Who Goes There?

The story of how Robert Heinlein came to be one of the most important (and controversial) figures in American science fiction borders on mythology, not helped by the fact that Heinlein came pretty close to not pursuing a career as an SF writer. Born in 1907, in Missouri, Heinlein had a stint in the Navy for five years, during peacetime, although he would be relieved from duty due to chronic illness (such illness would torment him off and on pretty much for the rest of his life), then getting involved in democratic socialist politics in Califonia during the Great Depression. By the time he made his debut in 1939 it was on the eve of his 32nd birthday and he had already, unbeknownst to everyone, written a full novel, although it would go unpublished until after his death. While he was a true believer in SF and enjoyed reading it since before the term “science fiction” was even coined, Heinlein had to be coaxed into writing more by Astounding‘s young new editor at the time, John W. Campbell. Heinlein seemed to doubt the financial viability of writing for a living, let alone writing SF, but Campbell paid on acceptance rather than publication and the paychecks were good, all things considered. In some ways the two men were very different, Campbell being an authoritarian and a puritan while Heinlein was philosophically a libertarian at heart and, it must also be said, a bit of what we used to call a man-whore; but they were undoubtedly intelligent men who managed, if only for a limited time, to bring out the best in each other. This relationship would eventually turn sour, but that’s a story for another time—the point being that Heinlein was here to stay.

Heinlein’s rise to fame in what was admittedly a very insular field at the time was so fast that after only two years of being published he appeared as the guest of honor at the 1941 Worldcon, the last one held before Worldcon went on its World War II hiatus. Early Heinlein still reads well for the most part; not all of those stories were winners (for one I think “Waldo” is overrated and undeserving of its Retro Hugo win), but the best ones showed a talent not quite like anyone else. Heinlein arguably reached the height of his craft when, following the end of World War II, he signed a deal with Scribner’s wherein he would write a “juvenile” SF novel every year or so, aimed at teen boys. These constitute Heinlein’s most universally beloved work, and after reading a few of them I find it easy to see why: they combine plausible (which is not to say always accurate) scientific prompting with a surprising emotional dexterity, not to mention the restrictions Scribner’s imposed on Heinlein mean his worst habits are basically left off the table. Citizen of the Galaxy was one of the last of these juveniles, and is also one of those I’ve not been able to read before.

Placing Coordinates

Citizen of the Galaxy was serialized in Astounding Science Fiction, from September to December 1957, pretty much simultaneously with its book publication. This is one of Heinlein’s most popular juveniles, if Goodreads numbers are anything to go by, so it’s a bit strange to me that aside from an ebook edition it seems to be out of print. The last English paperback release was from Pocket Books, in 2005.

Enhancing Image

The opening stretch of this novel is both simple and not so much, in part because the very beginning is both masterly in its set-up and rather dense. The first line of Citizen of the Galaxy is one of the most famous of any Heinlein novel, with good reason, such that I won’t bother to repeat it here, only to say that Our Hero™ is Thorby, a frail and beaten youth who’s being sold at auction. In the future world (or worlds) of the novel, chattel slavery has apparently made a big comeback; and while some other writers may only have this serve as background flavor, or just as a way to kick off the plot, the topic of chattel slavery indeed seems to be what drives the whole plot. Thorby is an uncivilized young boy with no last name, who has gone through a few owners before, with scars on his back to show for it. He has quite the temper, and understandably has a hard time getting along with adults, seeing as how everyone he has known in his short life thus far has taken advantage of him. That all changes today when Baslim, a beggar with one eye and one leg, buys Thorby at a very low price; but while Baslim claims to be a beggar and looks the part, he soon reveals to Thorby that the act is simply that: an act. Sure, his disabilities are genuine, but Baslim is a lot more resourceful, along with having a lot more resources, than an actual poor man on the street. Having bought Thorby his freedom, Baslim takes the boy as his adopted son and wastes no time in a) teaching Thorby to be at least a bit civilized, and b) teaching him the ways of the “trade.” Thorby, while starting off much worse than other Heinlein juvenile protagonists, starts on an arc similar to those of his brethren in that he receives an education—only here it also involves being a runner for Baslim.

I should probably point out the elephant in the room and say that Heinlein was very much indebted to Rudyard Kipling, and that influence is especially transparent with Citizen of the Galaxy, which aims in part to be a riff on Kipling’s 1901 novel Kim. Now, it’s been a minute since I’ve read Kim, and truth be told when I did read it I found the dialogue a bit too impenetrable at the time, what with Kipling’s use of colloquialisms and cultural references to an India that would now be alien to all of us. Similarly the dialogue in Heinlein’s novel is more colloquial than is the norm for this author, in that while yes, Baslim is very much a mentor figure of the sort that Heinlein was a little too fond of writing, he’s shown to care genuinely about Thorby. Of course, the old man has both personal and political reasons for treating the boy as both a son and a pupil: he’s teaching Thorby to be street-smart, but it helps that Baslim turns out (unsurprisingly) to have anti-slavery connections. Heinlein, before he went off the deep end with later novels like Stranger in a Strange Land and Time Enough for Love, seemed content to present perfectly uncontroversial opinions in his work, especially his juveniles where his editor at Scribner’s would be watching him like a hawk. The previous Heinlein novel to run in Astounding, Double Star, was one of his “adult” novels (it also, incidentally, won him his first Hugo), but it had the unassuming message that racism is bad. Similarly Citizen of the Galaxy has the ice-cold take that chattel slavery is bad. (Of course, given how many politicians in US congress, both now and at the time of this novel’s publication, are Confederacy apologists, maybe it’s not that cold a take.) Mind you that this was written in the midst of Jim Crow and the Voting Rights Act was still a ways off. It may seem a little straightforward now, but the world of this novel is murky enough that I’m not too surprised it was basically marketed as both for teen readers in book form and for adults in Astounding.

But still this is, on top of being a space adventure (we start off on the planet Jubbul, which is clearly taking after a Kipling-esque India of the 19th century), a bildungsroman, or a novel of education. Baslim teaches Thorby to be a citizen of the galaxy in that he teaches Thorby multiple disciplines in a maybe implausibly short amount of time. This feeds into Heinlein’s idea of the competent man, an idea which has long since become a cliche in hard-nosed SF writing and I think justifiably derided in some circles. The idea goes that a man (it’s typically a man) should be a jack of all trades, or have competent (if not expert) knowledge in as many fields of study as he can muster. Heinlein’s competent man should know his multiplication tables, how to cook a meal, how to fish on the high seas, how to trade in the stock market, how to replace a flat tire, how to haggle, and so on. He should be able to name animals as if he were Adam in the garden. As he works with Thorby, though, Baslim seems acutely aware that, being a mentor figure in a Heinlein juvenile, his days are numbered. He not so subtly prepares Thorby for the worst, as if waving a big sign saying “I WILL DIE SOON,” but the boy tries not to take the hint. So, the old man comes up with an idea, which will turn out to be a final job he has for the boy, in which Thorby is to meet one of five contact, doesn’t really matter which one. Baslim, sensing that his death is imminent, basically puts down a bread crumb trail for Thorby wherein the boy meets one Captain Krausa, who, like Baslim, is secretly working against the slave trade in this part of the galaxy.

There Be Spoilers Here

I feel little like covering the back end of this installment, for one because a combination of my recent illness and my prescriptions for said illness have made it such that I’ve been struggling to think straight, truth be told; but also it’s not hard to figure out the roles of Thorby, Baslim, Captain Krausa, and even the bitchy old woman Thorby befriends before he leaves aboard the Sisu at the end. Baslim dies offscreen; he was to be “shortened,” or executed by police, but he had apparently opted to take Socrates’s lead and killed himself via poison before they could torture answers out of him. This is a fun read for the whole family. I would just like to take a moment and say that, going forward, both with this serialized review and generally covering Heinlein going forward, that while I still respect the man a ton, despite his many faults, I cannot stand to be around most of the people who claim to be his fans. It doesn’t help that the most famous of these right-wing Heinlein fans is also the richest man on the planet, a total rube who absorbs and then messily regurgitates every reactionary and outright fascist viewpoint that comes his way as if he were a human sponge. I think you pitiful fucking wastes of human flesh and bone ought to feel ashamed of yourselves—or maybe feel ashamed of something, if not necessarily your own character. Feel ashamed of the fact that nobody in your personal life really wants to spend time with you, because everyone you know at least secretly finds you repulsive. Maybe feel ashamed of the fact that you are one of the reasons why Heinlein is gradually being treated more and more like a black sheep, or that creepy uncle nobody likes to talk about, in SF fandom despite his monumental important. Consider for a moment that I don’t like you and that I would prefer you not keep reading this.

A Step Farther Out

Unfortunately I was not able to give this the deep-read treatment I wanted to, on account of a respiratory infection for close to a week now. Rest assured however that I’ll be good as new and looking forward to the next installment, which I should be able to write more about.

Most importantly, right-wing Heinlein fans can FUCK OFF.

See you next time.