Heinlein's Have Space Suit--Will Travel

Have Space Suit—Will Travel

There aren't many books I read more than once. There are just too many I want to read. For me to read something multiple times, it has to be super special. Robert Heinlein wrote two such books. Starship Troopers gripped me with its intensity, action, aliens, and danger as the hero grew from high schooler to war hero. Stranger in a Strange Land featured one of the most interesting characters I've ever read, Jubal Hirshaw, in a strange tale about the dangers of charisma. Both of these books gripped me and drove me to seek them out on multiple occasions.

I won't have that problem with Have Space Suit—Will Travel

Admittedly, I'm not part of the demographic this book was written for. Heinlein published it in 1958 as the last of his series of juvenile novels. For that reason, the dated voice of the narrator sounds like something straight out of the film A Christmas Story or the TV series Leave It To Beaver

The story is about a high school senior named Kip who wins a space suit in a jingle contest. Soon he finds himself trekking the starways trying to rescue a young girl and standing trial for the flaws of all of mankind.

The first part of the book deals with the contest and is quite similar to the Ovaltine story arc from A Christmas Story. It was so similar, in fact, that I had a hard time not picturing Ralphie as the narrator. This made it somewhat confusing since Kip is a VERY smart older kid, well-versed in Latin, math, engineering, and a ton of other high-falutin' learning subjects.

I'd read Andy Weir's The Martian not too long ago and was struck by how similar Kip's story is to Mark Watney's. There's a scene where Kip has to deal with a tear in a suit by using some pretty high-end tape, and if he had said that he was just going to have to "science the shit out of it" I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised.

Much of Kip's story centers on his imprisonment by aliens and resulting heroism. Through some bizarre twist of alien logic, despite Kip's having saved the day, Heinlein puts the boy on trial. Technicaly, it's humanity that's on trial, and Kip is used as a proxy. It's a scenario much like the trial of Jean-Luc Picard in the pilot for Star Trek: The Next Generation,
"Encounter at Farpoint". Predictably, Kip survives, saves mankind, and makes it home with a super-duper crazy slew of unbelievable stories that nobody at the local pharmacy's soda counter will ever believe.

I love Heinlein. I did not love this book. Maybe I'm jaded because I'm a middle-aged man and I've outgrown wanting to be a junior spaceman. Maybe the book was influential and I should've looked into that before reading it and getting distracted by its similarities to other works I'm already familiar with. Maybe I'm a little ticked off that this book isn't like Starship Troopers and Stranger In A Strange Land.

I still want to read Starship Troopers again.