Heinlein's Children: The Juveniles

by Joseph T. Major

"Mr. Major's study of Heinlein's juveniles emphasizes plot development and incident, considers what Heinlein was trying to do in each story and how well he succeeded, and also points out possible influences from other sources. "Major does not waste the reader's time trying to "deconstruct" stories to make political points about our own times. The closest he comes to that is in considering the controversy that exploded around Starship Troopers (1959) and why the book was denounced as militaristic and fascist by some critics (many of whom understood little about the military and even less about fascism). Scribner's published the first twelve of Heinlein's juveniles, but balked at Starship Troopers-too much red meat for young readers, apparently-so Heinlein sold the last two of his juveniles to Putnam's. "This book is introduced by Alexei Panshin, whose own Advent books Heinlein in Dimension and SF in Dimension reflect a quite different way of analyzing the works of Robert A. Heinlein."

535 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2006