HEIRS OF HEINLEIN
Over the years, a number of writers have tried to assume the mantle Robert A. Heinlein left neatly hanging on a hook after he wrote his last juvenile novel, Podkayne of Mars (1963). [For the purist, POM wasn’t “actually” a juvenile, as it had a female protagonist with a little brother playing a minor role. Those same purists will tell you that Have Space Suit, Will Travel was the last juvenile Heinlein wrote in 1958. Purist or not, he was out of the juvie biz by 1963.]
The big question is, “Why would anyone want to assume that juvie mantle?”
The answer might be, “Only a few people, stuck in the fifties really do. We need SF written for TODAY’S teens! We need a SF Harry Potter!”
Others might reply, “Reading Heinlein was what brought me into science fiction when I was a kid! We need more books like that today, to bring teens into science fiction!”
But the really amazing consensus seems to say, “Why do we need kids to read SF? They’re all busy with their ipods and twitters and texting and crap. They don’t read anymore, so what’s the fuss?”
Hmmm…Let’s leave that “kids don’t read so why do we need to entice them into SF” thread for a later time and return to the Heinlein fray…
Just because no one has collected Heinlein’s juvie mantle, doesn’t mean people haven’t tried. There is a long and prestigious list of authors who have attempted to write the “Heinlein juvenile”. This list includes Roger Macbride Allen, David Brin, Orson Scott Card, John Christopher, Sheila Finch, Alan Dean Foster, David Gerrold, Margaret Peterson Haddix, James P. Hogan, Nancy Kress, Anne McCaffrey, Paul Melko, Jerry Pournelle, Charles Sheffield, William Sleator and Scott Westerfeld. While none of them has succeeded (in my humble opinion), some have created new niches for themselves in the backpack of your average teen.
Anne McCaffrey’s books are stocked in my high school and local public libraries. I occasionally see copies floating out and about on the desk as I walk the tables during labs or tests. No one will argue that the Harper Hall books are teen lit; some might argue that the other books weren’t WRITTEN for teens, but it’s a fact that Lessa was a teen in Dragonflight – and as it turns out, exactly the kind of teen Heinlein was wont to create. Right? Perhaps yes, perhaps no.
The quintessential Heinlein teen novel is of course Orson Scott Card’s Ender's Game (and its neverending sequels). Every young male who reads SF has read EG and quite a few young ladies have read it as well. When I do Young Author’s Conferences and I ask for a show of hands of the people who have read EG, there is a virtual sea from seventh grade on up. Card clearly scored a hit, and if we had to award the mantle right now, it would go to him. Ah…but not yet, and not for sure.
A recent arrival on the scene is English young adult horror/SF/fantasy writer, Scott Westerfeld with his books, Uglies, Pretties, Specials and Extras. They clearly and grimly depict a dystopian world where everyone must conform to a mandated form of beauty. These books float off the shelves of bookstores and rarely remain in libraries for long. He’s clearly in the running to take up Heinlein’s mantle. But does he have what it takes?
Alan Dean Foster created Flinx and his minidrag Pip and while many of the books are about a teenaged Flinx, they aren’t necessarily FOR teens – though teens are invited to read them. He’s a good candidate for the Heinlein juvie mantle…maybe.
Margaret Peterson Haddix, author of the creepy, dystopian world inhabited by the Hidden – third children of families forbidden to have more than two children certainly leads the younger teen crowd into a grim future reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984. But in this world there is hope and human nature being what it is, there are many Thirds. The series details escape and eventual revolution. Another good candidate…most likely…
Last of all is John Christopher. An Englishman like Westerfeld, he created The Tripod Trilogy in 1967 and 1968 (and then added a fourth, a series prequel twenty years later). His books depict a grim world of alien domination and environmental alteration to alien needs. These are still on the shelf as well. I rarely see these books floating about, but they’re there.
As for the others, a quick check at your neighborhood chain bookstore information desk will show that virtually none of the others has books that remain available to the buying public – let alone the browsing teen. Clearly, their works didn’t take.
Which brings me to my thesis: What makes a Heinlein juvenile? After exhaustive study and remembering, behold! We find in Heinlein’s books:
1) Stories that flow naturally
2) Worlds altered but clearly recognizable to the teens of the “readers time”
3) TEENS are allowed to make hard, understandable choices
4) Teens were teens, doing the best they could in an adult world
5) Every character had a personal, recognizable struggle; i.e. they wanted friends, wanted to fit in, wanted to look good, wanted to be normal, wanted to play games/sports
6) They live in a world that has a huge background and they play out their tiny, personal story against that, not really expecting to change the adult world, but not overwhelmed by it, either
7) His characters were willing to challenge authority respectfully and repeatedly (Heinlein also managed to keep his personal bitterness out of the stories)
8) There is hope as well as unexpected futures revealed
The books that have disappeared from teen backpacks (and Heinlein’s HAVE NOT yet) violated one or more – or ALL – of the boundaries Heinlein used when writing his juvies. Perhaps the greatest violations show teens without choices and part of a huge, universe-changing story line. Teens may DREAM of taking over the world, but they don’t believe they can. Witness your average high school: if 2000 students decided to do ANYTHING – riot, walk out, not do their homework, skip class, make paper airplanes and throw them down the hallways all day long – there isn’t a thing in the world the 100 adults in the building could ACTUALLY do to stop them.
Adult control of teens in school is a fiction maintained by adolescent self-absorption.
So given all of this, on whom do I bestow Heinlein’s juvie mantle? While Card, Christopher, Foster, Haddix, McCaffrey, and Westerfeld have much to commend them (besides any teen being able to FIND their books without going “back to the geek section” of Science Fiction and Fantasy of their neighborhood megabookstore), each fails a bit here and a bit there.
I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to find out how none of them completely “pass” the Heinlein test, but suffice it to say that the cabal of writers who are creating teen-oriented SF today are the ones who are sculpting that most nebulous thing: the REAL New Wave of science fiction readers and writers.
Let the arguments begin!
Guy Stewart has sold fiction to Analog, as well as to Christian and youth-oriented magazines. He blogs about Christianity, Faith, Science Fiction, and Writing at faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com.
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