Red Planet (Paperback)

Jim Marlowe is a youngster living on Mars, and he has a "pet"-friend named Willis. Willis is a "bouncer," a furry little guy of some intelligence whose most amazing quality is an innate capability to reproduce exactly anything he hears. Jim takes Willis with him when he and his friend Frank go off to school. The new headmaster makes life miserable for all the boys with his military discipline, and he has the audacity to take Willis away from Jim and lock him away in his office. A bold rescue attempt by the brave lads manages to recover Willis before the headmaster sells him off to the London Zoo, but the friends' joy soon turns to surprise when Willis plays back a conversation he overheard about the Company putting an end to the seasonal migrations on Mars. This means that Jim's family in the South will be forced to remain where they are all winter, where the temperature easily falls below one hundred degrees freezing. Now it is up to the boys to escape from the school and somehow find their way back home (hundreds of miles away) and inform their families of the Company's intentions. Only their bravery and a little help from Mars' unique native inhabitants give them a chance to save the day. The Martians are fascinating in and of themselves; needless to say, they are something entirely different from little green men.

This is speculative fiction. It doesn't really matter that we now know that Mars is totally unlike the Mars of Heinlein's story. This is just a riveting adventure of two brave boys and their unusual friend. The story could work in any number of settings. The science is there to build the framework, but Heinlein never indulges in any significant scientific pontifications. I have no problem enjoying Heinlein's juvenile fiction, largely because the pace of the narrative rarely slows down from start to finish. This is certainly the type of story I loved as a boy, and I still love it. Despite Scribner's editor Dalgliesh's misgivings, the unexpurgated text of Red Planet is a wonderful story of loyalty, honor, duty, family, adventure, mutual respect between cultures, scientific knowledge, freedom, and liberty--the very best type of tale for youngsters to read and enjoy then, now, and forever. I can hardly even guess at how many youngsters became life-long science fiction fans as a direct result of having read this incredible novel.

This is not to say that this is not a very good story, as it definitely meets all the requirements of a rollicking good read. Jim, his ‘pet’ Willis, and his friend Frank are two young men sent off to the Company sponsored school. Shortly after arriving there, a new headmaster is installed, who has very distinct ideas about what constitutes proper discipline, decorum, attire, and ‘rights’ the students should have. Naturally, this includes a ‘no pets’ rule, and Willis is ‘confiscated’. While Willis is held prisoner, he gets to overhear an interesting conversation between the headmaster and the head of the Company. When the boys rescue Willis, due to Willis’ ability to repeat verbatim whatever he has heard (complete with exact voice matches) they learn there is a plot afoot to disallow the migration that the colonists normally do each Martian year so they will not have to stay holed up throughout the Martian winter. How they manage to do something about this situation forms a fine adventure, and along the way we are introduced to the ‘real’ Martians. The Martians shown here are the same ones that later populate his Stranger in a Strange Land, complete with water-ceremonies and ‘old ones’, and are the most captivating items of this book.

Characterization is not excessively deep – it is very clear who are the good guys and who are not, and Willis makes a cute sidekick who has greater importance than is apparent at first glance. The human colony ‘society’ is not very well fleshed out (unusual for Heinlein), and in a couple of places this is irritating, with its assumptions of ‘Ozzie and Harriet” family structures and the place of women in society.

For a young reader, the dating of this book shouldn’t really be a problem – this is still a great adventure in a captivating setting. Adults may have more problems with this, but anyone looking for a little more about the Martians of Stranger in Strange Land should certainly give this book a look.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

***** Another one for the Heinlein Collector! A young colonist on Mars befriends a strange round creature called Willis who gets him into trouble when he goes away to school, but whose presence and friendship finally enable the colonials to negotiate a treaty with the Martians.