Time for the Stars

"Time for the Stars" by Robert Heinlein is good reading, without any serious issues about the author. Heinlein always offers some controversial thoughts through his characters, but he is not intrusive about this habit in this book. While readers today may be more skeptical about telepathy than the folks of fifty years ago, the story is good enough that most people will be willing to suspend their disbelief in order to enjoy the really terrific science fiction. I will say that I have seen twins communicating by their own `secret' language and I understand that the phenomenon is more marked with identical twins. Is that really telepathy? Good question. These days, science is very skeptical about that, but, fifty years ago, science was halfway convinced that telepathy was real. There are no wars here and no actual militarism, but there are dangerous encounters and crew members die. There is little politics (for Heinlein). However, there is a wonder filled interstellar trip, with lots of 'hard' science fiction. And, there is the development of the major character, Tom. I do not feel compelled to tell you more than that and to urge you to read it for yourself.

This is another one of those Heinlein 'juveniles' published by Charles Scribners that are no longer marketed as such. They never go out of print because they are such great stories. Set in the future, Earth is overpopulated. An interstellar expedition is formed in order to identify and survey possible earth-type planets. At the same time, it is successfully demonstrated that telepathy is possible. To the astonishment of the researchers, telepathy is instantaneous and ignores the inverse square law. Distance is not a factor. A top secret project is formed to identify and recruit telepathic pairs for the expedition. Instead of waiting years for the fleet to report back, Earth can get the valuable information in real time. Enter the Bartlett twins Tom and Pat. They sign up for the project. One will remain on Earth while the other goes with the expedition. However because of the Lorentz-Fitzgerald time contraction, the twin in space will age much slower than for his earthside counterpart. What's the beauty of this book? It's a very strong character driven story. Tom and Pat are not Damon and Pythias. Tom has always been dominated by his brother in a million subtle ways. The relationships Tom forms with his fellow explorers are complex yet realistic. Heinlein understands the personal dynamics of shipmates from his time in the U.S. Navy. Heinlein also understands the problems of exploration. The simple fact is exploration is an extremely risky business. Your superior technology may not help if your numbers are few and you're far from home. I'll end this before I give up much more of the story. You will find it a fast and entertaining read.

In this story of telepathic twins, Heinlein does better than usual at balancing characters, logic, sentiment, science, and suspense. Each aspect of the novel is fascinating, from the revelation of the twins' telepathy to their ultimate separation by 63 light years of space and some 80 years time. Heinlein carefully makes future society and star travel seem real, all while making his characters live. If you like good old fashioned space exploration adventure with some profound insight thrown in, this is your best bet. I've read this book twice, and again found I could not put it down.

This book goes to show you the different attitudes prevailing in SF compared between the fifties when this book was written and the ideas today. Today, if someone took the concept of twins being separated by relativistic effects (ie one ages faster than the other . . . go read a physics textbook for the equations) it'd be a massive complex novel detailing the cultural shock and changes, the emotional cost, and mostly have a really downer attitude about it, treating it, for the most part "realistically" whatever that's supposed to mean in science fiction. But that's now and we're talking about then. Here Heinlein takes two vastly different concepts, telepathy between twins and the travelling between the stars in ships moving at barely sub-light speeds. The focus here is on both SF adventure and what it means to leave everything you know and have not only your entire family grow old and die while you age much slower but have the whole world change (Heinlein's future slang is a gas), while you stay the same. It's a fun story, and the main character, the twin that goes, narrates his story somberly but still with a dash of zest in his voice, for all the regret he feels at being left behind, he's having a grand adventure and seeing things that no one else has ever seen. Not that it's all fun and games and a lot of things happen before the mission is over, some good and some bad. Like I said, it's a light story, you won't find anything totally deep here but it's all handled capably, as you'd imagine a master like Heinlein dealing with this . . . but please don't read it as a gender study guide and keep in mind that it was written in the fifties, when women weren't expected to do all that much. Asking permission from your husband for just about everything was the order of the day mostly . . . just don't let it bother you. Other than that, it's good solid fun, though the ending comes totally out of left field (unless I missed something), but it's a great example of the golden age of SF, when anything seemed possible. For those who want a slightly darker take on the same subject . . . go read Joe Haldeman's The Forever War and that should knock the depress-o-meter right off the scale. Still a good book though. They're both good. Read them both, now!

Im not a good review writer but it was a great book.Not to much action but very detailed and exciteing still.It just grabs your interst.