A review by gengelcox
The Green Hills of Earth by Robert A. Heinlein

hopeful informative medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

***** "It's Great to Be Back!" • [Future History] • (1947) • short story 
** The Green Hills of Earth • [Future History] • (1947) • short story 
** Logic of Empire • [Future History] • (1941) • novella 
*** We Also Walk Dogs • [Future History] • (1941) • novelette (variant of "—We Also Walk Dogs") [as by Anson MacDonald] 
*** The Black Pits of Luna • juvenile • [Future History] • (1948) • short story 
**** Delilah and the Space-Rigger • [Future History] • (1949) • short story 
** Gentlemen, Be Seated! • [Future History] • (1948) • short story 
**** The Long Watch • [Future History] • (1949) • short story 
*** Ordeal in Space • [Future History] • (1948) • short story 
*** Space Jockey • [Future History] • (1947) • short story 
 
"It's Great to be Back!" — First published in 1947, while the technology depicted here is outdated or simply wrong, the psychology is perfect. After three years on the moon, Allen and Jo are happy to get back to Earth, where they can see blue skies and walk on grass and feel the rain on their faces. But three years can change people and a place, and that’s really the point of this story, although Heinlein was good about trying to capture the details of what a moon colony might resemble. It could have been titled “You Can’t Go Home Again,” but Thomas Wolfe had already grabbed that one in 1940. Recommended. 
 
"The Green Hills of Earth" — There’s not really a lot of plot to this story; instead, this is as sentimental as anything Heinlein would write. It celebrates the kind of perfect Heinlein character, a man who is both expert and rough, who doesn’t suffer fools but is willing to give up his life to meet the needs of an emergency. It’s Heinlein trying to make a mythology about space, and succeeding to some extent. I’m too cynical now to enjoy it, too critical. For me, this story doesn’t reveal so much about the future, but about Heinlein’s need to make a hero of the man in the trench, and perhaps that’s because that’s who he assumed as his audience. 
 
“Logic of Empire,” Robert A. Heinlein — I’m sure I had read this story before—I pretty much binged on Heinlein when I discovered him as a teenager—but I didn’t recall any of it as I re-read it recently. That’s probably for the best, as it definitely is not one of his better stories. In fact, the logic proposed here is pretty insidious, if I’m reading this right, in that Heinlein’s saying that slavery—or indentured servitude that for all it is based on economics is basically slavery—is a normal result of exploration and colonization. Given the recent furor over John W. Campbell’s beliefs about the same, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this was a story that he bought and published first in Astounding. Outside of the questionable logic, the plot and adventure of the story works to some extent, as the main character ends up exploring the nature of that indentured servitude by entering into it himself. Not recommended. 
 
“—We Also Walk Dogs” — The company is called General Services and that’s what they do, anything for anyone as long as its legal (and then, as one character says, that’s a matter of interpretation). Heinlein foresaw Amazon before it existed, although even Amazon doesn’t quite match the concierge options provide by General Services. The plot isn’t really that exciting: once Heinlein establishes what the company does, a government official comes to ask for the seemingly impossible, which of course the company is able to provide. What element of interest in all of this boils down to a piece of art that both the purchasers and the acquirers find stunning, and thereby give them an appreciation of each other. All in all, though, that’s pretty small stakes, and with all the characters seemingly like each other already, hardly a shift that is noticeable.  Pass. 
 
"The Black Pits of Luna" — A decent story from the point of view of a young boy on a trip to the moon where his little brother gets lost while on a surface tour. What made this story good at the time was how Heinlein could portray the elements of the science (trips around the moon, the weightlessness, etc.) and combine them with the mundane (kid brothers, mother and father unable to handle their children, etc.). It’s kind of like how Stephen King can ground you in the details of his everyday characters before hitting you with the otherworldly. That said, I’m not sure this story has much more than that going for it now. 
 
"Delilah and the Space-Rigger" — First off, you have to know this was published in 1949. When you realize that, you start to understand just how ahead of its time it was. This is basically a case for non-gender discrimination. The way it’s told is somewhat awkward, but that was the style of the time. The basic story principle is sound; the protagonist has had to deal with all the kind of trouble that comes up in construction sites—booze, gambling—and then thinks he’s got the worst trouble imaginable, a woman in a group of all men. What Heinlein does is show that the individual, the woman, is competent, knows how to handle the situation (in a true Ginger Rogers fashion of having to be even better), and the problem gets resolved through a community response. I was just reading Dan’l Danehy-Oakes comment on a new study of Heinlein that pointed out his viewpoint characters are often sidekicks rather than the main protagonists, and that’s the case here. The protagonist is the construction foreman, Tiny, but the point-of-view of the story is from his number one man, Dad. By doing it this way, Heinlein doesn’t have to tell you the thought processes of the protagonist (or the antagonist), but show them by relaying what Dad hears and sees. It’s a good trick, and one I’ll need to remember. 
 
“Gentlemen, Be Seated!” — A cute tale about how to use your tail in a bind. Accident happens while in a tube on the moon and the three protagonists have to solve the problem of losing their air, including a fairly large hole. The plot and engineering is fine enough, and Heinlein had an understanding of the working man (it’s all men in this story), but for all of that, this story feels slight and less insightful than some of his other moon stories written around this time. 
 
"The Long Watch" — Heinlein was very concerned about the potential of an atomic war. Given his understanding of that, he wrote a number of stories that tried to convey the absolute pointlessness of pre-emptive strikes and other crazy ideas that ran through the political mindsets of the 1950s. And, in the end, he believed he failed—that nothing he had written had quite captured the minds or opinions of those in charge of the launch commands. I’m not sure what he attributed our ability not to blow ourselves up, as a human race, but I doubt he would have put it under our intelligence. This is a story of a single man who decided to avert the use of those weapons. It’s dated now, but there’s still a power to it, akin to Kim Stanley Robinson’s “The Lucky Strike,” in that the decision has to be made by an individual who realizes that if he doesn’t do this alone, something much worse will occur, even suspecting that making that decision spells doom for the individual even if it saves many more people. That kind of heroism is hard to come by, which may be why it’s often in stories. 
 
“Space Jockey” — It’s got a great first line, which was really futuristic for its time, but works even today: “Just as they were leaving the telephone called his name.” The story hinges on the costs of space travel, which Heinlein explains to the reader by using an Earthbound analogy of using only one type of vehicle to transport goods rather than the combinations of “a ferry boat, a subway train, and an express elevator.” Heinlein also set his space force in Colorado Springs, as a military man, but uses a ramp created on the slope of Pikes Peak to launch his rockets into space, something I don’t ever see happening for many reasons. A lot of the story is mechanics, which Heinlein excelled at, making space travel seem believable to his 1950s audience. The plot, as it is, concerns what happens when a cockpit tour goes wrong and a reckless boy hits the jets midflight, wasting fuel and resetting the careful course calculations. But the point of the tale is to glorify pilots, in Heinlein’s case, rugged individuals who take on the difficult task of guiding spaceships. Oh, there’s computers, and autopilots, but it comes down to the skills of one man. (And, in a subplot, the wife back home supporting him, in the gendered roles Heinlein was known for, reflecting the 1950s.) Interesting for the details; cringe for the role stereotypes.