The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones was a fun re-read, especially after the recent re-read of The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (which was less fun).
I don't think this is technically classified as part of Heinlein's juvenalia, but it probably should as its pretty straightforward, light, and easily accessible.
The titular Stones are a family ala Lost In Space (thought significantly less lost, and if anything even more capable) adventuring around the solar system (mars, luna, the asteroids) essentially on a lark. Dad (a maybe sometimes professor? a scriptwriter who doesn't want to be one anymore? someone with a military and/or professional space man past?) figures dragging the family around the solar system is a good way to train and keep an eye on his show more genius, overachieving sons so they don't run off on escapades of their own. Those sons, Castor and Pollux, are some of the call-backs we get later in TCWTW, as is grandma Hazel. I find the Hazel here significantly more fun, interesting, and less off-putting than Hazel from the end of the World-As-Myth. Here she's at least believable as the matriarch of a family of geniuses, and isn't quite as broad ranging a polymath as she is later. This is also the origin, in some ways, of the World As Myth as the Galactic Overload is created here, by the family, as an ongoing antagonist in the scripts they continue to write to support themselves. We even get a weird hint at one point that perhaps the Overload is already real and interacting with this world.
Anyway, definitely worth the quick read, especially as it lacks some of the normal Heinlein trappings many people find objectionable. A straightforward, fun, swiss family robinson style adventure in space. show less

I have to give Heinlein credit for consistently trying new things, instead of sticking to the same successful formula. Here the protagonist is not a teenage boy, but a whole family. Sure, the twins Castor and Pollux, 15-year-old at the beginning, may certainly be described as main characters, but the same is true of their grandma Hazel, their father and their baby brother Buster. Their mother is a strong character too, but she doesn't have a personality as colorful as the rest and is often away helping her patients (doctors seem to be scarce in space). Meade, their sister, is more of a traditional 50s girl.

YA novels usually get rid of sympathetic adult family members early on, to allow the young characters to shine and have adventures, show more but here the whole family has adventures together. Most of the family members have very strong and colorful personalities, and spend a lot of the novel teasing and arguing with each other. I enjoyed the family dynamics (I enjoyed the novel more than Mark), but I have to agree with his review when he says that something doesn't work completely well there. It's as if Heinlein tried too hard to make his characters memorable. At times they are a bit too "cute", too bright, too self-assured and snarky for their own good, as if they are caricatures of themselves.

The novel doesn't have a clear plot, but follows this eccentric family as they travel through the solar system (once more Heinlein sticks to the same near-future setting) and have several adventures. In that sense, it seems like a fix-up of shorter stories.

When they are not too busy with their friendly bickering, they spend a lot of time doing mathematical calculations by hand for their travels (wouldn't it be nice if someone invented computers?). You can also see some of Heinlein's libertarian belief in the characters (like their disregard of over-regulation and Hazel's obsession with guns, another favorite topic for Heinlein). Being so individualistic, it seems a miracle these characters can function together, but you can see they care for each other deeply.

Here, Heinlein has two strong and extremely competent female characters, with a special mention for grandma Hazel (although that doesn't free them from cooking duties by virtue of their gender). The twins are surprisingly ruthless businessmen, although they occasionally show a good heart.

All in all, I found the whole thing rather entertaining. The meandering plot allows us to see several parts of the solar system, like the asteroid belt which we had not visited in previous Heinlein juveniles. Unlike Mark, I found the ending appropriate, and the adventure near the end with Hazel and Buster was a highlight. show less

An absolutely wonderful audio production of a favorite Heinlein juvenile.


Castor and Pollux Stone may be the most entertaining twins in sf for the reader, but it's hard to imagine why their parents didn't strangle them at birth to preserve their own sanity. Ever since the adults (Luna Founding Father grandmother Hazel Meade Stone, mother Dr. Edith Stone, and father Roger Stone, engineer, former mayor of Luna City, and screenwriter) let their guard slip long enough to let the twins invent something genuinely useful (the frostproof rebreather valve) these native-born Lunatics have been scheming to repeat the accomplishment—at least the money-making part of it—with the not very well thought-out goal of eluding adult control before show more they've learned enough caution to keep themselves alive, out of debt, and out of jail. When their latest caper involves an attempt to buy a spaceship and launch their own trade expedition to the asteroid belt, grandmotherly and paternal restlessness morphs the scheme into a family tour of the planets, starting with Mars and possibly stretching to include the rings of Saturn.

Castor and Pollux of course do not let up on their money-making schemes, and figure out that they can buy used bicycles cheap on Luna, fix them up on the way to Mars, and sell them to prospectors there for a fraction of the price of new bikes shipped from Earth's much deeper gravity well, while still making a huge profit.

They do not, of course, ask themselves why no one before them has been smart enough to come up with this idea, and that's a recurring theme as the Unheavenly Twins wreak hilarious havoc across the solar system, with brushes with jail, bankruptcy, and assorted mayhem.

(One very funny episode will seem oddly familiar to anyone whose age and background caused them to encounter the original Star Trek first. However, Heinlein's flat cats predated the tribbles by about fifteen years.)

Great fun. show less

Castor and Pollux Stone may be the most entertaining twins in sf for the reader, but it's hard to imagine why their parents didn't strangle them at birth to preserve their own sanity. Ever since the adults (Luna Founding Father grandmother Hazel Meade Stone, mother Dr. Edith Stone, and father Roger Stone, engineer, former mayor of Luna City, and screenwriter) let their guard slip long enough to let the twins invent something genuinely useful (the frostproof rebreather valve) these native-born Lunatics have been scheming to repeat the accomplishment—at least the money-making part of it—with the not very well thought-out goal of eluding adult control before they've learned enough caution to keep themselves alive, out of debt, and out show more of jail. When their latest caper involves an attempt to buy a spaceship and launch their own trade expedition to the asteroid belt, grandmotherly and paternal restlessness morphs the scheme into a family tour of the planets, starting with Mars and possibly stretching to include the rings of Saturn.

Castor and Pollux of course do not let up on their money-making schemes, and figure out that they can buy used bicycles cheap on Luna, fix them up on the way to Mars, and sell them to prospectors there for a fraction of the price of new bikes shipped from Earth's much deeper gravity well, while still making a huge profit.

They do not, of course, ask themselves why no one before them has been smart enough to come up with this idea, and that's a recurring theme as the Unheavenly Twins wreak hilarious havoc across the solar system, with brushes with jail, bankruptcy, and assorted mayhem.

(One very funny episode will seem oddly familiar to anyone whose age and background caused them to encounter the original Star Trek first. However, Heinlein's flat cats predated the tribbles by about fifteen years.)

Great fun. show less

Heinlein's snappy dialog is always what I most enjoyed about his writing, and it is on full display here. The Rolling Stones also provides some nice beginner's physics about bodies in freefall and planetary navigation. If you can get past the 1950s characters, you can have an imaginative romp.

This was fun. The narrator was perfect for the part. He made it feel even more like I was reading about the smarter, more efficient and sciency Jetsons, in space. There was enough hard science for the hard sci-fi fans and enough witty banter for everyone else. Would love to see a movie or tv show adaptation of this. It definitely left me wonder if flat cats inspired tribbles or vice versa.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. While I have loved everything in Heinlein's "The Scribner's juveniles" series. But this one has been the best. Unlike "Rocket Ship Galleio" this one is actually believable. I really love this old time science-fiction. It is great to see what the author for the 1950s thought of, that we already have, and what he didn't think of, that we already have. For example there is a scene where Grandma Hazel is going out for the day so she can't stay home and play Chess with the 5 year old. They, however, indicate that they could play by phone. I thought it was great, Heinleni though of cell phones and playing games on then. However before the end of the chapter we learn that he had thought of cell show more phones, but not of playing games on them, instead she called in her moves to him and he made the moves on a physical chess board.

The story of the Martian Flat cat was so similar to the "Trouble With Tribbles" we would see 15 years later, I can't imagine that Roddenberry hadn't read The Rolling Stones.

I laughed a lot, I even cried a little when it appeared my favorite character had died. The "Full Cast Audio" is freaking amazing in "cinematography." I encourage you to follow on the foot steps of the Space family Stone and their journey from Luna to Mars and then to make their fortune mining the asteroids. There is real math, or at least what looks like real math, there is family dynamics, really I think this book is great and don't want to give away anymore than I already have. show less