Reading this book today, I find it pleasurable because it reflects an optimistic worldview of the 1950s (although there is the underlying, overtly stated threat of nuclear annihilation). The main character is an intelligent young man who is patriotic and respects authority figures, as he is a member of a military organization, the patrol. Because of the cultural distance, I tend to experience the main character somewhat awkwardly because he marginalizes a lot of perspectives-that of women, in particular. After a few of his juveniles, you come to expect this kind of man-centered vision from Heinlein (like many of the hard-line SF writers--Asimov, Clarke, Campbell), but for some reason I'm not offended by it. Heinlein's other novels, Stranger in a Strange Land, particularly, remind me that Heinlein was a forward thinker. Despite his representation of the main's character's mother (she's portrayed as a non-scientific fool), it's an inspiring story with some stimulating hard science in it. I guess I can place his work in their time and enjoy them. The cohesion of his worldview in this novel calms my very literal mind. ( )

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I recently reread this Heinlein juvenile and wasn't that excited by it. It follows an all-American boy's experience in the prestigious Space Patrol as a cadet and on his first mission. I found the mission interesting but most of the rest of the book a little dull. It's nowhere near as good as some of Heinlen's other juveniles, such as Red Planet, Citizen of the Galaxy, Between Planets, etc. ( )

A splendid little book, don't let yourself be kept away from it by the fact that it was written as a "juvenile" (old-speak for "young adult novel"). Heinlein's one concession to the age of his target audience is that his lead characters are, if I'm guessing right, about three to five years older than his expected readers. Their actual ages are unstated, which is clever of the old man, but we might assume they're about 18, plus or minus 2. Beyond this, the reader is expected to be able to handle any sentence and any idea that Heinlein can come up with in the course of the novel, a refreshing change from the age-appropriate nonsense fed to children today.

Though quite enjoyable and well-made, the plot through which these characters refine their Heinleinian virtues does not bear much scrutiny, as it is more or less a pastiche of the Three Musketeers. Suffice it to say that the plot will entertain you, just as it has been entertaining for the last two hundred years. The ideas in the book, on the other hand, are the real meat of it. Not simply the science-fiction wowie-stuff (in the first few paragraphs, we are given a cell phone and the proper etiquette of using such a device, not bad for 1948) but the constant flood of everything from ballistics and mechanics (how do you maneuver with a jet pack? how do you calculate the rate of spin of a space ship to produce one G on its outer skin?) to political philosophy (the Space Patrol has kept mankind from war for a hundred years - good or bad?) to the most basic questions of Socrates (at the Space Patrol, we believe that "a man who can think properly will necessarily behave morally" - true? or bunk?). All of this is presented in a way which requires the reader to engage with the questions in order to really engage with the novel. The result is a novel which, read by a person of even moderate intelligence, will produce a reader both smarter and more skeptical than the one who first opened the book, a real service to humanity. ( )