On Mars, members of Earth’s South Colony prepare to migrate north before winter arrives. It is also the beginning of a new school year at the academy on Syrtis Minor, near the North Colony. Returning to the school are best friends Jim Marlowe, Frank Sutton, and Jim’s pet, Willis. The latter is a round, furry Martian creature with the uncanny ability to remember everything it hears and repeat it with perfect accuracy.
This talent comes in handy when Jim, Frank, and Willis arrive at the academy and find themselves subject to the draconian rules and regulations of the new headmaster who confiscates Willis and locks the Martian in his office. While there, Willis overhears a conversation between the headmaster and the colony’s leader, Harold Beecher. After he is liberated by Jim and Frank, Willis recites all that he heard, including a plot to prevent the colonists in the south from migrating, thereby assuring that many will not survive the winter. With the headmaster monitoring all communications to and from the academy, there is no way to send a warning.
Can Jim and Frank break out of the school with Willis and survive the journey back to the South Colony on their own?
Published in 1949, Red Planet is the third in Heinlein’s juvenile novel collection (what might be called young adult in today’s vernacular). It’s a delightful romp with an imaginative take on indigenous Martians and their world’s landscape. I couldn’t help but think of Percival Lowell upon reading about the canals that our heroes traversed during their journey home.
Co-founder of String Field Theory, Doctor Michio Kaku discusses the scientific plausibility of a wide range of popular science fiction devices, abilities, and technologies in his book, Physics of the Impossible.
Bill Lerner and his father George decide to emigrate to Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, to begin a new life as farmers along with George’s new wife Molly and her young daughter, Peggy.
The first sixty percent of the story follows young protagonist Matt Dodson as he undergoes rigorous training as a cadet in the Solar Patrol Space Academy. While there, he befriends fellow cadets Tex Jarman, Oscar Jensen from the Venus colony, and Pierre “Pete” Armand from Jupiter’s moon Ganymede.
For as long as he could remember, young Thorby had been a slave—until he lands on Jubbal, one of the Nine Worlds of the Sargon Empire, and is purchased by a beggar named Baslim. It is not long before Thorby realizes that Baslim is no simple mendicant, but a spy and one who despises the slave trade. Once Baslim educates Thorby in reading, writing, mathematics, and even a bit of espionage, he frees Thorby from slavery and adopts him as his son.