Minor Thoughts from me to you

Tunnel in the Sky
by Robert A. Heinlein

My rating: ★★★★☆
Read From: 25 July 2013 - 26 July 2013

After reading (and being disappointed by) Darkship Renegades, I decided to read something from Heinlein himself, to cleanse the palate. I'd heard about Tunnel in the Sky last July, from a blog comment on Tor.com.

Whenever you’re sitting around and thinking to yourself, “You know I could really go for a novel in which is exactly like Lord of the Flies, but only in space,” then this is your book. Funnily enough, this book was published the same year as Golding’s Lord of the Flies and if it were up to me, it would be taught instead. The primary SF conceit of the novel deals with interplanetary colonization through big teleport jumps. Naturally some younger folks get stranded and certain ugly aspects of human nature are revealed. The only one of Heinlein’s “juvenilia” that I feel gets overlooked, and easily my favorite from that period.

It's a short read and I ripped through it pretty quickly. But it's a good one. As a "juvenile" (what we'd now call young adult) novel, it's a coming of age novel. Heinlein writes a story that's character driven, moves quickly, and is entertaining.

Heinlein spends a lot of time talking (through the story's events) about responsibility, proper attitudes towards survival, and what makes civilization. He uses the story to make a strong argument that proper government is a necessary component of civilization. That sounds odd, coming from a libertarian, but I think he wins his argument.

The government doesn't have to be large, overbearing, or especially powerful. But there are certain tasks that need to be done to protect the civilization (no matter how small it is). There are certain matters of organization and defense that need to be arranged. Someone has to give those orders and everyone else has to accept those orders as legitimate and proper.

Humanity invented government to allow that to happen. The type of government will differ in different times and different places. And each group of people will need to make their own decisions about what constitutes legitimate authority. Heinlein effortlessly illustrates all of this through the story as these lost students (high school and college aged) work to build a society once they realize that they've been stranded on an alien planet.

This story works on all levels. It's both thought provoking and entertaining. The philosphy doesn't interfere with the adventure, it merely backs it up and deepens it. This is definitely a story that I'll be recommending to my daughters as they grow older.