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Time for the Stars

Robert A. Heinlein

3.97 · Rating details · 8,480 ratings · 376 reviews

This is one of the classic titles originally know as the "Heinlein Juveniles," written in the 1950 and published for the young adult market. It has since been in print for 50 years in paperback, and now returns to hardcover for a new generation.
Travel to other planets is a reality, and with overpopulation stretching the resources of Earth, the necessity to find habitable ...more

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Hardcover, 256 pages

Published August 8th 2006 by Tor Books (first published August 1956)

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Sep 04, 2014 Lyn rated it liked it · review of another edition

The Corsican Brothers go to space.

Or at least one of them.

First published in 1956, Heinlein’s Time for the Stars is one of his Scribner’s juvenile books, and one of the better ones, somewhat similar to Starman Jones. The Grandmaster tells the story of the first survey ships going out into deep space to look for suitable planets for humanity to colonize due to overpopulation on Earth. Needing a simultaneous communications system, the powers that be hire on groups of telepathic twins (or triplets) ...more

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Apr 25, 2011 Manny rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, pooh-dante

- Good afternoon, may I talk with Professor Einstein?

- Speaking.

- Ah, I just wonder if I could have a few minutes of your time sir, this won't take long...

- And who are you, young man?

- Oh, I'm sorry, I should have said. My name's Bob Heinlein. You wouldn't have heard of me...

- On the contrary, I know exactly who you are. I bought a copy of your novel Space Cadet for my godson's eleventh birthday, and he was most complimentary. In fact, he said it was the best thing he'd ever read.

The rest of th ...more

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Jul 02, 2012 Flannery rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, kcls, ya-space-quest-o-mine, i-want-to-go-to-there, young-adult-teen, swords-and-lasers, read-in-2012, classics, liked-listening-prob-hate-reading

Slowly but surely, my obsession with young adult space stories will knock every Heinlein juvenile book off my to-read list. A month or two ago, I read Podkayne of Mars and while I did enjoy the audio format and the underlying world-building, the characters grated on me. I'd read and heard from several sources that Heinlein's treatment of his female characters can be a huge turnoff and he's two for two on that note for me thus far. I'm not going to go over why I felt the way I did about Podkayne Slowly but surely, my obsession with young adult space stories will knock every Heinlein juvenile book off my to-read list. A month or two ago, I read Podkayne of Mars and while I did enjoy the audio format and the underlying world-building, the characters grated on me. I'd read and heard from several sources that Heinlein's treatment of his female characters can be a huge turnoff and he's two for two on that note for me thus far. I'm not going to go over why I felt the way I did about Podkayne but in Time for the Stars, though it was far less frustrating, I was still not satisfied with the female presence in the book. But I'm getting ahead of myself, what's the book actually about? It's a futuristic Earth setting where families are allowed only a certain number of children before they get taxed. Identical twins Tom and Pat are asked to come in for some testing by a huge research organization, one whose mission is to fund the projects that have projected results so far into the future that no one else will fund them. Through the testing, Tom and Pat find out they are telepathically connected. The foundation intends to explore the galaxies to find potential colony planets and uses telepathic pairs to communicate between ships and between ships and Earth when radio transmissions no longer work. I don't want to spoil which twin goes to space and which stays behind because I enjoyed that aspect of the story. I cannot think of another instance of a book where identical twins do not really get along. Heinlein adds in a realistic amount of sibling manipulation that rang true to life. ("Do your chores, Dad will be home soon." "Why? If I don't, I know you'll just do them for me." - Me and my sister)

The science and philosophy are very much present in this novel and some of it went over my head. Faster than light, simultaneity, time, relativism, the science of aging, and various equations and theories are all present and accounted for but never in a severe infodump kind of way. The book is set up as a diary written by the twin in space. I am not sure if it is broken up as such in the traditional book as I listened to the audiobook but the scientific conversations were usually just that--conversations between the twin and someone else on the ship. However, there is very little action to keep the book going. The interest lies in the world Heinlein has created and the scientific offshoots. I was fascinated by the idea that as one twin was aging "regularly" on Earth, the other was aging at a far slower rate, so much so that the twin in space had to do the telepathic work with several generations down the line. What action there is is backloaded. His books, to me, feel like someone is writing about a fantastic futuristic world and then realizing halfway through that there's supposed to also be character building and plot movement.

On to the creep factor. There was just an episode of 30 Rock on television wherein Liz Lemon realizes that she is dating her third cousin. They say, "On the count of three, say how many cousins removed we'd have to be to try to make this work." He says fifth and she says never. I really think my answer is also never. There are several pubescent boy relationships in this book as well as adult relationships but there is one that relates to the 30 Rock episode I just spoke of. I won't ruin it for any potential readers but Heinlein basically glossed right over the relation aspect and it felt cut and dried in the most awkward way possible. I actually said, "Whaaaaaaat? Dude." to my car stereo. You're going to marry your relation, no matter how distant? Ew.

Back to Heinlein's treatment of women. Here's the gist: If you want to read any of his books, just think to yourself, "Am I okay reading a book where no female character will ever be completely rational? One where she will never be seen as anything other than a gender stereotype or achieve life goals beyond society's expectations during the forties and fifties when these books were written?" If the answer is yes, then read away. As I've said, Heinlein creates some interesting scientific worlds and stories. However, if you're answer is no then these books will be a nightmare for you. There are entire conversations about the best way to tell a mother that her son/s are joining a space program but also how to manipulate her irrational emotions. A grown woman wants to join a specific mission and another character tells her to check with her husband. (who also tells her later that they will be moving back to Earth to raise their family and she will not be working anymore) The mission finds a planet and fights in a battle but both times women are excluded from the teams--until one planet is deemed "safe enough that even the women could go!" Being a woman in Heinlein's world just seems like it would be so depressing. Who wants to achieve their dreams of being independent and going into space? Not so fast, vaginas!

I believe this is the first audiobook I've listened to that is narrated by Barrett Whitener, and I enjoyed his narration for the most part. Though they are not coming to me at the moment, there were a few words he pronounced in a weird way (maybe alternate pronunciations?) and several of the characters sounded the same. At one point, I wasn' t sure if the captain had an American, British, or Australian accent. He is a conversational narrator so his voice was/is well-suited to the diary-entry format of Time for the Stars.

As is the story with Podkayne of Mars, there is enough fun world-building present that I wish Heinlein would set more books in this world, perhaps even incorporate some of the same characters. I have a feeling my wish will come true with the rest of his young adult books. I anticipate each one will be a fun sciencey adventures/feminist's nightmare.

Also seen at The Readventurer.
...more

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Jun 09, 2013 Kat Hooper rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobook

Originally posted at FanLit:
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...

Time for the Stars is one of my favorite Heinlein Juveniles, and I like his juveniles better than his books for adults, so I guess that makes Time of the Stars one of my favorite Heinlein works. It’s got everything that makes his stories so much fun to read, especially for kids. Likeable heroes, sweet relationships, real emotions, a touch of romance, a bit of physics, spaceship travel and exploration of distant planets. (And als Originally posted at FanLit:
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...

Time for the Stars is one of my favorite Heinlein Juveniles, and I like his juveniles better than his books for adults, so I guess that makes Time of the Stars one of my favorite Heinlein works. It’s got everything that makes his stories so much fun to read, especially for kids. Likeable heroes, sweet relationships, real emotions, a touch of romance, a bit of physics, spaceship travel and exploration of distant planets. (And also, as usual, there’s a hint of incest — romance with a cousin — and a few complaints about taxes. It is a Heinlein novel, after all.)

In Time for the Stars, twins Tom and Pat join an experimental scientific study to see if telepathy might be a viable way for Earth to communicate with her exploring spaceships. It’s thought that if telepathy could work for anyone, it would be identical twins. Tom and Pat are excited to be involved, but they know this means that one of them will get to explore space while the other one has to stay home to be the other end of the telepathic line. This fact has a lot of ramification for the brothers. First of all, the boys have to decide who gets to go. Second, the one who leaves will probably never see his family again. Third, the boys will now age at different rates because of relativity, so even if the one who leaves ever comes back, he will be much younger than his twin.

All of this gives Time for the Stars an emotional texture that makes this story feel weightier than your average YA SF adventure. Also, Time for the Stars is not just a story about exploring space — it’s about family, friendship, loneliness, love, guilt, and the power of the human mind. In fact, I think Heinlein spends more time exploring the brain than exploring distant galaxies.

Time for the Stars is an entertaining and moving YA space adventure that will probably please most adults as well as kids. I listened to Barrett Whitener narrate Blackstone Audio’s version. I thought his voice, tone, and cadence were perfect for this emotional story. ...more

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Mar 22, 2020 M.M. Strawberry Library & Reviews rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, author-robert-a-heinlein

3.5 stars. I found some of the elements really interesting and original, but the marriage just... ehhhhhhhhhhh.

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Sep 29, 2016 Nathaniel rated it liked it

Shelves: sci-fi

I actually find Heinlein's juveniles a lot more interesting than his later work these days.

For those not in the know, Heinlein wrote a lot, and his books can generally be divided into three periods (or maybe just two). First, he wrote an awful lot of juveniles, which would be considered young-adult today. They almost always feature young protagonists (still in school) and revolve around adventure and family. These books came out between 1947 and 1959.

The turning point for Heinlein was the (in)fa ...more

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Dec 28, 2009 Jeff Yoak rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio-collection, read-in-2011, read-in-2013, read-in-2020, read-with-kids, read-in-2015, read-in-2010, read-in-2006, read-in-2018, read-in-2021

I had forgotten about this Heinlein juvenile completely thinking I was reading it for the first time, but part way in I realized that I had read it before. The human race has finally created a source of propulsion for ships that can offer constant boost and carry its fuel. That means it's "time for the stars." Population pressure and the sort of intrepid adventurousness Heinlein always so brilliantly portrays drives our heroes out in ships pushing the speed of light knowing that relativistic eff ...more

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Feb 01, 2015 Bahia rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015-books-read, sci-fi

This was my first Heinlein novel. It probably deserves only 3 stars, but I'm giving it 4 because this novel showed me why Heinlein is one of the fathers of science fiction. The world-building of the future is done so well, especially in the case of the science and the explanation of it in ways that allowed me to suspend disbelief. The motivations behind why the characters in the book were sent to space made logical sense, and the exploration of what happens to time when you are traveling at the ...more

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Nov 27, 2015 Mark Hodder rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2016

This is probably the first science fiction book I ever read. Now, more than four decades later, I’ve revisited it and can fully understand why I so quickly formed a love for the genre. This tale of telepathic twins, one aboard a space vessel on an exploratory mission, the other left on Earth and rapidly ageing thanks to the laws of relativity, is tremendous. Heinlein was fast approaching his peak period when this was written—transitioning from juvenilia to more adult stories. This sort of spans ...more

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Mar 12, 2021 Michael Campbell rated it it was amazing

This is by far my favorite Robert Heinlein book I've read so far. With all his other books, I always felt something was off. Is this as thought provoking as some things I've read by him? No but it's a neat concept, with strong memorable characters, and a well paced plot.

I think the lack of ambition is what makes this story work better than the others I've read. It doesn't try to be anything more than a fun weird SciFi novel, so that's what it is and all it needs to be.

I will give you that the ...more

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Aug 30, 2021 Ayla rated it liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 27, 2016 Wakizashi rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016-reads

“I don’t like to be around twins, they make me think I’m seeing double.”

Time for the Stars is one of the twelve ‘Heinlein Juveniles’ series of books the author wrote between 1947 and 1958. Wikipedia states that “their intended readership was teenage boys”. They would probably fall under the YA category today. After a bit of research on the web, it would seem that these YA books by Heinlein are still rated and respected by a number of readers. But it should be remembered that these were written o ...more

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Jul 16, 2015 Karen Mardahl rated it it was ok

There was a good story here involving communication via telepathy, but I confess that its age is showing. I couldn't ignore the male chauvinism in the tone. True, this is a "boys" book from the 50s, but it was just a bit much.

I felt the story was a bit choppy, but it was an interesting enough tale, so I hung on. By choppy, I mean the usual, let's skip some years so I don't have to explain much in this scene. I felt it especially toward the end in some crucial scenes where there was suddenly gre ...more

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Sep 29, 2016 Frank rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, young-adult

No spoilers here.
Another Heinlein juvenile. Have been trying to finish this run. Published in 1956, and certainly dated, although I find that not all of Heinlein's writings are.
The premise here is that spaceships are launched to search for habitable planets to colonize. Twins and triplets are found to possess telepathy between each other and a single one is a perfect passenger for these trips, so the book is centered on one set of twins. as one goes off and travels through space.
This book I wou ...more

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Jul 29, 2017 John Bohnert rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This science-fiction novel was exactly what I was looking for at this time. It dealt with mankind's first exploration of planets outside our solar system. What I especially loved was the author did not burden the reader with tons of technical language. It was kept to a bare minimum. I'm so glad that I read TIME FOR THE STARS (1956) by Robert Heinlein. ...more

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Jul 01, 2009 Clay Kallam rated it it was ok

Shelves: sf-fantasy

Pop culture is often dismissed as simply low culture – in contrast to the high art of opera or classical music or abstract expressionism. And there’s good reason: As long-ago scifi author Theodore Sturgeon once pointed out, “Ninety percent of everything is trash.”

A simple tour through the cable channels, or spin of the radio dial, will prove Sturgeon right, and in the mass of modern pop culture it’s much harder to filter out the signal from the noise. In classical music, for example, the bad sym ...more

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Feb 05, 2021 Jason Meuschke rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I really enjoyed this book. Although some of the science may have been over my head, Heinlein does an excellent job of keeping it interesting and gives me a sense of learning something. It’s relevant information that is not wasted in useless prose. Likewise, the plot keeps moving with wonderful twists.
No spoiler here but I do have two caveats. One would be the out-of-the-blue ending which had me scratching my head and needing to verify who a certain character was again. The second was the occas ...more

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Oct 10, 2021 Wil C. Fry rated it it was ok · review of another edition

When I first read this in the mid-1980s, I really enjoyed it. I think it was one of the first five Heinlein books I ever read. Later, what I mainly remembered was space travel, the torchships, the special relativity effects on Tom and Pat, and the telepathy. But when I came back to it recently, I found it filled with sexism ("a woman must be submissive to her husband"), fat-shaming (one woman is "shaped like a sofa pillow"), a slow-paced story, and dark overtones of colonialism (after the humans

...more

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Mar 28, 2021 Thom rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Relativistic exploration story, with the added wrinkle that mental communications between twins is instantaneous, regardless of distance. Later adjustments to this are less scientific, and the ending is a disappointment.

The majority of the novel is a shipboard life story. The main character's twin is manipulative, to the point of manipulating which twin would go on a likely doomed voyage of exploration. The coming-of-age aspects of the book involve him growing to understand this, as additionally ...more

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Feb 25, 2019 Debrac2014 rated it liked it

Interesting but dated!

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Feb 01, 2021 Brihanna Schmid rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The book will suck you with a Rollercpaster of living the life on a ship to new planet exploration as well as heart ache and celebration. The ending left me feeling the mission was complete and wishing I had more. Heinlein never disappoints

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Jul 31, 2011 Valerie added it · review of another edition

The basic reason for writing this book seems to have been to introduce the idea of a 'long range foundation', which ignores the short term, and pumps resources into things that (probably) won't show results for decades or centuries. An interesting idea, but there don't seem to have been any takers.

The premise of the telepathic twins is interesting, but it's basically a McGuffin to allow Heinlein to send a juvenile (several, really) on a starfaring mission, Really, however, the mission is not re The basic reason for writing this book seems to have been to introduce the idea of a 'long range foundation', which ignores the short term, and pumps resources into things that (probably) won't show results for decades or centuries. An interesting idea, but there don't seem to have been any takers.

The premise of the telepathic twins is interesting, but it's basically a McGuffin to allow Heinlein to send a juvenile (several, really) on a starfaring mission, Really, however, the mission is not really described. The relations of people on board ship and their homebound partners becomes more important--the planets examined are mostly unmemorable.

One interesting point is the question of whether you must necessarily love those you're related to. You must, of course, at least as long as you're coresident. If you didn't love them, there'd be a lot higher incidence of fratricide--and intrafamilial violence is already at too high a level. But that needn't mean you have to like them. Or keep a relationship with them once you're separated at adulthood. In this case, the telepairs MUST keep a relationship after separation, for the purpose of maintaining communication between their comrades (though exceptions develop later, as the communication network is broadened). This creates a conflict that's not easily resolved. The solution is unpracticed and clumsy--but it would have to be in an unprecendented situation, wouldn't it?

The atemporal aspect of telephathy (as proposed here) is somewhat similar to LeGuin's 'ansible' except that it inheres in people rather than devices. The argument is that since telepathy is virtually instantaneous, this implies that faster-light-travel is possible. It doesn't necessarily follow, but it's not clear whether Heinlein knew enough physics to recognize this. Early in the book, a physicist is quoted as if he did not know that a light-year is a unit of distance, not time.

Heinlein had a tendency to give himself airs, and to mock such pretensions in others. It's an interesting psychological observation that people tend to accuse others of what they believe to be true about themselves. Of course, they may be mistaken about themselves, but it's a form of self-revelation that could cause some people to be reluctant to make accusations, lest they inadvertently reveal rather more about their own fears than they're willing to.
...more

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May 17, 2011 Brian Layman rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-2011, read-2016

Heinlein at his very best! Though Spider Robinson may be "the new Robert A. Heinlein", there is no one like the original. This book is not quite completely in the juvenile Heinlein group and yet not in the adult Heinlein group. As one reviewer (Manny) put it: "an important novel, marking the transition from juvenile-Heinlein to proto-dirty-old-man-Heinlein." (Edit: There's nothing explicit in this book much beyond the noticing of bits and pieces and the desire they inspire.) It is a quick thorou ...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Kirsten rated it liked it · review of another edition

Read for the Science Fiction Book Club.

For the most part, I really liked this book. I think the premise was really interesting. The characters were fun. Only two major aspects detracted from it for me.

One, I got a little tired of the womenfolk had to stay on board ship during hazardous operations. Now, I realized it was written in 1956. But, when all the other aspects of society progressed, why would women stay the same?

Two, I felt that the last 1/3 of the novel was rushed. It seemed like it cou ...more

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Nov 16, 2016 Constance Burris rated it it was amazing

I really enjoyed Stranger in a Strangeland when I read it a couple of years ago. Time for Stars was on sale at Audible, so being a compulsive book buyer, I bought it. It was really good, and I am officially a big Heinlein fan now. I want more of his books!!! but I'm on a book-buying hiatus.

At the beginning, the book is about twins and telepathy, and then it branches into the realm of space travel (only lightly), finally it discusses what makes a planet habitable. Really great book. It wasn't ac ...more

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Nov 26, 2008 Mary JL rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: any science fiction fan

Recommended to Mary JL by: Familiar with author

Shelves: main-sf-fantasy

The review above pretty much says it all. This books has been reprinted time and time again for over fifty years. It is one of Heinlein's better juveniles.

I recommend Heinlein's "juveniles" for every sf reader--I personally feel they represent some of his best work. They can be read and enjoyed by adults; except for the age of the main characters, this books is as good as many adult novels published today. ...more

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Apr 21, 2013 Howard Brazee rated it really liked it

I haven't read this since it was new (written in 1956). It is still well written and holds up well. I was curious to see if I missed any discussion of the Special Theory of Relativity. Nope, just the General theory. It would have been easy to show both.

I expect most readers here are familiar with it - torch ships go to the nearest stars at relativistic speeds with the protagonist and his twin brother (left on Earth) as one of the telepathic instantaneous communicators. ...more

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Apr 15, 2018 Heather rated it liked it

Very dated, but still entertaining if you take the male point of view with a grain of salt, and see it for what it is...one of the first space travel books from the 1950s. This was the first Heinlein I read when I was a kid.

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Feb 26, 2020 Paul Weiss rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, science-fiction

“This is why you [] were brought along: for research into the nature of time”

TIME FOR THE STARS is #10 in the deservedly popular series of Juvenile sci-fi novels by Heinlein and, with a few notable exceptions, it has withstood the ravages of time quite well.

Heinlein posits an indefinite future time in which the earth’s population is bursting at the seams and its resources are stretched beyond their capacity to deal with that population. Mankind has developed the technology to travel at near ligh ...more

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Jun 13, 2017 Joan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, ya-books, j-books, 5-6-fiction, adventure, fiction, read-in-2017

These days I suppose it would go YA. It was in the juvenile section when I was a kid. It likely isn't one of Heinlein's well known books. Actually, it is likely one of his less known works. Tom and Pat are twins, and telepathic. As a result of that discovery, they are to transmit info for the exploration Torch Ship "Lewis and Clark". Earth is overcrowded and they need new planets so that is their mission, to discover new planets for humanity. However, the ship encounters the issue of time going ...more

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About Robert A. Heinlein

Robert A. Heinlein

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Robert Anson Heinlein was an American novelist and science fiction writer. Often called "the dean of science fiction writers", he is one of the most popular, influential, and controversial authors of "hard science fiction".

He set a high standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of literary quality. He was the first SF writer to break into mainstre ...more