading some of his really terrible later fiction for adults.

And, as always, I think unaltered "vintage" fiction is a great way to show your kid how people used to think and talk about things like gender, violence, etc.

It's been decades since I read a Heinlein Juvenile, and this might have been the first time around for this title. (If not, it was probably 20-25 years ago.)
I've really forgotten how good he was back then. I mean, I almost always enjoy Heinlein, but there's no denying that he turned into a dirty old man by the 80's, and his characters' insatiable lust ended up overshadowing what might otherwise have been good stories.
But in 1956 his characters, culture, and morals are delightfully old fashioned.

Plot in a nutshell: the "Long Range Foundation" has discovered reliable, replicable, telepathic communication, mostly between identical twins. Most critically, they've discovered that it is faster-than-light. They have the technology to rapidly accelerate a spaceship to 99.9% of c, and so they get the bright idea of putting a handful of these telepathic twins on their ships to manage communication. Of course, what takes a few years for the light-speed-travelling twins takes decades back home, so while the journey is not necessarily one-way, in practical terms they're leaving everyone behind forever. Our Hero, Tom, is one of these twins, eventually assigned to the Lewis and Clark for a 100 year search for Earth-like planets.

So here's a brief breakdown by category
1. Writing Mechanics: 5. Heinlein is a master. Oh, he's no poet, but his first-person written stories flow smoothly, have believable internal and external dialog (compensating for 60+ years of cultural differences), and make you feel smart just for reading them. I mean, I'd never heard of Bode's Law, but now I know it's the still-theoretical rules governing the distance of planets from their sun in any planetary system. :)

2. Plot: 4. This is not the most exciting story that Heinlein ever wrote, but it is well paced, reasonably believable given certain core assumptions (FTL thought communication comes to mind, but so does somehow reaching a star that is 13 light years away in less than 13 years subjective time.) It is also impressive what Heinlein pulls off in 250 pages compared to some of his extremely long-winded contemporaries... (>>cough<< Weber!)
What I mean is, he is tightly focused on one main story: the mostly emotional / psychological experience of a telepath on a nearly light-speed ship with his twin left behind. The exploration of the planets is secondary, and dealt with in just a few pages. We get a fair bit of physics technobabble here and there as they struggle with the implications of FTL thought communication - which whatever else it says, does conclusively abolish C as the speed limit of the universe. But we don't spend 12 chapters and 3 extra volumes on each planet that they actually explore, because that's simply not the focus. An admirable brevity IMHO.

3. Characters: 4. Heinlein makes a concerted effort to show his primary character's growth and maturity. He has to throw in a friendly head-shrinker to do it, but Tom's journey through realizing that he doesn't actually Like his twin through to coming to an eventual affection for him, and finally the ability to stand up to him, is pretty well done.
No-one else gets a lot of growth or individualization, but again, Heinlein is pretty focused.

4. Truth Value: 4
Really, not bad, considering that Heinlein was an atheist, or at very least a contrarian agnostic.
I thought had human nature nailed pretty well as far as the several opportunities for mutiny, the psychological need of the telepaths to join the landing parties, despite the captain's understandable inclination to wrap them in cotton wool, and etc.
It also caught my eye that Tom actually remarks at one point that he doesn't believe that "all this [the solar systems] got here by chance. Planets are meant to be used!"
Hmm...

I read this book and almost all of Heinlein's books sometime around the 7th grade. I'm going to be 68 in a couple of months. I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading this story, even though technically it's a YA book. The story is great, even plausible, and there are strong moral values that underpin the story. There's a forward to Starman Jones (up next for me) that I read yesterday that had an interesting comment. Heinlein was consciously writing a series of Horatio Alger stories updated for the (then) modern YA audience and set in a science fiction setting.

I now understand (again) why I'm having such trouble finding new authors. I read Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and others as a mere boy. I had a college freshman vocabulary in the 6th grade. I've been thoroughly spoiled as far as expectations as a result. I recently discovered Rebecca Yarros (Fourth Wing/Iron Flame) and have added her to my list of favorite authors up with the greats which now include Anne Bishop, Kelley Armstrong, Jack Whyte, and Diana Gabaldon.

One does detect outdated attitudes towards women in this story and others of this vintage. That said, I think Heinlein later made progress that put him ahead of the curve with respect to those attitudes for a man of his vintage. Don't forget, he was born in 1907! According to his Wikipedia article, his wife Virginia undoubtedly served as a model for many of his intelligent, fiercely independent female characters. She was a chemist, and a rocket test engineer and held a doctorate. She turned out to be the love of his life.

I really enjoyed Stranger in a Strangeland when I read it a couple of years ago. Time for Stars was on sale at Audible, so being a compulsive book buyer, I bought it. It was really good, and I am officially a big Heinlein fan now. I want more of his books!!! but I'm on a book-buying hiatus.

At the beginning, the book is about twins and telepathy, and then it branches into the realm of space travel (only lightly), finally it discusses what makes a planet habitable. Really great book. It wasn't action-y like most of the fantasy I read, but I was never bored.

In my defense, I got this on sale from Audible. Part clean hard sci-fi, part dated gender politics.

As another reviewer said, I’d hate to be a professional woman in Heinlein’s universe and to travel to another planet only to be told that I can’t go planetside because I don’t have my husband’s permission?! So I could predictably burst into tears. I just paused the listen at that point because for fork’s sake, Bob, you incest-loving dinosaur… You made me wish for the deep space creatures that only ate men, so women could finally get some work done in peace.

Anyhoo, the whole twin telepathy sci-fi part was very fun even though I couldn’t help thinking the boring twin went into space while the fun one stayed home.

One of the better Heinlein "juveniles," in my opinion. Mankind is spreading out into the galaxy aboard "torch ships," spacecraft that can attain the speed of light. Distances become so vast that communication would be impossible -- were it not for the discovery that identical twins -- or triplets -- can maintain telepathic contact not constrained by relativity. Where relativistic constraints DO come into play, however, is by "slippage," whereby the twin who stays behind on Earth ages much more than does the twin aboard the space vehicle. Tom and Pat Bartlett are identical twins signed up by the Long Range Foundation, which is administering a dozen or so starships sent out to investigate as many Earth-like planets as they can find within fifty or so light years of Earth. Pat is set to go, but when he has an accident, Tom replaces him. Over five years of ship time, sixty-five years pass back on Earth. When Tom finally returns home, there are some wrenching changes...

Heinlein has used this "time differential" trope in a few of his other books, most notably THE DOOR INTO SUMMER, but I think he handles it best in this novel.

Time for a review? Not as gripping as his other stories I've read. There is something mundane about Heinlein's writing, his "indirect exposition" as wikipedia calls it. I felt like he explained too much. And his dialogue between characters reads like caricatures of what we may imagine a patriarch of the 50s would have said and thought. Once again in a Heinlein novel I didn't care for the main character. Any character, actually. Things worked out a little too swell for Tom, apparently PTSD was unknown to Heinlein, which is hard to believe given the few times he goes off on tangents about pscyhology, some of which is impressively deep. I think that's what draws one to Heinlein all these years later. Yes, yes, some things are dated, some things he imagined about society didn't add up (like how women dressed differently in Tom's future; they didn't wear head-coverings, OH! The Scandal!), the names and race mixtures of characters, the bland and boring interpersonal relationships, the lack of drama, no real challenges to overcome, but among all of this low-grade material you come across some real ideas and insights. Heinlein had a lot of incredible ideas that unfortunately had to have a lot of boring novel written around. As far as I can see, in this book his understanding of the conscious and unconscious minds seemed like a modern interpretation and extrapolation of Freud's and Jung's ideas. Heinlein grokked them, and had an interesting half a page that stood out to me since I've read several books on the power of our unconscious. He also made his construction of telepathy work and remain a major plot point because of relativity. I think that's why Heinlein remains a bit interesting, these small inserts of 'Wow!' It's a shame he couldn't do better drama, better characters, better dialogue, some--any emotional connection.