Rocket Ship Galileo

© 1947 by Robert Heinlein

Sigh. Invariably when you read anything about Heinlein you get the obligatory tar-and-feather treatment from too many alleged critics. Perhaps it’s a perceived threat to their closely-held socio-political beliefs. Perhaps it’s a case of reading too much peer-perpetuated pablum about Heinlein and not reading Heinlein himself. Hmmm. Naw, Heinlein is unabashedly “fascist”, to use that way-overused term as his judges, juries, and executioners use.

Except in Rocket Ship Galileo, Heinlein’s heroes are fighting actual fascists.

Before going further, let’s dispatch with this “fascist” nonsense. Like the word “racist”, it’s a commonly used ad hominem attack to discredit those who hold beliefs you don’t like without having to address directly those beliefs. Instead of saying, “Bob’s a guy who holds a strict conservative interpretation of the Constitution and adheres to the traditions our society was founded on,” they call Bob a “fascist.”

Here’s my belief: if Heinlein were alive today, he’d be down at one of those Washington DC protests with the Tea Partiers. Does that explain things?

From the handful of Heinleinian books I have read, a few things strike me. First, he is outspoken and proud about his beliefs. He is most certainly a full-fledged supporter of the right to bear arms. In certain cases he’s free-market and for small government, decentralized government. He is definitely not politically correct. His characters are all straight out of the Forties and Fifties, transplanted to Futuria, but they are all Heinlein.

Let’s talk only about his novels. Broadly speaking, they’re grouped into two types. He’s written a bunch of space adventures for youngsters and, generally later on chronologically, a bunch of more adult, more complex works. The latter will definitely make true-blue conservatives blanch quite a bit, as Heinlein often explores taboo counter-cultural and sexual material. The former series of books obviously do not breach such topics, but, I think, fall more squarely into the crosshairs of that “fascist” criticism.

Essentially, though, all this foolishness of “fascism” is overblown. These youth books are all darn good. They are uplifting, can-do epics that engage the imagination and bring a sense of wonder and a spirit of limitless adventure to those little skulls full of mush. There’s a dozen of them:

Rocket Ship Galileo (1947)

Space Cadet (1948)

Red Planet (1949)

Farmer in the Sky (1950)

Between Planets (1951)

The Rolling Stones (1952)

Starman Jones (1953)

The Star Beast (1954)

Tunnel in the Sky (1955)

Time for the Stars (1956)

Citizen of the Galaxy (1957)

Have Space Suit - Will Travel (1958)

I think I’ma gonna give my nephew a Christmas package of three or four.

If you’ve read my reviews, you know I have fond memories of the idealized Fifties as they’ve been presented to me via the classic SF movie and the classic SF novel (or short story). The roll-up-your-sleeves and get-your-hands-dirty can-do spirit. The dangling cigarette that never gave you emphysema or lung cancer. The women making their homes and the men bringing home the bacon as hard-drinkin’ hard-livin’ scientists, lassoing the atom and riding a bucking rocket across the skies.

Well, with Heinlein it’s the Forties. The fascist troglodytes who populate his stories are unenlightened enough to drive any college lit professor apoplectic. But you know what? I don’t care for that. That’s not what I’m looking for, nor are his legions of fans, when they open up a book, especially one of those “juvenile” novels.

What do you get? You get a crash course in physics. Throw in some engineering, chemistry, and astronomy. Also, heaping upon heaping of dash and daring. What is fear in a Heinlein novel except something that we all naturally overcome with guts, brawn, and brain? There is no scientific advance too risky, no alien invasion force too dastardly, no force of nature too overwhelming, that it can’t be conquered and mastered by a group of intelligent teenage boys.

In Rocket Ship Galileo, we have three high school grads pal’ing around at the Rocketry Club. Sure enough, an uncle, the Nobel-prize winning Doctor Cargraves, is seeking stealthy help to build a special rocket. As a boat-rocker, Doc Cargraves has been shunned or bureacracized into a straitjacket. These three young lads are precisely the inspiration and elbow grease he needs to reach the moon.

The first three-quarters of the book are wonderful! Perfect for any young kid interested in science fact and fiction, as I was and still am (though I’m an old kid now). Then, Rocket Ship Galileo gets a little weird. For what do our three young heroes and their middle-aged Manhattan Project mentor discover, three pages after landing on Luna?

Nazis!

The book was written in 1947, so I guess they were a readily handy villain. And it was written for kids, so they’re of the moustache-twirling variety of villain. And I must admit, Heinlein has that rare gift of pulling you into his prose. As ridiculous as it sounds, you are there, on the moon, fightin’ Nazis. (Why does this paragraph sound in my head likes its being recited by a Southern-inflected Brad Pitt?)

So, it’s good for what it is, and it’s good for more. Plus, it’s great for any ten-year-old SF enthusiasts you might know. It’ll entertain them and leave them a little better off once they’ve finished it. Don’t listen to those tweed-jacketed longhairs who see fascists under every bed and on every television set and at every tea party.