Podkayne of Mars

I have a love/hate relationship with this particular book--really do, making this a very hard one to rate and review. By and large I'm a fan of Robert Heinlein. I love The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers and many of his juveniles, and if it weren't for what seemed the lesson of this one, this might be my favorite of his young adult science fiction. I loved Podkayne, absolutely adored this girl who dreamed of growing up to be a starship captain--especially since I first read this when I was around Podkayne's age--fifteen. Heinlein created a wonderful voice, and after all his boy heroes I'd read I thought it about time a girl got to have an adventure. I even liked her self-centered (sociopathic?) genius brother Clark. Mars, show more the interplanetary voyage aboard a luxury space liner, the hedonistic Venus and their nasty little fairies are all a blast.

But...

Spoiler? Arguably...

There are actually two endings to this story, one that Heinlein originally wrote, and the one that was published over his objections, and it's not the issue over which ending per se that bothers me. Above all it was that Heinlein, in the voice of their uncle, lays the problems of Podkayne and her brother on their parents, and particularly her mother. Podkayne's mother, we're told, had no business wanting a career of her own while her children needed her. I might have had sympathy for that tirade, had the father been equally implicated as too absorbed in his career to pay attention to his children (rather than being too absorbed and unassertive to make his wife raise them). And I might even have forgiven that--after all this was written in 1963. But for me the unforgivable is that, in this book at least, growing up for a girl means giving up her dreams--the mature thing is to live them through her husband! It's a great story in many ways, and with a great female character--but I'd certainly feel ambivalent about giving this book to an impressionable teen girl. I know when I reached the end of the novel I felt slapped. show less

And my project of reading (or rereading, in some cases) all of Heinlein's juveniles comes to an end with this book. It's been 14 books, including the 12 classical juveniles published by Scribner between 1947 and 1958, another that was submitted to Scribner's as a juvenile but was rejected and instead published by Putnam (Starship Troopers), and this one (Podkayne of Mars). Podkayne was published 4 years after Starship Troopers and many reviewers list it with the juveniles, although apparently Heinlein did not consider it as one. Regardless of what Heinlein thought, after reading it there is no doubt in my mind that this one belongs with the juveniles, because of the writing style, the youthful main characters and the many similarities show more with the other Heinlein juveniles (like the presence of an older Heinlein-typical mentor character, the fact that the author sometimes uses the story to present some of his pet ideas about how society should work, the similarities in settings and type of coming of age/adventure story...)

As a Heinlein juvenile, it is interesting because it is the only one where the main character is a girl. That does not mean that feminists will love it, though. In fact this is probably worst offender among the juveniles in terms of sexism, when looked from a modern perspective. The Heinlein who wrote these books was a man of the 50s/early 60s. In some ways he transcended the way of thinking of his time (like the presence of extremely intelligent and capable professional woman in these novels), but in many others these novels are the 50s in space. Heinlein had no problem with the concept of women being as competent as the most brilliant men, but he could not dream of a society where the distinction between men and women does not matter. Considering when these books were written and in what society Heinlein grew up and lived, taking that final leap was not easy at all, but in these novels Heinlein never takes it.

I said that the main character in Podkayne is a girl, but some people dispute that. While Poddy is obviously point-of-view character, telling the story in first person through his diary, it can be argued that the hero of the story, the one who gets things done, is his little brother Clark. Poddy is meant to be a brilliant and endearing but very naive girl, while Clark in an asocial genius who sometimes borders the psychopathic.

Heinlein obviously intended Poddy to be endearing, but is she? For the most part, yes, but when Heinlein created brilliant young characters he tended to make them a bit unlikable. I'm thinking of the twins from The Rolling Stones, for example, who were bright entrepreneurs to an exaggerated extent. Here Poddy is supposed to be very bright, but she often doesn't show it. Much of that is because of her naivete and the need to contrast her kindness with Clark's ruthlessness, but she doesn't really do anything to make us think that she is also very intelligent in her own right. Her thoughts are very conventional in a "50s" sort of mentality, easily accepting for example that “it is a mistake for a girl to beat out a male at any test of physical strength” or that "it does not do to let any man of any age know that one (a female) has brains, not on first acquaintance; intelligence in a woman is likely to make a man suspicious and uneasy”. She wants to become a spaceship captain, but she is aware that to get that job she will have to prove herself much more than any male would need to, and that thought does not seem to strike her as completely unfair. Also, Heinlein seemed to have a bit of a "baby" obsession in this book, and Poddy does not miss any chance to turn into a baby-changing-and-comforting machine (at one point she wonders whether it would be better for her to aim to be a "creche engineer" in a starship, instead of a captain).To be fair, it is easy to judge Heinlein from a modern point of view for not overcoming the social sexism of his time. However, he does overcome some of it, and I have read comments from older female readers saying that they were inspired by the highly talented professional women in his books, like Poddy's mother for example. It's also fair to mention that Heinlein was really good at overcoming the racist prejudices of his time (I say racist prejudices, not necessarily cultural prejudices), which to us seems natural but only because we do not live in Heinlein's time.

The main problem with this book when compared to other juveniles is that a much larger part of it is devoted to out of date social commentary. In fact, the adventure part of the plot comes almost as an afterthought, near the ending of the novel. It also feels less satisfying because there is no character growth for Poddy. In many other juveniles the boy protagonist starts as a naive but willing kid and in the course of the story matures and becomes a young man. Here Poddy does not get the chance to grow up as a person and earn respect through her effort. The whole story happens in a short span of time, and we do not get to see Poddy grow up.

Another curious thing about this novel is that there are two endings (differing only in the last page). There is the one that Heinlein originally wrote and the one that was finally published, since the publisher forced Heinlein to modify it against the writer's bitter complaints. The version I read had the one that was published, but in the Baen edition apparently both endings are included, along with some fan-essays discussing which ending is better. If you are curious you can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podkayne_of_Mars

So, this novel is not very good. Heinlein's flaws are magnified and his virtues are less evident than in other juveniles. I believe that if he had had more discipline about devoting his considerable talent to telling a good story instead of being self-indulgent in telling us about his pet-views the book would have been better. Still, as a storyteller Heinlein had a gift. I was entertained, and I never felt the temptation to stop reading, even if sometimes I rolled my eyes. It is a novel that I wouldn't recommend to an impressionable child (if children are still impressionable in this internet age) without some discussion about the context in which it was written and how it influenced the story.


All in all, this reading project has been a very enjoyable ride. I feel that now I have a better understanding about Heinlein as a writer, and I just love coming-of-age stories as Heinlein at his best can tell them. show less

When I first read the book years ago, I loved it. Here was a young female heroine and she was competent! She even had an annoying younger brother. When I could, I got it on Kindle with the "author's original, preferred ending." I am so glad I kept my 1970s paperback, because the "original" ending proves there is a good reason for editors.

I enjoyed the book up until the "original" ending started to go darker and darker. Heinlein's explanation of why he wanted it that way made him sound like a misogynist old man, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't a misogynist. I thoroughly believe that a mother can hold down a job and still raise fairly normal children. While the uncle expresses Heinlein's views in the earlier version, there is some show more distancing from the situation as the man is distraught and could be seen as casting blame. A letter from the author ... well, that is different.

I want my books to have some light at the end of the tunnel. I want to believe that people learn from their mistakes and *can* change for the better. I want hope. I think the editor of the book realized that and the change he wanted was for the best. I know folks voted for the "original" ending; I wish the Kindle version had included both.

Five stars for my earlier paperback; four stars for the Kindle version. show less

It had been a while since I'd been exposed the that dirty old man, Heinlein. I was hoping that the sometimes fun and happy go lucky tone that I remembered could carry the story, but sadly, poor Podkayne becomes a teenage mouthpiece for his gender policing. She starts out with dreams of becoming a spaceship captain and her mom is a successful engineer, but her voyage to Venus brings out the baby-crazy in her and she narrows her vision. The reader is good at perky, but there's nothing she could do about the prattling. Oh well, that should learn me.

I think this is the only book by Heinlein where the central character and narrator is a teenage girl. He does a good job from my male point of view although some female readers complain about Poddy's excessively cloying cuteness. The ending is dark and when the publisher complained, Heinlein made it even darker. I still don't get the reason for this. There's a political plot lurking in the background that's never really explained as well.

This is one of the books from Heinlein's late period. I hated these books when I was younger, but now that I'm in my seventies, I find myself drawn to them. They're not so much slick SF stories but rather musings on "What is Life, After All".

A Sci-fi written in 1963 gives an interesting view of what the author thought the future would look like. It starts off with the funny, somewhat spoiled and slightly overconfident teenager Podkayne describing her ambitions for the future. While most of the story is interesting there comes a point where Podkayne just slips into being a naive girl who has trouble understanding the complicated things going on around her. This in spite of the fact that she is shown to be quite smart at the beginning of the tale. The story seems to be in two minds about female ambition. On the one hand Podkayne's mother is a very intelligent woman who is good at her job and Podkayne has high ambitions. On the other hand, there is a great deal of attention show more given to Podkayne's nurturing side and there is a scene near the end where her uncle tells off both her parents (but especially the mother) for not spending enough time raising their children. While the ending seems to take a strange turn in terms of what gets told and what is left out, it is still a good read. Though it is considered Sci-fi, I'm inclined to say that family and family relations play a much bigger role in this story than technology does. show less

I recommend reading both endings to this book. Personally I think Heinlein should have been allowed to keep his original ending, but regardless, this book is one of his that has not aged well. I've been a Heinlein fan for years and enjoyed many of his books, and he knows his science, but this one is not one i would recommend unless you're a Heinlein completist.