In this bi-weekly series reviewing classic science fiction and fantasy books, Alan Brown looks at the front lines and frontiers of the field; books about soldiers and spacers, scientists and engineers, explorers and adventurers. Stories full of what Shakespeare used to refer to as “alarums and excursions”: battles, chases, clashes, and the stuff of excitement.
Every Heinlein juvenile is different, but Between Planets stands out from the crowd. The setting is a revolutionary war between Terra and its colonies, Venus and Mars. The hero, Don Harvey, must survive murderous secret police, space battles, invasions, jungle warfare, and even more space battles. All of Heinlein’s juvenile protagonists face jeopardy, but Don sees more than his share. The result is a book that transcends the juvenile category, a coming-of-age story that appeals to readers of all ages.
Between Planets was published as a Scribner’s juvenile in 1951, and has the distinction of being serialized twice. The first was in Blue Book magazine just before the hardcover publication, while the second was a somewhat modified version in comic strip format that appeared in Boy’s Life magazine in 1978.
I’m not sure when I first encountered Between Planets. I believe it was one of the juveniles I missed in my youth, and my first exposure was when I listened to an audio drama version from Bruce Coville and the Full Cast Audio group (they’ve done audio versions of many Heinlein juveniles, and if you can find them, they are worth a listen). I wanted to have a physical copy to consult for this review series, so I purchased a used Science Fiction Book Club omnibus, To the Stars, which includes Between Planets, The Rolling Stones, Starman Jones, and The Star Beast.
During research for this review, I stumbled across an introduction to a Baen reprint of this book, written by Heinlein biographer William H. Patterson, Jr., which touches on Heinlein’s thoughts regarding the juvenile series in general, and this book in particular (you can read it here). It offers some interesting background on the editorial pressure that kept Heinlein from portraying anything more than a hint of romance in his juveniles.
About the Author
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) was one of America’s most widely known science fiction authors, frequently referred to as the Dean of Science Fiction. I have often reviewed his work in this column, including Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, “Destination Moon” (contained in the collection Three Times Infinity), The Pursuit of the Pankera/The Number of the Beast, and Glory Road. From 1947 to 1958, he also wrote a series of a dozen juvenile novels for Charles Scribner’s Sons, at a time when the firm was interested in publishing science fiction novels targeted at younger readers, particularly boys. These novels include a wide variety of tales, and contain some of Heinlein’s best work (the books I’ve already reviewed in this column are underlined, with links to the review): Rocket Ship Galileo, Space Cadet, Red Planet, Farmer in the Sky, Between Planets, The Rolling Stones, Starman Jones, The Star Beast, Tunnel in the Sky, Time for the Stars, Citizen of the Galaxy, and Have Spacesuit Will Travel.
The Fascist Federation
While there are similarities to the worlds portrayed in each Heinlein juvenile, each of them stands on their own. One thing the worlds generally have in common, though, is that they are dangerous places for their protagonists. And the world of Between Planets ranks among the most dangerous of these settings: ruled by the Terran Federation, a fascist state that controls not only the world, but the entire inhabited solar system. If there was a Space Patrol in this world, as Heinlein portrayed in previous juveniles, they seem to have failed in their mission, because the planet appears to exist in the aftermath of an atomic war.
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Emergent Properties
The police in the Federation operate with impunity. They follow and surveil whoever they want, arrest who they want, and appear indifferent when someone dies in custody. There are no traces of safeguards like probable cause, search warrants, or Miranda warnings in their procedures. One of the main venues in the story is New Chicago. While there is no mention of what happened to old Chicago, a large portion (if not all of) the new city is burrowed deep into rock, and there are active air raid procedures in place, implying that old Chicago did not have a happy ending.
The Federation has a giant space station in orbit, Circum-Terra Station, which in addition to being a way station for travel between planets, is also the repository for large numbers of atomic bombs, and even fusion bombs. These weapons keep restive nations in check around the world. The Federation also attempts to impose itself on its colony worlds, and seems indifferent to the wishes of the indigenous races of those worlds. While Mars and Venus are habitable, as they are in the other Heinlein books, the races that inhabit them are different in Between Planets. The Venusian otter people of Space Cadet are replaced with giant intelligent dragons, while the tall and mysterious Martians of Red Planet are replaced in this story by smaller people with vestigial wings, who have trouble in the heavier gravity and thick atmospheres of Terra and Venus.
The political situation shares some similarities with that of the English Colonies of the American Revolutionary War. This is not a new theme for Heinlein, as he used it in books like Red Planet and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but here the parallels are more obvious. The biggest difference between this book and the other juveniles comes at the end of the novel, as the rebels develop super-weapons that completely change the balance of power and have the capacity to transform human society. It is the kind of development that is hard to fit into any future history, because it changes the game completely. The fact that Between Planets is not part of a future history, however, gives Heinlein a chance to fully explore these interesting ideas.
Between Planets
Don Harvey is a student at an all-male boarding school/dude ranch in New Mexico, a type of school that was once relatively common, but now reads as an anachronism. He is three months from graduation, after which he will join his Earth-born father and Venus-born mother on Mars, where they work at a research station (Don himself was born on a spaceship between planets, hence the title of the book). He is out riding his horse when he receives a call on the phone built into his saddle (Heinlein foresaw cell phones—rare among writers in those days). The headmaster asks him to return immediately, because his parents want him to leave for Mars on the next possible rocket. The headmaster assumes this is because of increasing tensions between the Federation and the colony worlds.
Don flies to New Chicago, and at the airport meets a native from Venus, where he’d spent most of his youth. The dragon-like creature uses the name of Sir Isaac Newton when speaking to Terrans, and the two exchange pleasantries in the whistling speech of Venus. Sir Isaac Newton is a delightful character, eccentric and charming from his first appearance. Don’s parents urge him to visit his “uncle,” a Doctor Dudley Jefferson, before leaving. The doctor takes him to a restaurant that features scantily clad female dancers (I’m not sure how Heinlein thought that detail was appropriate for a juvenile). The doctor asks if Don received the package he’d sent to the school, Don says he hasn’t, and the doctor insists that he cannot leave on his journey without it. At the doctor’s apartment, security police are waiting; after searching the place and interrogating both of them, the police coldly inform Don that the doctor is dead of a sudden heart attack. Don is disturbed, and heads back to his room, where the package from the doctor has arrived, forwarded from school. It contains a cheap plastic signet ring, and Don puts it on, wondering what all the fuss was about.
In the morning Don arrives at the spaceport and encounters more bureaucratic interference and police questioning. It is not easy for someone like him, without a home world, to travel. He sees Sir Isaac Newton, volunteers to share a compartment with him, and helps with treatment when the dragon has medical difficulties. When they arrive at Circum-Terra Station, they find it in the hands of the “Venus Republic High Guard,” a newly minted military group. No flights will be leaving for Mars, and they want to send Don back to Earth. But if he can’t go to Mars, Don would prefer to go to Venus. Sir Isaac Newton (a member of Venusian royalty, as it turns out) repays Don’s kindness by vouching for him, and insisting they allow him to go to Venus (one of those little object lessons about good deeds that Heinlein likes to slip into his juveniles).
The High Guard load the civilians into ships bound for Earth, set off a nuclear weapon to show what they could have done, and then blow up the station itself. The paranoid Federation destroys the ships loaded with civilians, fearing they are part of an attack, and blames the slaughter on the High Guard. A sergeant explains to Don that without its cache of orbiting nuclear weapons, the tyrannical Federation will be too tied up with revolts and international clashes on Earth to be able to move against Venus.
When he arrives on Venus, Don goes to the local IT&T office to send a message to his parents, but discovers his Federation money is worthless (he does meet a pretty young woman named Isobel Costello along the way, so his errand is not a total loss). He gets a dishwashing job with room and board from a man named Charlie who runs a Chinese restaurant (there is a labor shortage caused by young men joining the military). Someone breaks in and attempts to rob him—he suspects they are after the mysterious ring he has been carrying, so he goes to Isobel, and asks her to store it in her office safe. She agrees, and the two begin a friendship (in the very chaste manner of juveniles in that era).
Then the Federation attacks (so much for the plan to tie them up with problems on Earth). Charlie is murdered by an attacking soldier, and Don ends up in a prison camp. He escapes, and Heinlein gives us the harrowing account of his desperate flight across the trackless swamps of Venus. Don joins the military for a long stretch, and while the book doesn’t give details, it implies he has killed men in a number of ways, including up close and personal with his knife. Eventually, Don is finally reunited with Sir Isaac Newton, who (it turns out) is associated with scientists who are resisting the Federation—including Don’s parents. It transpires that Isobel and her father from the IT&T office are also members of the resistance. Everyone asks Don where the ring is, and when he admits having given it to Isobel, she fishes it out of her clothing. The resistance had the ring for months, and didn’t know it…
We learn that the ring has all sorts of secret scientific information embedded in it in a kind of nano-text, and soon there is a crash project to develop weapons that will transform human society to a degree beyond even the development of nuclear weapons. I will leave the rest of the story aside, so as not to spoil any surprises about the ending of the novel.
Final Thoughts
Between Planets is one of the most engaging of Heinlein’s juveniles, a feat accomplished largely by keeping poor Don in constant jeopardy from beginning to end, which forces him to grow up rather quickly. He is a target of murderous secret police operatives, caught first in the invasion of a space station and then of the Venus colony, is lost in the swamps of Venus, serves as a revolutionary guerilla, and then ends up right in the middle of even more space battles. If you want action, adventure, and humor in your coming-of-age stories, then this is definitely the novel for you. I should note that I especially enjoyed the side characters, with Sir Isaac Newton an eccentric delight, and Isobel a self-confident young woman who never needs rescuing. And now I look forward to hearing from you, whether it is regarding Between Planets in specific, or Heinlein’s juvenile series in general.
This is the juvenile that I have read the fewest times. I saw it in Boys Life, which dates me, but my subscription lapsed (it is possible to move far enough into the country that Scouting is not an option), and I missed the end; a decade later I read the book, but unlike almost all the other juveniles, I haven’t reread it, or glanced at highlights, etc., since then. I should pick it up again, just to see what old me thinks of it.
This has always been one of my favorites of the juveniles
This is one of the first books I remember reading, though I’m not sure about the timing. I remember the Boys Life serialization, and had wondered if that is what had set me to reading the book proper, but I know I’d read the Lord of the Rings by the date listed. It’ll always have a special place for me because of being so early, but I haven’t re-read it in decades.
I dunno. Given where Heinlein went when he was able to have a hint of romance, maybe it’s best his juveniles editors kept him strictly away from boy-girl stuff.
I never would have remembered I’d read this if it weren’t for the name of the Sir Isaac Newton character. None of the rest of the book has survived my old age.
There is some neat technology here, much ahead of its time – as well as the cellphones (also seen in Space Cadet) the stealth boats on Venus whose upper works are shaped to scatter radar; thermal imaging in common use, defeated by using water and animal herds as cover. And I liked Charlie the restaurant keeper, saving up his bone money.
“Charlie is murdered by an attacking soldier”
Not murdered. Charlie kills one of the soldiers with a meat cleaver, and is killed in return. Under LOAC I would argue that he’s a legal combatant as part of a levee en masses and therefore has a right to be killed. If you disagree, he’s a civilian who killed a soldier who wasn’t threatening his life, and therefore a murderer, and killing him was self defence.
Thanks for bringing up Don’s career as active military. He actually doesn’t want to go off and see Sir Isaac in the later half of the book- he wants to fight.
I always assumed the uncle was tortured to death or perhaps committed suicide, rather than having a heart attack.
@@.-@ Good point. Generally, the less sex there is in a Heinlein story, the more I enjoy it.
@7 Charlie’s restaurant is not a legitimate military target, and when heavily armed invaders burst in without any legal authority, I would argue it is Charlie who is defending himself. If Charlie, an old man wielding kitchenware, is a legal combatant, you could argue so is every adult civilian on the planet, which is a stretch. What happened could be interpreted different ways, but my sympathies are with the colonists.
“If Charlie, an old man wielding kitchenware, is a legal combatant, you could argue so is every adult civilian on the planet, which is a stretch”
I don’t want to get sidetracked, but you should read up on LOAC because it doesn’t always coincide with what you instinctively think it is. In particular it doesn’t vary with how sympathetic each side’s war aims are.
8: the Federation is a well portrayed authoritarian state – Heinlein also takes time to show the corrupting effect that living in such a state has, even on nice people. Dr Jefferson is heroically resisting the oppressive state – but he eats baked baby move-over.
From names dropped in both books, I would place “Between Planets” and “Starman Jones” in the same universe.
Here is a quote by William H. Patterson, Jr. for his introduction to Starman Jones.
“Samuel J. Moskowitz made the observation that Starman Jones is an expansion of Heinlein’s second story, “Misfit.” Heinlein often revisited his earliest story materials, but in this case he was also revisiting a recent story, Between Planets, his “boy’s book” for 1951. The “Horst-Conrad-Milne” interplanetary space drive of Between Planets has become in Starman Jones a sophisticated interstellar drive (though Milne got left off the name this time—as sometimes happens in real life; there is plenty of Einstein in Starman Jones, but no mention of Hermann Minkowski).”
Greg
I still have a copy, but then I think I have all in my library. One of my favorite of the juveniles, it was a bit more adult than some of the others. It is hard to knock any of them, since they were written for a specific audience and at a specific time. I first read at about the right age back in the 60s. I much preferred Heinlein of the writers of the time, because he was so much more optimistic than the others.
Heinlein never seemed to question the morality of humans colonizing planets that already had intelligent natives.
I didn’t read this one until well into adulthood – just a few years ago. Thought it was gripping and taut, though it ended awfully suddenly. Most of the characters are intriguingly drawn. Heinlein stops to pay attention to Don’s relatively comfortable upbringing and how it didn’t prepare him for hardship, which really helps set the scene. Isobel is a refreshing divergence from how the rest of the women in the novel are treated. There’s naturally a bit of sort of proto-libertarian commentary about big governments overstepping their bounds, but never mind: this is an imaginative adventure with lots of good suspense.
First, Heinlein and cellphones: check out his Astounding July 1941 story, also in his collection Green Hills of Earth ‘–We Also Walk Dogs’ –that ain’t no buzzing toaster she pulls out of her pocket to bark into. The earliest mention in SF of a cellphone I’ve managed to find so far. So many deep places in SF you dig, only to see on the wall, ‘Heinlein wuz Here’. First. As usual.
Second, I divide Heinlein’s work, roughly into three parts: 1) his early stories and novels, where he’s introducing one masterful concept after another, running on the pure nitro of his brilliant, scientifically-accurate imagination; 2) his immediately-postwar period consisting of both excellent mature novels (eg, ‘Double Star’ and short-story collections, plus the legendary Scribner juveniles, ending with Starship Troopers; then, 3) what I term his Hindenburg period, a series of novels begining with ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ and continuing until his death, novels fuelled by increasingly self-indulgent gaseous bloviating and icky sexual stuff.
I found it ironic that libertarian Heinlein hated, hated, hated being edited, and would accept such only from John Campbell, and resisted to the point of near-slander the tough-as-nails editing of Scribner’s editor, Alice Dalgleish. The irony is that SF’s most libertarian author who was always banging on about freedom produced his best work only when kept on a short leash by Campbell, and a tighter, much-resented editorial leash by Ms Dalgleish.
As for Between Planets, I think it’s the darkest, most politically mature of his Scribs, one with the most explicit violence, the highest (only?) body count. From the tired, overworked, exasperated Federation cop (who I still suspect of being a clandestine Resistance sympathiser: otherwise explain how a competent cop ‘overlooked’ the importance of the One Ring to Teach Them All, and got his career busted as a result) to the Fed interrogator’s pure evil Sydney Greenstreet-ish (Maltese Falcon, Casablanca) mixture of suavity and sadism, there’s a level of grim realism in this novel not present in his other juvies.
And I say all this as a reader who still adores Heinlein stuff before the Hindenbergs began to crowd the skies. Favorite Scrib character? Gotta be Mr Henry Kiku, the adorable, put-upon bureaucrat in The Star Beast who, in his quiet, bureaucratic way saves the Earth from getting its ass atomised by some real interstellar jerks. A guy who just wants to retire to a farm in Kenya and relax but who could tie the Vorgons in knots and make them like it as if they sufficiently annoyed him. Heinlein could be so sweet.
I think it’s the darkest, most politically mature of his Scribs, one with the most explicit violence, the highest (only?) body count. From the tired, overworked, exasperated Federation cop (who I still suspect of being a clandestine Resistance sympathiser: otherwise explain how a competent cop ‘overlooked’ the importance of the One Ring to Teach Them All, and got his career busted as a result) to the Fed interrogator’s pure evil Sydney Greenstreet-ish (Maltese Falcon, Casablanca) mixture of suavity and sadism, there’s a level of grim realism in this novel not present in his other juvies.
Agreed – the interrogator is a really unsettling villain, and very convincing. He’s very certain that he can do whatever he wants, and he’s right. (And the threat to Don’s horse in particular is very creepy.)
It’s not the only juvenile with a body count – even if we exclude Starship Troopers you’ve got the killing of the space Nazis in Rocketship Galileo, a couple of people being eaten in Have Space Suit – Will Travel, a few deaths in Tunnel in the Sky – but it’s a high one.
There’s a pretty high body count in “Farmer in the Sky” too. A good chunk of the colony wiped out when the heat trap fails.
17: no doubt; I haven’t read that one.
Thanks for comments on premature deaths in H’s YA’s, ajay 16 and wiredog 17. I should have been more specific: highest death toll due to state-sponsored military conflict.
Is it, in fact, the only one set during such a conflict?
@10 ajay. I went back and re-read the account of Charlie’s death, and now agree that “killed” would have been more accurate than “murdered.” My heart still says murder, but my head disagrees.
@20 While there are clashes and conflicts in many of Heinlein’s juveniles, I believe Between Planets is the only one set during a full scale war. Until Starship Troopers, of course, which was submitted as a juvenile, but rejected and published elsewhere.
Don isn’t told that his ‘uncle’ died of a heart attack, but of heart failure – which he silently notes is nothing more than the bare clinical (at time of writing) definition of death, implying that the manner of his death weren’t no natural causes. An early lesson for young me in reading between the lines…
@22: the business about “heart failure” is one of my strongest memories of the book
I also remember the part where “he died of heart failure” and “all deaths can ultimately be said to be caused by heart failure.”
This had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with my becoming a physician…