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Heinlein at his best

Customer Rating:
"Tunnel in the Sky" by Robert Heinlein is an excellent and very entertaining science fiction novel for "juveniles" and young adults. Patrick Shepard "hyperpat' gives a very good, competent, review. There is no need to repeat his work. So, what else can I say?

Robert Heinlein fans tend to be folks who like to think. Heinlein may argue for this or that, but he was a very private person and his "public" writings do not always agree with each other, partly because he hid his actual views in any given story. Readers need to read a dozen or more of Heinlein's books before forming judgements about Heinlein's actual views.

Among other hard science fiction, this book uses a 'tunnel' as a way of moving from one place to another, often very remote place. That may be unique to this novel. Except for the "Stargate" TV series, I do not think I have seen any other author use Heinlein's 'Tunnel' to travel. Niven and a few other authors, including the series "Star Trek" use a 'transporter' type of device (different SF 'physics') for more local travel, but that is not Heinlein's 'Tunnel'.

Over his career, I think that Heinlein used more different ways to achieve interstellar travel than any other science fiction writer.

The point of all this is to say that Heinlein was a more sophisticated writer than many of his critics are willing to believe.

Read this story! It is entertaining and a very good story!

One of Heinlein's Best

Customer Rating:
Long before Robert Heinlein turned his considerable talents to 500-page discussions of marriage and incest in the Howard Family, he had reached the peak of his powers with his so-called "juveniles." These were stories of regular, identifiable young people thrust into some of the most imaginative and exciting adventures in all of science fiction. Tunnel in the Sky is perhaps the best, and most memorable, of these works. You'll remember this book years after you read it, from the vivid portrayal of the protagonist's first night on a wild, alien planet, to the eminently satisfying end of this deeply engaging story. Heinlein makes you feel as if you were there for every moment of it.

I wish I had read it when I was 12

Customer Rating:
Tunnel in the Sky is an easy, quick and entertaining read. Teenagers will learn a lot from this book and adults may learn a few things, too.

Whenever I read the classics of science fiction I have to remind myself that even though a lot of the ideas expressed seem commonplace now, they were new and often controversial when the stories were first published. The notion that a woman would be part of an elite fighting force was unheard of in the 1950's, but in Tunnel in the Sky, the protagonist's sister is not just part of one-- she's commands it. It has been my experience that Heinlein's female characters are, most of the time, intelligent and capable, while at the same time retaining their femininity, which isn't always found in science fiction. So, I would recommend this book to young girls especially.

The dialogue is dated (it would be nice if people actually spoke this way), but the concepts are not. An all around fun book to read.

A very good read - but some problems

Customer Rating:
Tunnel in the Sky is one of Heinlein's Juvenile books and stars a teenager about graduate high school but with one last exam. The exam is for him to be put stranded on an unknown planet with an unknown terrain and be prepared for basically anything. There is also the possibility of death during the exam and this is the first problem with the book. The idea of putting high school students, as part of their HS courses, in such grave danger where some of them are indeed killed and many are very seriously wounded is crazy. What kind of future society would deliberately risk the lives and limbs of HS students like this? They also allow the students to take high powered guns, indeed any weapon they want, again unsupervised and alone on a far away planet. The other problem I have is that Heinlein basically moves the 1950's into some remote future (date unknown). This novel has 50's all over it, with the children using such phrases as "golly" and "fiddlesticks" and Cleaver type families. But these things aside, the book is great. Rod is a great leading character who makes mistakes and isn't a cardboard cutout, the supporting roles are also filled out nicely with good characters who behave like people. This book is a great read and any science fiction fan young or old will enjoy every thing it has to offer, despite being originally part of Heinlein's juvenile line-up. I highly recommend it.

Sci-fi version of Lord of the Flies, only happier

Customer Rating:
I highly recommend this for teenagers -- and like all Heinlein, it has some good stuff in there for any thoughtful person. This is the sci-fi version of the darker Lord of the Flies (pulished one year earlier in 1954).