Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
An interesting story about a strange animal from a distant star, kept as a pet by a family over a period of generations. It begins with the creature leaving the family property and running amok (though in a friendly, bumbling sort of way), and continues as the consequences of the opening events play out. Amusing, entertaining, and exploring some unexpected territory before all is said and done.
I've had mixed experiences with Heinlein's writing but this was a fun read! Plot feels like a kids' story with a bit of mature humor snuck in for the parents.
It definitely has that 1950s sci-fi vibe, but there's also a lot of subtle (and not so subtle) poking fun of the race/gender sterotypes of the genre. Betty and Mr. Kiku are clearly the ones running the show here!
(Also pleasantly surprised at the number of non-Anglo surnames wandering around the story. It's not plot relevant, but a nice touch and again, not something I expected in a book of this age.)
It definitely has that 1950s sci-fi vibe, but there's also a lot of subtle (and not so subtle) poking fun of the race/gender sterotypes of the genre. Betty and Mr. Kiku are clearly the ones running the show here!
(Also pleasantly surprised at the number of non-Anglo surnames wandering around the story. It's not plot relevant, but a nice touch and again, not something I expected in a book of this age.)
Here’s my latest reread of Heinlein’s works, as I go through the Virginia Edition series.
And by 1954, we’re now well into the Heinlein juveniles. Some would say here’s where Heinlein was settling into a purple patch, with many of his best-loved and long-lived novels appearing.
Following on from Starman Jones, The Star Beast (title reduced to Star Beast here in the UK) is pretty much what we expect from Heinlein at this stage of his writing career. Whilst clearly writing to the template for Boy Scouts (as mentioned in previous reviews), it is a superior piece of work, managing to juggle a coming-of-age tale with humour and pathos and also shows an author not content with producing ‘more-of-the-same’. This is clearly a writer confident in what he is doing and showing it through his repertoire.
To the plot: John Thomas Stuart XI has a family pet, inherited from his uncle who returned home with it from a space voyage. The long-lived and amusingly named ‘Lummox’ is sentient – kind, caring, childlike, supremely loyal – and has grown to the size of a small bus.
This leads him and the latest John Thomas into all sorts of run-ins, with his neighbours, relations and eventually the law. The book begins with a chapter telling of how the childlike Lummox escapes the family property, initially out of curiosity but eventually frightened into a situation involving a trail across the city of Westville and the police. Not too surprisingly, for John’s mother this is the last straw and she wants John to get rid of it.
In the aftermath of the wander around Westville, Godzilla style, things become more complicated. The governmental Department of Space, or DepSpace, is informed and becomes involved. The local court orders Lummox to be killed. The court actually tries to have Lummox destroyed in an ‘accident’, but is unable to do so, much to Lummox’s amusement. Desperate to save his pet, John Thomas sells Lummox to a zoo before the creature is killed. However he rapidly changes his mind and feeling that there is no alternative, instead runs away from home, riding off to hide in the nearby forest wilderness on Lummox’s back.
His girlfriend Betty Sorenson joins him and suggests bringing the beast back into town and hiding it in a neighbour’s greenhouse. However, it isn’t easy to conceal such a large creature.
Readers of Heinlein’s previous books, not to mention my reviews, may feel that The Star Beast is another version of a tale we have read before. It is fairly easy to see that Lummox is the literary progeny and logical extension of Martian Willis, Venusian Sir Isaac Newton, the Martian flat cats and Mr Chips the spider-puppy met in previous Heinlein books. Like them, Lummox is cute, likeable – some would say loveable, even when in the first chapter he/she eats a local canine that has previously terrorised the local neighbourhood. The incident, which could be seen as quite serious is given instead as rather humorous. The reader accepts this, as it is explained by Heinlein in such a logical way that the reader seeing events from Lummox’s perspective becomes totally accepting of his point of view.
Anyone who has ever owned a pet will recognise aspects of Lummox as a large, fairly intelligent, clumsy-yet-well-meaning animal. Lummox is an absolute winner here, with Heinlein getting the tricky balance between humour and sternness about right.
And the crux of the tale is that, like most of the other aliens Heinlein has written about by this point, Lummox is misunderstood by the majority of humans he/she encounters. By comparison, the way that the humans often behave here is often the joke.
Cleverly, the book examines what sort of role humans and aliens could have together in a future society. It reminds us that we may not be alone, nor are we necessarily the best ambassadors of extra-terrestrial relations. Think of it as dealing with some of the same issues as District-9 but written sixty years or so previous. Its ending shows that humans have a lot to learn but ends on a positive note in that we are willing to do so. This is rather different from the more arrogant, ‘blast them all while you can’ attitude that was in much of the SF pulp and Hollywood movies of the time (and even today.) Here, in The Star Beast, diplomacy wins the day: ‘I do not like weapons… they are the last resort of faulty diplomacy’, a character states at one point.
It is this diplomacy that becomes increasingly important towards the conclusion of the novel. When representatives of The Hroshii, an advanced, powerful and previously unknown alien race appear and demand the return of their lost child…or else, humans are shocked to realise that this is Lummox. The situation is compounded further when Lummox, now discovered as a ‘she’, refuses to leave, instead wishing to her only hobby and principal interest: the raising of John Thomases. She makes it clear that she intends to continue doing so.
In such a brief summary the story may perhaps seem rather straightforward by today’s more cynical standards. However from a viewpoint of the 1950’s I was surprised at how keen Heinlein was to push things within his now rather standard template. The Star Beast shows that there is a Heinlein still pushing the boundaries here. There are lots of little touches that are cleverly not what was typical of SF in the 1950’s. It is good to see that we have a female character (Betty) in a major role, even though her character is a little two-dimensional. Interestingly, though, it is with this character there was controversy: Alice Dalgliesh, the librarian-editor of whom I have written about through these reviews – did hear of and get a poor review because of the point made in the novel Betty has divorced herself from her parents – something which was not seen as a positive thing to do in nineteen-fifties society. Despite this, the point was kept, and seemed to unaffect sales.
Of the other characters I was also surprised but pleased to see a more worldly view than I expected. For example, we have Mr. Henry Kiku, the Under Secretary for Earth who is African in origin and defiantly pointed out as ‘black’. There’s another generally likeable character with the first name of Sergei – rather provocative in a communist-aware nation as was the USA in the 1950’s. Heinlein was clearly against racism and breaking down boundaries before the civil rights movements of the 1960’s here.
It is perhaps worth mentioning here about another usage of names, seemingly deliberate. There’s also the name of our key character, ‘John Thomas’ – whilst fairly innocent in the US, here in the UK it is a slang term for – well, let’s say a male anatomical part. This is probably deliberate, and something mentioned by Robert James and William H. Patterson in their introduction in this Virginia Edition as part of Heinlein’s continual battle with his editor. (Evidently she was unaware of its other meaning and was not happy, years after the book was published, when she was told!) This certainly gave the phrase ‘raising John Thomases’ a different meaning with that understanding!
And seeing as how we’ve mentioned humour a couple of times already… I have complained about Heinlein’s attempts at humour before, particularly in Space Family Stone/The Rolling Stones. Here in The Star Beast Heinlein seems to have reined in the previous excesses to the point where his humour, in the main, holds up fairly well even though it is long after it was written.* Unusually, in The Star Beast much of this is at the expense of the hapless bungling humans, trying to deal with the often seemingly clumsy Lummox.
If handled badly, the plot throughout The Star Beast could be written in a way that is trite, or at worst slapstick. However I was pleased that Star Beast makes its points through humour without hammering them home sledgehammer-style, and this means that I found myself remembering the novel more as a result. Though we do have some of that famous Heinlein dialogue here, especially between the diplomats, this is not a book that labours the points, nor does it hector the reader into submission – something which later Heinlein novels have often been accused of. It is rather – at least by 1950’s turns – subtle and deceptively complex.
Star Beast consolidates the enviable position Heinlein is now finding himself in by 1954. He is clearly the King of SF juveniles by this stage, both popular and best-selling. Although it is strangely often forgotten today, The Star Beast is one that epitomises the solidly-good Heinlein juvenile. There’s an occasional lapse, and the odd part that hasn’t dated well, but generally this is one of the juveniles I’d recommend, although it is often not one regarded as a favourite. For me it was a surprisingly satisfying read.
And by 1954, we’re now well into the Heinlein juveniles. Some would say here’s where Heinlein was settling into a purple patch, with many of his best-loved and long-lived novels appearing.
Following on from Starman Jones, The Star Beast (title reduced to Star Beast here in the UK) is pretty much what we expect from Heinlein at this stage of his writing career. Whilst clearly writing to the template for Boy Scouts (as mentioned in previous reviews), it is a superior piece of work, managing to juggle a coming-of-age tale with humour and pathos and also shows an author not content with producing ‘more-of-the-same’. This is clearly a writer confident in what he is doing and showing it through his repertoire.
To the plot: John Thomas Stuart XI has a family pet, inherited from his uncle who returned home with it from a space voyage. The long-lived and amusingly named ‘Lummox’ is sentient – kind, caring, childlike, supremely loyal – and has grown to the size of a small bus.
This leads him and the latest John Thomas into all sorts of run-ins, with his neighbours, relations and eventually the law. The book begins with a chapter telling of how the childlike Lummox escapes the family property, initially out of curiosity but eventually frightened into a situation involving a trail across the city of Westville and the police. Not too surprisingly, for John’s mother this is the last straw and she wants John to get rid of it.
In the aftermath of the wander around Westville, Godzilla style, things become more complicated. The governmental Department of Space, or DepSpace, is informed and becomes involved. The local court orders Lummox to be killed. The court actually tries to have Lummox destroyed in an ‘accident’, but is unable to do so, much to Lummox’s amusement. Desperate to save his pet, John Thomas sells Lummox to a zoo before the creature is killed. However he rapidly changes his mind and feeling that there is no alternative, instead runs away from home, riding off to hide in the nearby forest wilderness on Lummox’s back.
His girlfriend Betty Sorenson joins him and suggests bringing the beast back into town and hiding it in a neighbour’s greenhouse. However, it isn’t easy to conceal such a large creature.
Readers of Heinlein’s previous books, not to mention my reviews, may feel that The Star Beast is another version of a tale we have read before. It is fairly easy to see that Lummox is the literary progeny and logical extension of Martian Willis, Venusian Sir Isaac Newton, the Martian flat cats and Mr Chips the spider-puppy met in previous Heinlein books. Like them, Lummox is cute, likeable – some would say loveable, even when in the first chapter he/she eats a local canine that has previously terrorised the local neighbourhood. The incident, which could be seen as quite serious is given instead as rather humorous. The reader accepts this, as it is explained by Heinlein in such a logical way that the reader seeing events from Lummox’s perspective becomes totally accepting of his point of view.
Anyone who has ever owned a pet will recognise aspects of Lummox as a large, fairly intelligent, clumsy-yet-well-meaning animal. Lummox is an absolute winner here, with Heinlein getting the tricky balance between humour and sternness about right.
And the crux of the tale is that, like most of the other aliens Heinlein has written about by this point, Lummox is misunderstood by the majority of humans he/she encounters. By comparison, the way that the humans often behave here is often the joke.
Cleverly, the book examines what sort of role humans and aliens could have together in a future society. It reminds us that we may not be alone, nor are we necessarily the best ambassadors of extra-terrestrial relations. Think of it as dealing with some of the same issues as District-9 but written sixty years or so previous. Its ending shows that humans have a lot to learn but ends on a positive note in that we are willing to do so. This is rather different from the more arrogant, ‘blast them all while you can’ attitude that was in much of the SF pulp and Hollywood movies of the time (and even today.) Here, in The Star Beast, diplomacy wins the day: ‘I do not like weapons… they are the last resort of faulty diplomacy’, a character states at one point.
It is this diplomacy that becomes increasingly important towards the conclusion of the novel. When representatives of The Hroshii, an advanced, powerful and previously unknown alien race appear and demand the return of their lost child…or else, humans are shocked to realise that this is Lummox. The situation is compounded further when Lummox, now discovered as a ‘she’, refuses to leave, instead wishing to her only hobby and principal interest: the raising of John Thomases. She makes it clear that she intends to continue doing so.
In such a brief summary the story may perhaps seem rather straightforward by today’s more cynical standards. However from a viewpoint of the 1950’s I was surprised at how keen Heinlein was to push things within his now rather standard template. The Star Beast shows that there is a Heinlein still pushing the boundaries here. There are lots of little touches that are cleverly not what was typical of SF in the 1950’s. It is good to see that we have a female character (Betty) in a major role, even though her character is a little two-dimensional. Interestingly, though, it is with this character there was controversy: Alice Dalgliesh, the librarian-editor of whom I have written about through these reviews – did hear of and get a poor review because of the point made in the novel Betty has divorced herself from her parents – something which was not seen as a positive thing to do in nineteen-fifties society. Despite this, the point was kept, and seemed to unaffect sales.
Of the other characters I was also surprised but pleased to see a more worldly view than I expected. For example, we have Mr. Henry Kiku, the Under Secretary for Earth who is African in origin and defiantly pointed out as ‘black’. There’s another generally likeable character with the first name of Sergei – rather provocative in a communist-aware nation as was the USA in the 1950’s. Heinlein was clearly against racism and breaking down boundaries before the civil rights movements of the 1960’s here.
It is perhaps worth mentioning here about another usage of names, seemingly deliberate. There’s also the name of our key character, ‘John Thomas’ – whilst fairly innocent in the US, here in the UK it is a slang term for – well, let’s say a male anatomical part. This is probably deliberate, and something mentioned by Robert James and William H. Patterson in their introduction in this Virginia Edition as part of Heinlein’s continual battle with his editor. (Evidently she was unaware of its other meaning and was not happy, years after the book was published, when she was told!) This certainly gave the phrase ‘raising John Thomases’ a different meaning with that understanding!
And seeing as how we’ve mentioned humour a couple of times already… I have complained about Heinlein’s attempts at humour before, particularly in Space Family Stone/The Rolling Stones. Here in The Star Beast Heinlein seems to have reined in the previous excesses to the point where his humour, in the main, holds up fairly well even though it is long after it was written.* Unusually, in The Star Beast much of this is at the expense of the hapless bungling humans, trying to deal with the often seemingly clumsy Lummox.
If handled badly, the plot throughout The Star Beast could be written in a way that is trite, or at worst slapstick. However I was pleased that Star Beast makes its points through humour without hammering them home sledgehammer-style, and this means that I found myself remembering the novel more as a result. Though we do have some of that famous Heinlein dialogue here, especially between the diplomats, this is not a book that labours the points, nor does it hector the reader into submission – something which later Heinlein novels have often been accused of. It is rather – at least by 1950’s turns – subtle and deceptively complex.
Star Beast consolidates the enviable position Heinlein is now finding himself in by 1954. He is clearly the King of SF juveniles by this stage, both popular and best-selling. Although it is strangely often forgotten today, The Star Beast is one that epitomises the solidly-good Heinlein juvenile. There’s an occasional lapse, and the odd part that hasn’t dated well, but generally this is one of the juveniles I’d recommend, although it is often not one regarded as a favourite. For me it was a surprisingly satisfying read.
“We'll make great pets, we'll make great pets...” – Porno for Pyros
Robert Heinlein writes a fun, readable, engaging adventure like few others, when he doesn't get too caught up in whatever Big Idea is on his mind at the moment. He does a great job here.
One of the themes that comes up again and again in The Star Beast is the idea that even though a person may not be fully adult, that person still has a fundamental right to self-determination, and that the well-meaning parent can be an unknowing tyrant. We see it here in Johnny's struggles with his mother, and in Betty, who outright divorced her parents and is an emancipated minor. It's mentioned she lives in a special group home for emancipated minors that functions a lot like a college dorm, which suggests this procedure is not uncommon. And we see it when Lummox turns out to be We also see a variant of the power dynamic in the dealings of Earth with the Hroshi - to the Hroshi, we are far less than children, of no more significance than ants, but Kiku, as representative of Earth, defiantly stands his ground and demands to be taken seriously and not dictated to, even at the risk of destruction.
This ties into the fundamental idea of personhood itself. At what point is a being – any being – entitled to self-determination? The characters struggle with determining if Lummox is really a person with rights, or just a dumb animal that can mimic human speech, and it turns out nearly all of their initial assumptions about Lummox were wrong. It becomes considerably less clear as the story goes on just who is keeping whom as a pet. But these themes aren't so heavy-handed that they drag the story down. Mostly, it's just a fun adventure.
Let's deal with the Lummox in the room: Heinlein was a sexist douchebag, he was par for the course for 1950s science fiction writers, and as many amazing things as he could imagine, envisioning women who did things other than being “someone's mother/sister/girlfriend/daughter/secretary” wasn't one of them. But he does get close at the very end of the book when You know going in there will be very few female characters who matter, and either you can deal with it or you can't. As annoying as it is, I say don't let it cause you to miss out on an otherwise fun read with a lot of interesting ideas in it. I actually give him props for imagining, in 1954, a Kenyan, Henry Kiku, as a central and important character in the story who wields considerable political power, is unquestionably wise, subtle, and crafty, and doesn't come off as a caricature.
It might be fair to say Heinlein also pioneered the trope of the “manic pixie dream girl,” as this character recurs in his books, here in the form of Johnny's girlfriend Betty Sorensen. She's pretty (a must), fearsomely smart and quick-witted (“A head on her very nearly as good as a man,” Johnny is heard to muse), confident to the point of cockiness, devious at a nearly Machiavellian level, independent to the point of cussedness (but she'll think nothing of following her man 900 lightyears from home). Johnny is simultaneously protective, confused, irritated, and dazzled by her. I think you could say this is a paradigm that characterizes the relations of men and women throughout a lot of Heinlein's world.
But Betty simmers down and does what she's told at odd moments. As smart and confident as she is, she still lives in a 1950s world where women don't get ahead the way men do – instead, the key to a woman getting ahead is to keep the menfolk charmed and indulgent, and when your display of smarts and confidence isn't charming anymore, it's time to switch to an equally manipulative display of meekness and obedience. This may seem cute and harmless at some level, and is a classic example of “feminine wiles,” but it becomes a lot less cute when you realize it's a time-honored technique the powerless and oppressed use to deal with their oppressors. When you don't have the power to simply demand what you want and have a reasonable expectation of getting it or at least being taken seriously, you have to resort to “dishonest” tactics like ingratiating, charming, wheedling, distraction, emotional manipulation, and outright deceit. These are the tools of those without more direct forms of power. It's depressing how true this still can still be for women in the world of 2017.
Audio Notes: I'm not normally a fan of full cast audiobooks, but this one is very well done. The pace is so slow, though, that for the very first time, I listened to an entire audiobook on my player's Fast setting. It makes everyone sound slightly cartoonish, but then that actually feels just right for this story. It DOES feel kind of cartoonish... in the best way. My indelible mental image of Betty is as a dark-haired Judy Jetson.
Robert Heinlein writes a fun, readable, engaging adventure like few others, when he doesn't get too caught up in whatever Big Idea is on his mind at the moment. He does a great job here.
One of the themes that comes up again and again in The Star Beast is the idea that even though a person may not be fully adult, that person still has a fundamental right to self-determination, and that the well-meaning parent can be an unknowing tyrant. We see it here in Johnny's struggles with his mother, and in Betty, who outright divorced her parents and is an emancipated minor. It's mentioned she lives in a special group home for emancipated minors that functions a lot like a college dorm, which suggests this procedure is not uncommon. And we see it when Lummox turns out to be
Spoiler
a juvenile of her own species, who then has her own power struggle with the adults when they show up to fetch her home for an arranged marriage, but she doesn't feel like going.This ties into the fundamental idea of personhood itself. At what point is a being – any being – entitled to self-determination? The characters struggle with determining if Lummox is really a person with rights, or just a dumb animal that can mimic human speech, and it turns out nearly all of their initial assumptions about Lummox were wrong. It becomes considerably less clear as the story goes on just who is keeping whom as a pet. But these themes aren't so heavy-handed that they drag the story down. Mostly, it's just a fun adventure.
Let's deal with the Lummox in the room: Heinlein was a sexist douchebag, he was par for the course for 1950s science fiction writers, and as many amazing things as he could imagine, envisioning women who did things other than being “someone's mother/sister/girlfriend/daughter/secretary” wasn't one of them. But he does get close at the very end of the book when
Spoiler
Kiku remarks to Betty, “I'm surprised YOU didn't ask to be ambassador.”It might be fair to say Heinlein also pioneered the trope of the “manic pixie dream girl,” as this character recurs in his books, here in the form of Johnny's girlfriend Betty Sorensen. She's pretty (a must), fearsomely smart and quick-witted (“A head on her very nearly as good as a man,” Johnny is heard to muse), confident to the point of cockiness, devious at a nearly Machiavellian level, independent to the point of cussedness (but she'll think nothing of following her man 900 lightyears from home). Johnny is simultaneously protective, confused, irritated, and dazzled by her. I think you could say this is a paradigm that characterizes the relations of men and women throughout a lot of Heinlein's world.
But Betty simmers down and does what she's told at odd moments. As smart and confident as she is, she still lives in a 1950s world where women don't get ahead the way men do – instead, the key to a woman getting ahead is to keep the menfolk charmed and indulgent, and when your display of smarts and confidence isn't charming anymore, it's time to switch to an equally manipulative display of meekness and obedience. This may seem cute and harmless at some level, and is a classic example of “feminine wiles,” but it becomes a lot less cute when you realize it's a time-honored technique the powerless and oppressed use to deal with their oppressors. When you don't have the power to simply demand what you want and have a reasonable expectation of getting it or at least being taken seriously, you have to resort to “dishonest” tactics like ingratiating, charming, wheedling, distraction, emotional manipulation, and outright deceit. These are the tools of those without more direct forms of power. It's depressing how true this still can still be for women in the world of 2017.
Audio Notes: I'm not normally a fan of full cast audiobooks, but this one is very well done. The pace is so slow, though, that for the very first time, I listened to an entire audiobook on my player's Fast setting. It makes everyone sound slightly cartoonish, but then that actually feels just right for this story. It DOES feel kind of cartoonish... in the best way. My indelible mental image of Betty is as a dark-haired Judy Jetson.
Fun book, if a bit dated. It exposes Heinlein's stereotypes of women -- that they are, on the whole, more intelligent and more sensible than the men they care about and live with.
I'm not sure I'll ever get past Heinlein's writing of/about women enough to enjoy his books. And I think he even thought he was being progressive. But, frankly, his alien men are more human than his human women.
Though his writing of people in general in this book was particularly bad. The two "kid" characters were somewhere between 10 and 18, which is to say, they acted (especially John) about 10, but they're dating and they discussed where to go to college, which suggests they're supposed to be somewhere around 18. Also they get married, so I hope to hell they were older than they acted. Most of the other characters were cartoons. Hell, the whole book suffered from being half a cartoon and half a diplomatic story.
Lummox was an interesting alien, and I liked Mr. Kiku and Dr. Ftaemel, but it was a slog to get to them. The entire first chunk of the book was nearly unreadably bad - it really did seem more appropriate to a cartoon, where the action could carry you along too fast to start asking questions about why things were happening or people reacted the way they did. I mean, I'm sorry, but a family having a gigantic alien pet for generations - one that got taken for walks, I might add - would not be a surprise to their neighbors. Yet their reactions when Lummox got out seemed more "Aaeeeeiii, unknown monster!" than "Damn it, the Stuarts' giant pet got out."
Between the neighbor reactions and John's mother, it was like a good chunk of the cast didn't exist in universe before the beginning of the book. Hell, I'm not sure anyone in the town, except maybe John and Betty, even belonged in the world of the book.
The diplomatic shenanigans were infinitely more enjoyable. (Though Heinlein seems to have been an incredible cynic about humanity, bureaucracy, and intergalactic relations.)
So minus several thousand for rampant sexism and cardboard cartoon characters, plus some for interesting alien physiology and two enjoyable characters, even it all out with the fact that my sense of humor is on par with John Thomas Stuart XI's intelligence (that is to say: rocks have more), and we'll call it three stars.
Though his writing of people in general in this book was particularly bad. The two "kid" characters were somewhere between 10 and 18, which is to say, they acted (especially John) about 10, but they're dating and they discussed where to go to college, which suggests they're supposed to be somewhere around 18. Also
Lummox was an interesting alien, and I liked Mr. Kiku and Dr. Ftaemel, but it was a slog to get to them. The entire first chunk of the book was nearly unreadably bad - it really did seem more appropriate to a cartoon, where the action could carry you along too fast to start asking questions about why things were happening or people reacted the way they did. I mean, I'm sorry, but a family having a gigantic alien pet for generations - one that got taken for walks, I might add - would not be a surprise to their neighbors. Yet their reactions when Lummox got out seemed more "Aaeeeeiii, unknown monster!" than "Damn it, the Stuarts' giant pet got out."
Between the neighbor reactions and John's mother, it was like a good chunk of the cast didn't exist in universe before the beginning of the book. Hell, I'm not sure anyone in the town, except maybe John and Betty, even belonged in the world of the book.
The diplomatic shenanigans were infinitely more enjoyable. (Though Heinlein seems to have been an incredible cynic about humanity, bureaucracy, and intergalactic relations.)
So minus several thousand for rampant sexism and cardboard cartoon characters, plus some for interesting alien physiology and two enjoyable characters, even it all out with the fact that my sense of humor is on par with John Thomas Stuart XI's intelligence (that is to say: rocks have more), and we'll call it three stars.
Lummox is a Star Beast. He was brought back to the Planet Terra by starman John Thomas Stuart. He was just a tiny thing then, smuggled in with the baggage. Lummox stays with John Thomas throughout John Thomas' life, as well as his son's life - also John Thomas. In fact, as the story opens, Lummox (Lummy for short) is with his 4th John Thomas Stuart. He's also grown up a bit, thanks to a steady diet of....everything. And now Lummy has well and truly done it. He has 'escaped' his enclosure and run rampant through the neighborhood, destroying roses, cabbages, and an odd greenhouse or two. At the end of the destruction, Lummox is brought to trial, and the powers that be discover it's harder than they thought to separate a boy and his...er...star beast.
I have heard about this book my entire life. My father loved it, my mother loved it, my brother loved it. They were huge Heinlein fans. My brother's youngest son even shares the same middle name as the author. So of course, I wasn't about to touch this book with a 10 foot pole. My family likes sci-fi, so of course, I do not. My family loves this book, so of course, I refuse to read it. For more than 30 years I have stood by this refusal. I'm not a joiner. I don't do things just because everyone else is. I think for myself...or my obstinancy thinks for itself. Yet, I needed a book about best friends, this was available on audio, and I was familiar with the story. My mother named one of our cats Lummy, for Heaven's sake! Did I mention that my family loves this book?
So I started to listen. And I was intrigued. There was humor, there was sweetness, there was the Star Beast. By the end of the book, I was rooting with all my being for Johnny and his best friend Lummox. Suffice it to say, I loved the book. The only things that kept it from being 5 stars is #1 - slow start (most sci-fi starts too slow for me) #2 - I didn't cry. Usually a book has to make me cry before it gets the full five. #3 - I'm still obstinate.
I really really enjoyed this book. My biggest regret is that my parents aren't alive for me to admit to the error of my ways. I could always mention it to my brother --- but no way I'll ever tell HIM that he was right!
I have heard about this book my entire life. My father loved it, my mother loved it, my brother loved it. They were huge Heinlein fans. My brother's youngest son even shares the same middle name as the author. So of course, I wasn't about to touch this book with a 10 foot pole. My family likes sci-fi, so of course, I do not. My family loves this book, so of course, I refuse to read it. For more than 30 years I have stood by this refusal. I'm not a joiner. I don't do things just because everyone else is. I think for myself...or my obstinancy thinks for itself. Yet, I needed a book about best friends, this was available on audio, and I was familiar with the story. My mother named one of our cats Lummy, for Heaven's sake! Did I mention that my family loves this book?
So I started to listen. And I was intrigued. There was humor, there was sweetness, there was the Star Beast. By the end of the book, I was rooting with all my being for Johnny and his best friend Lummox. Suffice it to say, I loved the book. The only things that kept it from being 5 stars is #1 - slow start (most sci-fi starts too slow for me) #2 - I didn't cry. Usually a book has to make me cry before it gets the full five. #3 - I'm still obstinate.
I really really enjoyed this book. My biggest regret is that my parents aren't alive for me to admit to the error of my ways. I could always mention it to my brother --- but no way I'll ever tell HIM that he was right!
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
This one is just plain fun, so I’m not going to say much about it. You’ll love Lummox, the most endearing alien you’ve ever met. And the twist of perspective is delightful. The diplomats are funny too, especially Mr. Kiku, so keep an eye out for him. Unfortunately, the human protagonists are boring, but you can’t have everything.
This is distinctly a Heinlein juvenile, and it's not one of the best. It's not terrible - Heinlein is almost always readable and interesting, whether or not the story is great, or the politics worrisome. But it's not great, and certainly not as good as some of his other juvenile novels. His take on female characters is particularly weak in this one.
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook