Revolt in 2100

Revolt in 2100 is another installment in Heinlein's Future History arc. Several major figures in that arc feature prominently here, and it takes place some time after the rise of the ayatollahs foretold in Stranger in a Strange Land. We get considerably more context for Scudder, and the origins of Libby in these three interconnected stories. This is about the height, and fall, of the united states theocracy (that in these times feels increasingly likely).
2100 is a bit of a melange...Heinlein's future history world and timeline building is at the forefront, but we get a taste of the military science fiction that Starship Troopers is known for and the social commentary and social engineering some of his later works like Stranger are known show more for.
As with some other early works, there is also more contradiction in his themes and social commentary than one might be used to with Heinlein. Its also easy to overlook if one approaches this expecting the typical themes that turn modern readers off Heinlein. Though religious dictators are presented in a (deserving) negative light and religion overall as hypocritical and unnecessary, several religious groups (notably the Mormons) are instrumental in overthrowing them and presented as quite reasonable folk. Similarly, the main organized resistance seems to all be part of an only loosely disguised version of the Freemason's, who are famously religious in origin and practices.
As usual, like Spinrad says, any Heinlein is good scifi and worth a read. However, I think for the modern critical reader there is a special wealth of things to contemplate is we can approach these early works with an open mind. show less

Many novels of future dystopia feature the loss of knowledge of how to make everyday things. Despite the year being twenty one something, mankind is not spending time travelling in flying cars and dining on protein pills (of different colours for variety) but rather is struggling to scrape a muddy existence from muddy fields that consist mostly of mud and weeds, and that’s before they plough up an unexploded nuclear warhead and things get really bad for the muddy hamlet.

I love all that sort of stuff as much as the next chap, the local lord retaining power through the judicious use of some technology that was once taken for granted but now makes him look like he’s got god-like powers; like an electric light, or a steam engine, or a show more quad-barrelled water-cooled belt-fed machine gun mounted on an apache helicopter. This last innovation really keeps the rabble in line. I guess the idea is that you are reading the novel, thinking that you’re reading a book about the middle ages and then, hey, somebody turns up with a digital watch. Shocker! It’s either a plot device or a literary version of the sort of crap attention to detail that Hollywood showed in the mid 50s when extras in films about Vikings were wearing wrist-watches and so on.

Stories about future dystopias give me the chills because, as hopeless as I am in a society that consumes technology like a lardy teen consumes biscuits on her last night before fat camp, I know that I’d be apocalyptically bad at functioning in a society that had collapsed, because part of literary collapsed society is the rediscovery of ‘lost’ technologies.

Ask yourself, could you make, say, a shirt? You’d need cotton or wool, so you need to keep plants or sheep, you’d need a loom and all sorts of other stuff. Think you could manage a shirt? Okay, how about an ipod touch? Because let me tell you, I don’t even know how they make those now. I have no conception of the technology involved and, and this is the point, if somebody explained it to me, I’d still not understand. I know it’s something to do with plastic and metal and a factory in China but the reality is that if somebody told me that ipods are crapped out by elves, that’s about as plausible to me as the actual manufacturing process, and a hell of a lot more understandable.

The society in the first of the three stories in ‘Revolt in 2100’, ‘If this goes on –‘ is, sadly, very understandable. The United States of America has become a theocratic dictatorship. It’s not giving too much away to say that the guy in charge is an evil tyrant and that John Lyle, the hero of the piece, goes through a sort or de-programming before learning to think for himself. Heinlein loves his engineering and in this case, it’s social engineering on a national scale. Society has not slipped back technologically (gratifyingly, there are flying cars), instead of technical knowledge the people have lost tolerance, social freedom and free will – what use an ipod if you can only listen to state-sanctioned music on it? The contrast is sharp because the country in question is the US, a nation founded on religious tolerance.

The plot rattles along at a good pace, there’s plenty of action but there’s also plenty to think about. You can’t help but consider the role of the religious right and as a reader, you’re uncomfortably aware that there are, in the twenty first century, nations that are real despotic theocracies. Okay, so they are mostly sand and camel (and oil and trouble), but they exist just the same.

What’s interesting is seeing how John’s personal mind-set adapts itself to new truths, a revolution in his head, while planning a revolution on the streets.

The other two stories flow from the first, almost like two epilogues and very much in the vein of a ‘future history’. The good news is, mankind gets out of the mud and looks toward the stars and by the last short story the engineering is more nuts and bolts than social. show less

It's a good, fast read with a couple of interesting themes in it. First, the U.S. has become a corrupt theocracy, which is a different future than most SF writers have looked at. The second is a unified field theory for science, where they figure out how gravity, electricity & magnetism all work. This break through in science is leveraged in the revolt. I found it interesting that time was left out, but the pseudo-science is fun.

It's a very monochrome view of a revolution. The bad guys are really bad, the good guys are heroic, with pure motives. Not nearly as good as "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" but not a bad, quick shot at it.

Robert Heinlein is perhaps one of the best known future history authors of the 20th century, having written many different novels all exposing the flaws of society. Revolt in 2100 is composed of three shorter stories, If this Goes On, Coventry, and Misfit, and was originally written for a science fiction magazine called Astounding Science Fiction, where it was first published as a novel in 1953, though the earliest of the stories, Misfit, was written in 1939. I found that this knowledge was important, because there is no warning in the book that all three stories have nothing connecting them. Although the relationships of the characters to seem to be children, parents, or other relatives of the characters in the other stories. In the show more beginning of the novel there is a very helpful chart made by Heinlein of all the books he had written and their chronological fit, including characters, inventions at that time, and social developments. Heinlein’s challenge to his readers is not to worry or ponder the dangers of the future, but to understand why things happen, and what we can do to prevent social order from being stretched and destroyed.
Overall, If this Goes On, was a fantastic novel, but what interested me was that the main character and the hero were not the same thing, even though the main character, named John Lyle, did heroic things, said heroic things, but the real hero was his friend, Zebadiah Jones, who is educated, disagrees with the religious dictatorship, and makes it his mission to educate John as well. Zeb, as he is referred to, at one point speaks freely about his distaste in the government, and he makes a point that I highly agree with. That everyone should have the right to speak their mind however they please, but they also have the right to be silent about it. I took this notion with me as I have been watching what goes on in our world today. In the United States, in the year 2010, we are not as technologically advanced as we thought we might be in 1950, we don’t have personal ram jets, and we don’t have weapons that don’t use particles. We still have bullets, and we still have some of the same social problems Heinlein talks about in the book. There are people who have distaste for people of different race, color, religion or otherwise, for no other reason than just because. These prejudices have been around since humans could tell that one man looked different than his neighbor, and still exist in Heinlein’s history of the future. In early June 2010, Helen Thomas made a comment about Israel that was neither proper nor appropriate. But it shows that people’s prejudices still guide them.
Heinlein uses If this Goes On to show what would happen if the Church, any church took over using religion to unite the people under one dictatorship, the Church that took over the country used propaganda and scapegoats to make the majority of the people follow them, and accept the Church as the governing body. I found it interesting that Heinlein would be so blunt about making the Church the enemy, but it really emphasizes his point that the separation of Church and State is imperative to the survival and freedom of a nation and its citizens.
Revolt in 2100 will make any reader think twice when they see something in a newspaper, on the radio, or on television, when statements are made that are based on prejudice and hatred, Heinlein’s words echo with deeper meaning. The Future that Heinlein wrote about is a possibility, and it is our job as citizens, and individuals, to keep that from happening, whether we are of a majority, or a minority, religiously, socially, ethnically. We are all people and that means me must protect each other. I find the words of Zebadiah Jones inspiring, because they had personal meaning to me as and religious minority, as well as my own knowledge of other people’s differences. show less

I don't know how long it's been since I read this book, but it's been many years, probably a good 50, since I think I read it in Jr High. Still, there's a lot I remembered of it, and it holds up today much better than I expected. The long story, "If This Goes On..." previously thought to be Heinlein's first novel, deals with a religious tyranny in the US and a revolution against it. The tyranny felt not unlike The Handmaid's Tale. The main character's distrust and desire to revolt against the government grows out of his infatuation with a young virgin who is pledged to be of of The Prophet's many mistresses. The main character (of course named "Lyle") is not really too bright, as he has to have many things explained to him, though part show more of that might be just Heinlein's way of doing expository lumps. I noted that the Christianity the tyranny uses is not necessarily a Christianity at all, as Heinlein keeps the religious references somewhat vague, and as the revolution grows, it includes members of sects such as Catholicism and Mormonism. The one thing that's pretty unique in this story is the way the revolutionary group borrows from such things as Freemasonry, the whole thing is kind of run like a lodge. A very entertaining novel, though sometimes it does bog down in the weeds.

The story Coventry is about some people who rebel in a way against the society produced by that revolution. Lots of good stuff in here, but basically it's pretty slim. The final story, Misfit, is at a target, it's misfit -- Libby, of course -- has remarkable mathematic abilities that set him apart from everyone else on a ship construction a station on an asteroid.

Generally, a lot of early Heinlein has been disappointing to me as I re-read it spottily, but this book worked very well, and I see why I liked it when I was in Jr. High. show less

What a crazy idea, the US controlled by a xenophobic, intolerant religious dictatorship - where do these SF writers get their ideas??? (glances at newspaper) Oh, right.

This is classic Heinlein and sadly, sadly prescient.

A collection of three stories (one novella, two long short stories) with sort of the same theme but standing independently. Some of Heinlein's lesser-read books, but still great. First, a religious cult (Falwell-style) takes over the US and an exploration of the lives of good people living within it (spoiler: they act like Heinleinian heroes...). Basically "Handmaid's Tale" by Heinlein.

Second, an exploration of "the paradox of tolerance" in a society with perfect government. Not as fully developed, could have been a great novel too, but a good short story.

Third, a shorter story about an exceptional individual in space (probably the weakest of the three, but still a good story).

Even the worst Heinlein stories are among the best of show more science fiction. These definitely aren't his best, but they're pretty good, and based on length, quite worth reading. show less