I'm ambivalent about this one. I enjoyed it a lot and at the same time thought it quite flawed. Some thoughts:

* We seem to have lost the coming of age element that I loved so much in books like Space Cadet or Farmer in the Sky. We don't have here a wide-eyed youngster who has to work hard to realize his dreams and at the same time matures, earns other people's respect and becomes a man. Instead Tom Barlett, the first-person narrator, is already important because he, along with his twin brother Pat, is a telepath, and since telepathy happens to be instantaneous he is used as a valuable faster-than-light communication device with Earth in an interstellar exploration ship. He doesn't need to work for it, it's just who he is. However, there is a coming of age element here, because this is the story of how Tom gets out of the psychological influence of his dominant twin brother.

* This is also a story about how, because of relativistic effects, time for travelers in a slower-than-light spaceship traveling near the speed of light passes much slower than for people at home, so that people on Earth age decades while those on board only age a few years. This is an effect I'm very familiar with (intellectually, I mean, not in practice), so I suspect it has less impact on me than on the teenage readers in the target audience who might be less familiar with the concept. However, it was well done, exploring the sense of alienation as the people you used to love and your world changes while you remain the same. Because of this, the story seemed to me bleaker than the other Heinlein juveniles I have read.

* The bleakness is accentuated because
it turns out that all their efforts and sacrifice were for nothing, once faster-than-light travel is achieved. I know in the book they say that it was still important because it proved that telepathic communication was faster-than-light, but that could have easily been proved beyond any doubt within the solar system

* The space exploration and adventure components are not bad, but they are almost an afterthought. It's not what Heinlein is most interested in, in this novel.

* I thought it was unusual the way the twins were portrayed. Normally twins are portrayed as having a strong bond and being very loyal to each other. Here their relationship is more complex and less exemplary. I kind of liked that. Also, the main character is not as likable as the protagonists of other Heinlein juveniles, although most of the time he is a decent fellow.

* The book doesn't seem too aged in the technology department (we don't dwell on the absence of computers, for example, like in some of these books), but it feels clearly aged in the attitudes department. As usual in these books, we have competent women in important scientific roles. However, there's the attitude that women must be protected from risk (only when they are completely sure that a planet is safe are women allowed to leave the ship), and also that wives should look up to and, more or less, accept their husbands' authority. Also we have one of the most unromantic romances ever.
I'm not too bothered that Tom marries a distant relative, but where the hell did that romance come from? "Hey, I'm finally back after so many years" "Great, let's get married." I mean, OK, they had communicated telepathically, but that came absolutely out of nowhere, and it's a bit creepy that some of that communication was when the bride was still a young girl.

* Heinlein seems to have the idea that emigration to other planets can be a way to deal with the overpopulation of Earth, but that makes no sense. It's like trying to deal with rising sea levels by taking buckets of water out of the ocean. Also, his grasp of relativity is not good: he seems unaware, for example, that the closest to the speed of light that ship is traveling the harder it is to accelerate it more, or that both twins should have perceived the other one as slow when the ship is travelling at relativistic constant speed. There are other things that seem sloppy to me, like how the telepaths are all surprised and outraged when they are not allowed out of the ship, but they already knew that, because they had been warned repeatedly before taking off that they were too valuable to be allowed to explore any planets. Or how
at one time it is said that in case of finding a world with alien intelligence they were ordered to leave and let a later mission establish diplomatic relationships, but when they actually encounter intelligent beings (who react in a hostile manner) it is mentioned that later colonists will have to be prepared to deal with them... hadn't we established that a world with intelligent aliens was not open for colonization?


* And what about
the mutiny thing? When did it become a military spaceship? I thought it was a scientific mission. Still, it provided a nice moral dilemma for Tom.



In spite of the flaws, and even though large parts of the book have little action, I found it very readable and entertaining. It would not be the first I would recommend, but Heinlein is a really skilled storyteller. ( )

A juvenile sci-fi that has weathered the change in technology well. The storyline is based on quantum ideas without ever using that term. The events of the story and characterization are totally consistent with a youth ready to take wing. The end was believable but a bit of a let down. That is why I didn't give it 5 stars. ( )

I think of all of the classic science fiction writers, Heinlein wears the biases of his time on his sleeve more than anyone else. In most of his books, there's always some passages that make me cringe a little bit but that doesn't stop the story from being awesome.

I love the setup for this story and the follow-through. What a great way to approach both telepathic abilities and FTL travel. This is a great adventure story that does a great job at having a lot of the action occur off the page, without seeming anticlimactic. ( )

A good early (juvenile) Heinlein novel; has a fairly straightforward plot and message, a consistent moral foundation, and internally-consistent science/tech, with characters with reasonable motivations. Nothing too amazing, but it does show some of the promise of his later books. ( )

It seems odd I haven't read this one until now. I started this because I needed a book to take on tour, and didn't feel like carrying the heavy hardback I'm in the middle of reading.

The Long Range Foundation funds unlikely ventures, one of which is space travel to distant stars. One issue with this is communication with ships light-years away, and they scramble a project to find telepairs - mostly identical twins - after the discovery that telepathy is instantaneous breaks quietly.

Tom and Pat are one of several identical twins who have to decide who goes to the stars and who stays. Time for the Stars is in many ways a typical Heinlein "juvenile" novel - stock Heinlein characters, with many of the Heinleinesque tropes, such as red hair, twins, and an obsession with the long view. But stock Heinlein stuff is almost always damn good stuff.

The author follows the element of human beings functioning as communication devices to a fascinating end: People have lives apart from the noble exploration of the stars, particularly the telepath left behind on Earth and has to interrupt work or a date or class to take a message. And messages that may seem vital to those on a starship may not be as important to a child being called to the table.

I think I still have four or five Heinlein juvies I haven't read yet... ( )