Between Planets

"I could be cannon food, destroyed a thousand times
 Reborn as fortune's child to judge another's crimes"

Sting - A Thousand Years


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Book commentary. Spoilers implied.
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I never did read the so-called "Heinlein juveniles" while part of their official target demographic. Coming at them in recent years as a somewhat jaded old nerd with two decades' worth of Fi mostly Sci under my belt constantly makes me wonder what sins an author must commit to be committed to the "young adult" purgatory. Between Planets was set as a fairly standard multi-globe-trotting planetary romance, sure, but then so were Dante Alighieri's paraversal acid trips and I'm not seeing many people rushing to label him a children's author. Aside from that issue?

The book seems aptly named. It comes across as an action-oriented interlude between the author's more thoughtful works. Venus rebels against tyrannical Terran hegemony. Cue the space marines and sentient space-dinosaurs. Yet even here Heinlein's subversive individualism inserted more social commentary than you'd find in any of the murder mysteries and spy thrillers maturely enjoyed by a mature public throughout the world. Some elements have, in the 70-80 intervening years, become action movie tropes - or were folklore staples long before that. A visit to a burlesque restaurant, a lovable curmudgeon getting his head shot off to motivate the hero against the villains, a respect for nature being rewarded, etc.

Other scenes would surprise anyone, like the hero's chilling realization after being informed of the death of his adult protector of "heart failure" under secret police interrogation, that any manner of death might ultimately be described thus. There's a bit of critical thinking to make any youth look twice at police reports and wartime propaganda. Or the open discussion of cyanide capsules versus torture. Or the boy's dogged resistance to the supposed good guys' insistence that he surrender the macguffin, demanding sufficient information to make up his own mind... rationally, rather than by divine heroic inspiration. Or the final conclusion that the best political system is not necessarily the Venusians or Terrans, but whichever lends individuals the greatest personal freedom.

Still other scenes amounted to typical Heinlein obsession with militarism, but even that was tempered by an incisive summation of tribalism and psychological dependence on authority... which I'll quote on Thursday.