Red Planet (novel)
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| Red Planet | |
 First edition cover |
|
| Author | Robert A. Heinlein |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Clifford Geary |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Scribner's |
| Publication date | 1949 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
| Preceded by | Space Cadet |
| Followed by | Farmer in the Sky |
Red Planet is a 1949 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein about students at boarding school on Mars. It represents the first appearance of Heinlein's idealized Martian elder race (see also Stranger in a Strange Land). The version published in 1949 featured a number of changes forced on Heinlein by Scribner's, since it was published as part of the Heinlein juveniles. After Heinlein's death, the book was reissued by Del Rey Books as the author originally intended.
In 1994, the novel was adapted by Lee Gunther's Gunther-Wahl Productions into an animated miniseries, featuring the voices of Mark Hamill, Roddy McDowall and Nick Tate.
[edit] Plot summary
On Mars, Jim Marlowe and Frank Sutton travel to the Lowell Academy boarding school for the start of the academic year. Jim takes along his native, volleyball-sized pet, Willis the Bouncer, who is intelligent and speaks as well as a young child. At a rest stop, Willis wanders off and encounters one of the adult sentient Martians. The creature takes the two boys to join a ritual called "growing together" along with a group of its fellows. They also share water, making Jim, Frank and the Martian named Gekko "water friends."
At school, Jim gets into trouble with the authoritarian headmaster, Mr. Howe, who confiscates Willis, claiming it is against the rules to have pets. When Jim and Frank sneak into Howe's office and rescue Willis, the bouncer repeats two overheard conversations between Howe and Beecher, the unscrupulous colonial administrator of Mars, detailing Beecher's plans for Willis and the colony. When Beecher learns Howe has a bouncer, he is ecstatic, as the London Zoo is willing to pay a hefty price for a specimen. Worse, Beecher is secretly planning to prevent the annual migration (necessary to avoid the severe winter conditions) in order to save money. The boys run away from school to warn their parents.
When Howe alerts the authorities to arrest the "thieves," the boys set out to skate the thousands of miles back to their home. One freezing night, they take shelter inside a Martian cabbage plant (nearly suffocating). Later, they contact some Martians, who accept Jim as a friend because of his relationship to Willis and his water-friendship with Gekko. Jim falls into a dream-like state where he seems to experience everything that happened to Willis since he met Jim. He feels that this took an immense amount of time (weeks or months), but for Frank only one night has passed.
The Martians send the two boys back to their home in the South Colony by a "subway" that transports them a long way in a short time without any feeling of motion.
Once warned, Jim's father quickly organizes the migration, hoping to catch Beecher off guard. The colonists take over the boarding school and turn it into a temporary shelter. Howe locks himself in his office, while Beecher sets up armed guards outside to stop the dissidents from leaving. After two people are killed while trying to surrender, the colonists decide they have no choice but to rebel. During the night, they sneak out, take control and proclaim their independence from Earth. The crusty Doctor MacRae and the two boys are heroes.
Howe hides out in his office. This ends when several adult Martians enter the school and confront Howe over his scheme to sell Willis. They surround him, hiding him from sight; when they separate, Howe is nowhere to be found. Beecher meets the same fate. The Martians then present the colonists with an ultimatum: leave the planet or else.
Jim's relationship with Willis ultimately saves the colony. As the Martians' anger at the idea of Willis being sold to the London Zoo demonstrates, the bouncer is very important to them. Doctor MacRae theorizes that Martians start life as bouncers, metamorphose into adults, then continue their lives after death as "old ones." Whatever the reason, Willis's love for Jim persuades the Martians to let them stay.
In the end, Jim prepares to give Willis up so he can undergo the transformation to adulthood. As with Podkayne of Mars, there are two versions of the ending. As originally written (and published much later) it is made clear that Willis will not emerge as an adult for fifty years. This was censored by Heinlein's publishers, as was a discussion in which MacRae expresses strong views against gun control.
[edit] Connections with Stranger in a Strange Land
The life cycle of Martians (as theorized by Doctor MacRae) is the same in Stranger in a Strange Land. It is noted in this novel that the "old ones" inhabit two planes of existence: the physical and the (unspecified) other. Further, the water friends theme is recapitulated in Stranger in a Strange Land as "water brothers." Furthermore, the Martian ability to make an item or person disappear, which was a major plot point in Stranger, is demonstrated here, and the general description of Martians is the same.
[edit] External links
- Red Planet publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
