bibliogramma (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bibliogramma) wrote2007-12-31 08:35 pm
bibliogramma) wrote2007-12-31 08:35 pm
Entry tags:
Vintage Heinlein
Tunnel in the Sky, Robert Heinlein
This was one of my favourite, if not the favourite, of the Heinlein juveniles I read when I was much younger, and upon re-reading, it still stands up in many ways. If you’re going to read Heinlein, you have to just accept the particularly American survivalist libertarian slant to so many of his books, and just relax and enjoy the story. This particular tale, about a high school survival training class’ final practical exam gone horribly wrong, appealed to me because of the strong female characters, without whom our putative hero would be long dead before the recall finally comes. Sure, all of Heinlein’s women thought having hundreds of babies was their dream goal, but they all managed to think straight, have identifiable sexual natures, haul their own weight or more, save the boys just as often as the boys saved them, and perform heroically without fainting like proper ladies or (for the most part) dying like sacrificial lambs. For books written in the 50s, that’s got to count for something.
This was one of my favourite, if not the favourite, of the Heinlein juveniles I read when I was much younger, and upon re-reading, it still stands up in many ways. If you’re going to read Heinlein, you have to just accept the particularly American survivalist libertarian slant to so many of his books, and just relax and enjoy the story. This particular tale, about a high school survival training class’ final practical exam gone horribly wrong, appealed to me because of the strong female characters, without whom our putative hero would be long dead before the recall finally comes. Sure, all of Heinlein’s women thought having hundreds of babies was their dream goal, but they all managed to think straight, have identifiable sexual natures, haul their own weight or more, save the boys just as often as the boys saved them, and perform heroically without fainting like proper ladies or (for the most part) dying like sacrificial lambs. For books written in the 50s, that’s got to count for something.