Space Cadet

The question of "what did Heinlein really think?" is open to debate. Is he a free love hippie, a la Stranger in a Strange Land? The ur-fascist militarist of Starship Troopers? The staunch survivalist of Time Enough for Love? The creepy racist and incest fan of books which shall not be mentioned?

I think that the 'real Heinlein' is on display here, in Space Cadet. Sure, it's one of his juveniles, but it deal with big issues, like what kind of people and institutions can be trusted to police a solar system and control forces which could wipe out all of humanity. The main characters are appealingly competent, well-meaning problem-solvers who through ingenuity, endurance, and diplomacy overcome the hazards of Space Patrol training, the show more asteroid belt, and the swamps of Venus. The book is solidly hard sci-fi, some hand-waving aside (waste products from nuclear rockets, the short range of radios, swamps on Venus), both in technology and sociology.

Now, the only open question I have is, is this a better book than Have Spacesuit, Will Travel? show less

Written in the year 1948 and set in the year 2075, this is the second of Heinlein's juvenile fiction, so it has a different feel from other books such as the World as Myth/Lazarus Long books.

I actually enjoy Heinlein's juvenile fiction, and it's really neat to see the author display his scientific knowledge in these books. Another thing to think about is that this book came out two decades before man landed on the moon, old-school science fiction is super-fun like that as many of the things that authors from the 1930's-1960's predicted have actually come true in the ensuing decades.

One complaint I do have - although given the time period this was written in, this is par on the course - is the lack of strong female lead characters. So show more the Venusian matriarch here is a welcome character. show less

I enjoyed this one much more than Rocket Ship Galileo. I think Space Cadet has stood the test of time well. Sure, you get some unavoidable examples of aged technology. Again, the failure to imagine how thoroughly computers would change everything is the main example, although I can't blame someone writing in the 40s for that. Science fiction or not, these are writers, not prophets. There are also many things we know now about the Solar System that were unknown then, so we get native Venusians and humans living there, while we now know that the temperature there is unsuitable for life. In other things, though, Heinlein makes some interesting extrapolations. The book has cell phones, for example, and teaching technology more advanced than show more anything we have now.

The novel also shows its age in the lack of women in the Space Patrol. It's exclusively a boys' club. On the other hand, the Patrol is international and everyone takes racial integration for granted, which seems normal now but for the time it was written was a bold step. Heinlein tries, and although others will disagree, I won't condemn him for not freeing himself of all the prejudices of his time.

However, what makes this work so well for me is that the writing style does not seem dated at all. The book does provide an optimistic view of the future that awaits young people as they grow up. While nowadays dystopian YA novels are prevalent, and society seems to be ready to screw young people and crush their dreams, in Space Cadet it is assumed that if you work hard and have a good attitude you can achieve success and acceptance, grow up as a person, see the universe and have a positive impact on it. Unfortunately, this may be old-fashioned in our more pessimistic age, but Heinlein works very well with this material...

I really enjoyed the training process Matt and his friends go through. It certainly reminded me of Starship Troopers but without the grumpy political lectures. Heinlein himself was at the U.S. Naval Academy, and it shows. He has a good understanding of how an organization like the Space Patrol would train youngsters to become good officers and what it would expect of them. The Cadets work hard, sometimes their workload seems impossible but never actually becomes so. They grow up and sometimes they have doubts about whether this is the path they are meant to take. I enjoyed how Matt despaired when he couldn't deal with his astrogration course, and how he felt tempted to join the marines instead, an organization also with proud traditions and a high purpose, where he wouldn't have to study so hard. The chat he had with his commanding officer then was quite good.

Another detail I enjoyed was how when Matt went home on leave he found out that he no longer really fit there. He had grown up and, although he of course still loved his family, his old home no longer felt like home.

All in all, the training process was done quite well. There was even normal banter between the teenage friends, which was something I missed in Rocket Ship Galileo. In the last part of the book we get to see Matt & company in action, with their commanding officer conveniently disabled. That part was a bit weaker. The Venusians were kind of interesting, but they sometimes seemed like the stereotypical "good savage" in the presence of colonists.

An excellent coming-of-age story and a good read even 65 years later. show less

Heinlein, Robert A. Space Cadet. 1948. Tor, 2005.
Robert Heinlein’s Space Cadet is where the subgenre of an academy for spacefarers begins. You can draw a direct line of influence from Heinlein’s Matt Dodson to Star Trek’s Wesley Crusher. Heinlein was optimistic about the development of nuclear-powered single-stage rockets and artificial gravity. His navigators and pilots fly their ships by hand, without the benefit of a computerized autopilot. No one at the time predicted the laptop. We have less than 60 years to make a permanent presence in space on Heinlein’s schedule. Modeled on a coast guard, they search for lost ships and police interplanetary trade. There are aliens on a tropical Venus and pirates in the asteroid belt, show more both of which are credible given the world he has built and the science of the time. Character drama is simple. Heinlein’s highly competitive teenage cadets must learn to subordinate their egos to a higher cause and work together as a team using all their ingenuity. Space Cadet is still enjoyable after all these years. show less

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 show more 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. show less

This is one of Heinlein's "juveniles"--that is, what we now call young adult. I tend to prefer quite a few of those to his adult novels such as Stranger in a Strange Land. I wouldn't count this among his best in that category though--of which my favorite is Citizen of the Galaxy. I'd say it's only about average for Heinlein--which still means it's very good indeed. This one centers on the "Space Patrol" (think Starfleet) which polices the solar system. I've seen this called a space opera version of The Three Musketeers and I think that captures it pretty succinctly. But beyond Heinlein telling a good yarn like most of his science fiction there are some thoughtful, and though-provoking aspects. Yes, some aspects are dated--as has been show more pointed out more than once in reviews that's especially true of how he deals with gender. This is very much a man's world--or solar system in this case. But hey, this is the fifties, and I'm willing to make allowances for that in order to enjoy this. show less

I continue to love the Full-Cast Audio productions of these YA Heinlein books. That said, for a YA book targeted at boys, there isn't a lot of action. Instead, it's about a boy and his friends as space cadets, so it's mostly about their experience at that academy (which happens to be on a space ship). One thing to note, because of the time (and possibly the target audience), there's no women space cadets so they're basically non-existent in the book. The only juvenile of his with a female lead (that I can think of) is [b:Podkayne of Mars|50839|Podkayne of Mars|Robert A. Heinlein|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1309211249s/50839.jpg|2534895], although there are others with prominent female (like [b:The Star Beast|175328|The show more Star Beast|Robert A. Heinlein|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1172433439s/175328.jpg|2534995]).

Some things you just have to go with, despite knowing that they're completely incorrect in terms of physics, like being able to live on Venus without a space suit. One thing that Heinlein has done consistently well is his unique aliens (like his Martians in [b:Red Planet|50843|Red Planet|Robert A. Heinlein|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320396113s/50843.jpg|1583990]) and the aliens in this one (natives of Venus in this case) are also well done.

It wouldn't be my first choice for a Heinlein juvenile as it's a bit slower than some of his others, but it does have a good conclusion, which many of his adult books don't. show less