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Red Planet by Robert A. Heinlein
01/03/2007 . Source: Eamonn Murphy 
pub: Del Rey/Ballantine. 255 page enlarged paperback. Price: $13.95 (US), $ 18.95 (CAN). ISBN: 0-345-49318-4. Buy Red Planet in the USA - or Buy Red Planet in the UK  check out website: www.delreybooks.com www.delreybooks.com and www.heinleinsociety.org www.heinleinsociety.org
'Red Planet' tells the tale of Jim and Frank, two teenagers who live on Mars in a colony which migrates every year from south to north to avoid freezing. The Martians are still around and have granted permission for an Earth colony but in general they avoid humans. Jim has a pet Martian animal/friend called Willis who behaves like a friendly talking puppy but has an extraordinary talent for reproducing any sound he hears, from entire symphonies to eavesdropped conversations.
When the boys go off to school, hundreds of miles away from home, Jim takes Willis with him. Willis is confiscated by the draconian new headmaster, a crony of the Regent General who runs Mars for the Company, run by people from Earth with no great regard for the colonists. Jim rescues Willis who repeats verbatim a conversation overheard in the headmasters office which indicates peril for Jim and Frank's colony. They sneak out of the school and begin the dangerous journey home which leads to close encounters with Martians and a revelation about cute little Willis. These same Martians feature as background in 'Stranger In A Strange Land', a very different book.
I saw an online review which said this isn't really Science Fiction but just a teenage adventure in a Science Fiction setting. I disagree. There is science galore including astronomy, engineering, ecology and alien anthropology. Heinlein melds it deftly into the story. It's dated, of course. We know a lot more about Mars now, but it was right for the time. He was a stickler for getting the science as true as possible and once did calculations for three days to make sure a rocket manoeuvre in 'Space Cadet' was viable. It only took up half a page of the story but he was too professional to bluff.
'Red Planet' is one of the so-called 'juveniles' that Heinlein wrote in the fifties. He turned out one a year for the Christmas trade and earned himself a generation of dedicated fans. This here is the unexpurgated version because his hated editor at Scribners cut out some 'sex' which consisted of an alien laying eggs and also some opinions about the right to bear arms. Heinlein's view on guns is that if decent citizens can't carry them then only criminals will and the danger is worse.
The citizens of South London and Manchester may have something to say on that but as far as the book goes there's not a whole lot of difference between this version and the original, which is no bad thing. Both are excellent. Later, Heinlein got too big for editors to hold back and produced gigantic volumes full of his opinions about everything. That was a bad thing but his writing 'voice' retained its charm and so made even those books very readable.
This, however, is classic Heinlein and I highly recommend it, especially for young adults for it will instil them with some good old-fashioned values. Any teenager who likes this will also like 'Have Space-Suit Will Travel', 'Citizen Of The Galaxy' and 'Starman Jones' and probably won't become no juvenile delinquent neither, even if he does carry a gun.
Eamonn Murphy
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