Citizen of the Galaxy

Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Lately I've been listening to classic science fiction stories as audio books, both to make my commute more interesting and to help me improve my own writing. I had originally read this book in high school and remembered liking it well enough that I bought a copy for a friend's son. The book was already old when I read it, and I wondered if it would hold up for a modern reader.

In my opinion, it does.

One of the great things about Heinlein as a writer is that he can take an idea and really think it through. In the middle portion of the story the hero spends time among the Free Traders, a society of space travelers that rarely spend more than a few hours outside their ships. Heinlein tells us how this society works, what the rules are, why the rules need to exist, what the penalties for breaking the rules are, how family relationships work, how people get married, how trading is done on different planets, etc. He makes this society seem real. The characters might be a little thin (I thought they were OK) but in science fiction the setting is important, and Heinlein nails it.

The science fiction that my friend's son has grown up with (Star Wars, etc.) is entirely lacking in this kind of imagination.

It's a rousing story with the hero Thorby having breathless adventures and visiting strange worlds, bit there is a lot of thought behind both. Listening to Heinlein stories makes me want to be a better writer and gives me a pretty good idea what I'd need to do to become one.



View all my reviews