Have Space Suit—Will Travel (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
Is technological advancement social advancement?4 May 2014tI must say that when I read the first few pages of this book it had me in hysterics, particularly with the way Kip's father did his tax returns (by working it out in his head, then throwing a heap of money into an envelope and posting it off). Heinlein, in opening this story, created a rather eccentric family living in Centreville in what is known as small town USA. However, when I say eccentric, it is because Kip's father used to be a top scientist for the US government and then quit due to all the diplomatic rubbish that he pretty much got sick of dealing with (much like my own father).tHowever this book is not about his father, it is about Kip and his dream of going to the moon. This seems to be way out of his reach because, despite his father having immense influence, it does not seem that Kip will be able to get into a decent college. It is also interesting to hear Heinlein's indictment of the US public educational system, because the Centreville school is something that people like to go to, and they have fun going there, but it is hardly the type of school that will prepare you for an Ivy League education. Mind you, this is moreso today where unless you are going to a prep-school, don't think of being accepted into an Ivy League School.tAnyway, Kip stumbles across a contest where he can win a trip to the moon, however after doing everything that he can to stack the odds in his favour, he ends up winning a space suit, which he then spends most of his holidays getting into a better condition. This works out well because one evening, while wondering through the paddocks on his farm, he is kidnapped by aliens, uncovers an invasion plan, and then is whisked off to the Magellanic Cloud to be put on trial on behalf of the rest of his planet.tThis is a classic example of speculative science-fiction, something that I have come to expect from the classics of the genre written around this time. It differs a lot to what we see in our Star Wars and Star Trek soaked society of today. The aliens that are encountered tend to be of such a level that it is difficult for us to understand what is going on, and they tend to have socially evolved significantly beyond our petty desires to control and oppress. This is not the case with all the races we encounter, as is indicated with the creatures that Kip refers to as Wormface.tI found it somewhat interesting that despite the intergalactic court finding that the people of Earth to be a violent and barbarous race, they still saw fit to teach them advanced mathematics and also allow them access to Wormface's technology. It is clear that the Wormface were an advanced race of aliens that still had violent and dominating tendencies, and they were put out of action because of this, however while humanity was found to be in a similar position, giving them advanced technological knowledge is hardly going to change their social attitudes.tThis is the interesting thing about advancement because, and I think Heinlein recognises it in this book, technological advancement does not necessarily mean social advancement. We might be able to have a portable computer in our pocket that can pin point our location on the Earth with surprising accuracy, however if our neighbour is still starving and we do nothing about it then we are truly not an advanced race. Similarly with our desire to dominate others. We might be able to travel around the world with supersonic speed, but if we use that technology to bomb the crap out of other humans on rather flimsy pretences (namely that we simply cannot get along) then are we truly an advanced race? I think not.tTo me technological advancement means absolutely nothing if it does not move with social advancement. Granted we may have this vague notion of human rights, but as Zizek indicates, what human rights end up being, to us Westerners, are excuses to live selfish lives. The right to privacy is in fact the right to cheat on your wife, and the right to bare arms is the right to kill people by whom you feel threatened (even if that threat is only perceived). Then there is fear: an advanced race has a mature understanding of fear (that is respect) however we seek to imprison others by using fear, whether it be on a government level or on a spiritual level. The church are experts at using fear to control the masses, as is the government.tI guess this is what some of these speculative science-fiction texts are exploring: the nature of what it means to advance. Even back in the 1950s we were patting ourselves on the back suggesting that we were truly advanced. We had fought our way through two World Wars to see the idea of democracy (with its rather misinterpreted idea of freedom) prevail over the dictatorships, however it has been suggested that what that amounted to was that one dictatorship – the dictatorship of the wealthy – prevailed over the totalitarian dictatorships of the nobility. As I have mentioned previously, World War II was not the triumph of good over evil, but the triumph of the lesser evil over the greater evil.
I decided I needed to break it into two parts - one, the story itself and two, Heinlein’s tirade against society. Have Space Suit Will Travel is set in the 1950's and is one of his juvenile pieces of literature. Kip Russell dreams of going to the stars, and when Skyway Soap has a contest for best lingo with the prize being a trip to the Moon, Kip collects and submits 5000 entries. He doesn’t win the trip to the moon, but a space suit instead. If he returns the space suit to Goodyear by September, he will receive $500. But Kip upgrades and fixes said suit over the summer and when out on a walk on night (in the suit) is abducted by aliens. Kip fins himself on one heck of a space adventure involving “wormfaces”, the Mother-Thing, and his genius side-kick, 10 year old PeeWee. He finds himself on the Moon, Pluto and eventually beyond the Milky Way Galaxy in front of a galactic court to defend the human race. It was this part of the story that was fun and adventurous. I didn’t perceive this as a “coming of age” book that is so common in scifi and fantasy, but just a light space opera aimed at young adults. Where the book became annoying was Heinlein’s tirades against the states educational system. He denigrates the public education system (one of his common themes in his books), and Kip is smart enough to teach himself advanced mathematics, geometry and physics but yet must “settle” for going to the local state (read - inadequate) college because he isn’t good enough to get into MIT. I do get tired of Heinlein’s diatribes against the ills of 1950's society (Starship Troopers is another fine example - great book, hidden agenda). But if it really bothered me, I wouldn’t be reading Heinlein. The other issue I had with the story were the long, and I do mean long, graphic descriptions of how a space suit works, or Kip describing in mathematical terms how he is going to escape (again, part of Heinlein’s soapbox), and so on. Perhaps I’ve become rather shallow and jaded, but if I were a young adult, this book would probably bore the heck out of me. As an adult, I could appreciate (I didn't say 'like') his social commentary and what he was trying to get across.
What do You think about Have Space Suit—Will Travel (2005)?
PUBLISHER: R.H., we just got done reading your new book, and I have to say, bravo. This is your best one yet! The young boys of 1958 are going to love it. Heck, I love it. The whole setup was so clever, with the boy entering a jingle-writing contest for soap to win a trip to the moon? My wife really got a kick out of that -- i told her about it when she was washing dishes last night and she couldn't stop laughing! She sure does love soap commercials. And having the boy win a spacesuit instead of the grand prize -- genius! It really makes it exciting when he turns out to have an adventure anyway. Who would guess a spaceship would land right in his back yard? And piloted by a little girl on the run from Martians? Brilliant! You want to put a girl in there so to keep the women's movement off our backs, but she's still young enough to be a bratty kid so we don't have to worry about the sex. Lemme tell you, I am sick to death of hearing about all the sex corrupting our kids these days. The parts with the evil aliens are real good, real exciting. And how you made running out of air a big drama -- I never would have thought of that, not being able to breathe on the moon! You sure think up some nutty stuff. And the intergalactic trials and the telepathic cat creature... well, you know your plot, why am I telling you?There's just one thing: can you put in some math? We know what sells, and let me tell you, there is nothing boys like better than reading about math!HEINLEIN: Uh, yeah, I can put in some math. You still pay me by the word, right?PUBLISHER: You betcha, Bob.HEINLEIN: Yeah, I think you are right, I think math needs to be a big, big part of this story.
—j
This is the first of Heinlein's juvenile series that I've read. It's obvious from the writing that this book was intended for children. It was quite enjoyable to this old geezer nevertheless. I've read a couple of other children's science fiction books that are highly regarded - A Wrinkle in Time and The Giver. Have Space Suit-Will Travel is far superior to both of them. Kip wins a used space suit in a contest and his refurbishing of it seems technologically authentic. When he walks out in the back yard to test it, he is abducted by aliens. That seemed a bit over the top. I guess if you're going to be abducted by space aliens, it's a good thing if you're wearing your space suit. This does get explained, or at least rationalized, in the end. Another thing that bothered me a little was that when Kip and Peewee, another abductee, escaped their 'worm face' captors and finally returned to Earth, near the end of the book, Kip didn't try to contact his parents right away. But these are minor quibbles.After having adventures trying to escape from the evil aliens on the moon and on Pluto, our young heroes learn they are about to go to a planet in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. I thought, "Aha! Tralfamadore!" And then I realized, no, that's Vonnegut, not Heinlein. ;-)One thing that I really liked about this book is the hard science. Did kids in the fifties digest this stuff? Somehow I think schoolkids today wouldn't have a clue.References to the appearance of the Milky Way are from a bygone era. I've always lived in cities with lots of light pollution, so I've only seen it few times in my life, and never the M31 galaxy, the so-called Andromeda Nebula. I'd bet that the great majority of Americans have never seen the Milky Way.
—Buck Ward
I am certain I read this when I was a teenager. I'm not certain I've read it since. It has a certain degree of retro-charm: our story opens with our hero peeved that a person can just put down money and go to the Moon, but Kip still uses a slide-rule.But he tries to win a contest where the grand prize is a trip to the Moon, and as a consolation prize, he gets a space suit, which he brings up to spec, dubbing it Oscar. The night before he goes to sell it back to the company for his first year of college's tuition, he goes for a walk with it. And is hailed on the radio, which results in a flying saucer nearly landing on him. Well, not quite a saucer -- more sphere-ish. Shortly thereafter, he's abducted, along with Peewee, a little girl who was on that ship, and Mother Thing, an alien different from the one that abducted all three of them.That is where the adventure begins. It involves two treks across barren surfaces, of which the much shorter one is the more difficult -- though neither one is easy -- a rope that shatters, a language like birdsong, a doll that a little girl can't go to sleep without, prolonged conversations with Oscar, two human traitors, doing math without slide rules, and many discoveries.Still interesting in many ways.
—Mary Catelli
