[What] is a "classic" Heinlein work? Most criticism of Heinlein begins and ends here. Invariably, each individual critic has chosen the works he likes best, dubbed them classics, and consigned the rest to oblivion…. The years to be covered in this study include, basically, the 1940s and 1950s—the period of the stories and novellas, and the novels of juvenile adventure. Unfortunately, there is no touchstone which allows a reader infallibly to pick "classics" out of this span. What is possible, however, is a definition of process that will permit us to study Heinlein's evolution as a writer over two long and full decades. (p. 3)

[If] chronological periods are marked off at all [in Heinlein's work], they must be ordered in terms of genre. The use of a given form, in Heinlein's case, was dictated in large part during [his] early and middle years by the vagaries of science fiction publishing. His first (and only) market was pulp magazines, so he wrote short stories and novellalength serials. The switch to novels after the war … demanded that he adopt the strict formulas and conventions imposed by his market—in this case, juvenile adventure. The middle period, then, begins with Heinlein's first full-length novel conceived as such, the space epic Rocket Ship Galileo (1947), and ends when what I call the subverted adventure finally rears its ugly head in Starship Troopers (1959)…. Not all the novels of this period were juvenile, however. Two old serials were quickly published as novels: Beyond the Horizon (1948) and Sixth Column (1949). In 1951, Doubleday published Heinlein's first original "adult" novel, The Puppet Masters. The novels of this decade are basically of two sorts: the adolescent space adventure dominates—these are novels of initiation to manhood, in which a boy comes of age in outer space. The adult works are novels of political intrigue. But they also, in a sense, are stories of initiation. The heroes are young men instead of boys, and their field of action the "grown-up" world of nations and espionage. Still, they have as much to learn, and the situation is meant to test (and teach) them. In fact, these two modes tend to conflate in the later novels of the period. Citizen of the Galaxy (1957) has a boy hero who grows to be a young man; it has space adventure, political intrigue, and much more. (p. 4)

[Conventional] patterns of heroic adventure and formation dominate the works of the 1950s. And yet, as patterns they seem in many ways contrary to Heinlein's deep-seated vision of things. In contrast to the juvenile novels, few of his early narratives have tight construction, or even "plots" at all. Indeed the episodic, almost impressionistic nature of these works has always puzzled critics. They expect "character studies" in the traditional sense, where an individual shapes himself and is shaped in the matrix of free choice and chance event. They do not get them. On the contrary, Heinlein seems most willing to exploit the other, anecdotal tradition of the short story. In like manner, the tendency of serialized narratives to decompose into a row of autonomous units appears to favor rather than hinder his sense of construction. Behind the looseness of these forms, in fact, lies a much different basic pattern—call it predestination. In Heinlein's stories, man's acts do not carry through, nor do they link future sections in causal fashion, so much as illustrate, in any number of particular, exemplary moments, the workings of an immutable higher order.

In light of this, it is tempting to set aside the juvenile novels, and seek the germ of Heinlein's later problem fiction solely in these early stories and novellas…. The middle novels, however, cannot be ignored as anomalies. On the contrary, they are the crucial step in Heinlein's development as a writer. There is no sudden conversion from formless episodic works to tightly wrought stories of adventure…. Nor are these adventure patterns simply abandoned, either. Heinlein retains them in his late novels, but has modified their form and function. (pp. 5-6)

A pattern of election and predestination is dominant throughout Heinlein's work. It exists most visibly and openly in the early tales and novellas, and here it should first be grasped. Significantly, among these stories tight plots occur only in those that celebrate the workings of inexorable destiny—time-travel paradoxes, and various tales of sacrifice. In the latter, a man (he may be any size or shape, with results ranging from "tragic" to comic) is chosen, and simply accepts to do the job. He neither rebels against the machine, nor sets himself above it—he takes his place unhesitatingly in its workings.

The looser structures seem, contrarily, to center on the exploits of one powerful personality. If we look more closely, however, we see that he too, paradoxically, is more chosen than chooser. He achieves rank and power, but less through personal actions than by a special "vision," a pre-disposition. (p. 6)

Heinlein's elite are not known by physical signs, nor do they bear the traditional hero's stamp. Their deeds do not really designate them (they may give sample displays of power, no more). Instead, their true work is a common mental disposition: they believe in individual freedom, and are willing to band together to fight entangling bureaucracy and mass strictures. The goal of these libertarians is simply to keep the channels of election open…. Significantly, once their own society within society is formed, they proceed to develop even tighter regulations than the structures they replace. What was custom on the outside takes on the force of code and ritual inside. (pp. 6-7)

[Heinlein's laissez faire "philosophy" is rooted] in patterns that are both cultural and mythical. The advent of religion in Stranger and the other later novels is no accident, nor is the harshly Calvinistic nature of this creed. Calvinistic figurations are present in Heinlein's earliest stories—they run throughout his work in one form or another. These variations, however, are important: there are three discernable phases. The first, essentially but not exclusively that of the early stories and novellas, could be called the Puritan phase—Heinlein's emphasis in these stories is on worldly hierarchies of the elect. At the point, in the juvenile novels, where predestination and conventional heroic patterns meet, we have a second, more "democratic" phase: the rule of the visionary company gives way momentarily to the possibility of Everyman as hero. The third phase, that of Stranger and its kindred novels, is more purely Calvinist. The mechanisms of election are reaffirmed; but, as with the Everyman hero, the group also pales before the all-absorbing problem of superman before grace. (p. 7)

In Heinlein's latest novels, however, such groups wane beside the rising star of one supreme existence, and we find something comparable to Calvinist "supernatural grace." Election … overleaps regular channels, elides everything into one epiphanic moment. This contrasts with the early stories, where, if election takes place, it is analagous to what was once called "common grace," the form most amenable to the worldly Puritans because it sanctioned their theocratic order. Its path was visible both in the ritual and social structures of their group—it was God's will incarnate. Indeed, Heinlein's characters in these stories do little more than act out such concrete designs of providence. The thrust of election is both worldly and functional; its result is a firm and efficient social hierarchy.

The roots of Heinlein's basic pattern go deep into the American past. They can be found at that point where the social forces of the Puritan Church and the new mercantile elite of the enlightenment cross and blend, where church member and property owner meet. Indeed, behind the seemingly "democratic" facade of "inner light" grace stands the Puritan theocracy, interpreting their own worldly success as a sign of election. In the same way, behind the Enlightened doctrine of "liberty and justice for all" lies the basic inequality of entrepreneurial society; add this to the sanction of Puritan doctrine, and it becomes incontestable; add a "Darwinian" sanction, and it becomes hereditary as well. Heinlein holds up the same masks of freedom and individual liberty. And yet he despises the incompetent and weak, the democratic processes that enfranchise what he calls "homo sap."

In taking up the juvenile adventure, Heinlein must adopt quite a contrary pattern. However unlikely the channel, through it he taps a tradition that, if not egalitarian, is eminently humanistic. Heroic action at least implies that man makes his way in the world through moral qualities that many humans (not just the happy few) recognize and to some extent possess. The novels in which Heinlein develops this pattern are full of a strange tension. Can the individual help shape his destiny through willed action? Or are deeds futile in a fallen world? Is not election rather irrational and unearnable, a gift beyond all sense of personal merit? Born of this tension, perhaps, is the new emphasis, in Heinlein's novels of the 1960s and 1970s on the ambiguities of election. Out of it rises the new Heinlein hero: supreme man alone before his hidden god. (p. 8)

No matter what their intended audience, all [Heinlein's] stories share one structural characteristic—they are loosely episodic. This openness fits Heinlein's purpose admirably. Only in the most external sense does a Heinlein story focus on a crucial moment in the life of a character. His protagonists do not, through some process of self-discovery, come to a climatic recognition of identity or place in the world order. Nor are there "surprise endings" in the classic sense, where an ironic twist of fate reveals a man's character to himself. On the contrary, the heroes of Heinlein's tales seem to know from the start what they must do: they face their destiny, accepting it with a singular lack of resistance or self-searching. But there is more here than "doing one's duty": the hero seems chosen, compelled by some inner predilection that goes against all reason or common sense. What the narrative invariably examines, as step by step it becomes visible, is the mechanism of election itself. This can take myriad forms—the more involuted the better—but there is always the same underlying pattern. If the story ends with a surprise, it is the wonder of destiny, always fortunate in some higher sense, if not for its immediate agent. Indeed, the final emphasis is not on the disparity between individual aspirations and the whole, but on their harmony. In amazing ways, the two strands unite, the expendable acts of one being spill over into the larger ongoing process of racial destiny, apparently advancing according to a predetermined plan toward some glorious end. Only in the later Heinlein will that end itself become problematical. (pp. 9-10)

[Heinlein's first story, "Life-Line,"] is a work directly antipodal to the adventure story and its well-hewn plot. Indeed, the center of this sequence of episodes is less a character than a problem. Pinero is more than a model of how we should act. The man and his machine embody a much more general pattern, not of conduct, but of universal law. Instead of enacting destiny, they literally incarnate it. This tale, then, is clearly allegorical. As such it stands, at the onset of his career, as a microcosm of Heinlein's world. (p. 10)

If "Life-Line" is an allegory, what does it signify? The theory behind Pinero's machine [that measures each human life] is simple: a human life span, like that of the race as a whole, is a material entity…. In this purely physical sense, each individual life is pre-determined. The machine gives man foreknowledge. For the majority, however, this knowledge is intolerable: life is livable only in uncertainty. And yet, Pinero proves that struggle and a clear vision of one's fate are not incompatible. In contrast to the others, he sees the moment of his death and its cause—the defense of his own machine—and still pushes on, meeting his end with calm dignity. What else can he do? Man can know his destiny, but not alter it…. (p. 11)

Pinero is the prototype for Heinlein's elite man: all are marked by what might be called a creative capacity to accept the inevitable. But where does this superiority come from? It is nothing the hero develops—this would imply that any man could do it—but rather something he already has. Indeed, its existence is clearly placed on a level outside commonality. It is not a biological trait in the ordinary sense, for Pinero possesses neither physical beauty nor strength. Nor, apparently, does he have the craft or cunning necessary for blind survival at all costs—if anyone has these, it is this opponents. Pinero puts his great intelligence to a much different end—martyrdom. But it would be wrong to give this a tragic sense either, to see it as protest against a world without transcendence. (p. 12)

In "Life-Line," there are two states: nature, and a secular form of grace. In the first, "wisdom" is ignorance and darkness; the way of nature is irremediably perverted. Only Pinero is lifted above this: he receives his illumination, and goes to meet his end with the serenity of the elect. His martyrdom is part, not of nature, but of some higher evolution. The fallen state is merely sifted, the chaff abandoned. The destiny of man is that of the chosen few.

The interplanetary job corps in "Misfit" (1939) serves the same function as Pinero's machine—it places all men on an equal footing, so that the new elite may emerge…. Again, from outward appearances alone, [the protagonist, Andy Libby,] would be the least likely choice: he is an awkward, gangling lad from the Ozarks. In Heinlein's parables, our standards constantly fail to discern the elite. Yet, despite appearances, Libby is an intuitive mathematical genius…. There is no rational explanation for his talents: they were given him, and providence allows them to unfold. Libby's destiny fits neatly into the larger one of man's expansion into space. In this tale, he performs the minor task of moving an asteroid—man is rearranging the heavens. He will go on (as we learn in Methuselah's Children) to invent the space drive that will open up the boundless universe. If things are predestined, they also seem open-ended: already we see a phobia of the end that will haunt Heinlein increasingly in later years. (pp. 12-13)

In Heinlein, names like Andrew Jackson Libby (or Johann Sebastian Bach Smith) are microcosms of election—the everyman's last name is a mask covering the true lineage of genius. Libby comes into his world trailing clouds of glory, and merely acts out his predestined role. The story has become a ritual more than anything else. (p. 13)

"We Also Walk Dogs" provides a transition between the early tales and those written during the years immediately following Heinlein's wartime silence—especially 1947 and 1948. Like the early stories, it is partly an allegory of election, a demonstration of the processes of destiny. And it is partly an exemplary tale as well, one of an openly didactic nature. As it seeks to define the complex relationship between the individual and his universe, it also sets forth exemplary types. We are not only told who the elect are—we are told or taught to admire them. (p. 18)

[Heinlein's novellas] should not be considered as something intermediary or transitional, a step on the way to the novel. Theirs is rather an alternate mode of narration. Compared with Heinlein's more orthodox novels of adventure and intrigue, the novellas have a quite different structural logic. The adventure novel is fundamentally synthetic in form; successive episodes are subsumed in the gradually evolving mystery, resumed in the culminating denouement. In the same way, on the private level, the hero's consciousness unfolds in time and space until, at the moment of self-discovery, all previous experiences are encompassed in a flash. Heinlein's novellas often contain numerous episodes. These are organized, however, not in a linear series, but in concentric layers around a single center. In each novella, "action" is restricted to one pivotal problem or adventure. This is rapidly set forth and circumscribed; ensuing events tend to gloss it, building upon this center in analytical fashion. Heinlein's novellas often appear excessively digressive. Indeed, it is this centrifugal structure that generates most of those disquisitive passages that so annoy readers of Heinlein…. [We] do not find linear movement toward a point, but pulsatory movement away from it. The "action" will expand into various satellite realms, and then suddenly (irrationally, if we persist in thinking in terms of linear construction) contract upon the point in order that the story may end.

These early novellas seem to hold the key to the excessively digressive, actionless form of Heinlein's latest work…. More importantly, however, their structure sheds light on the unusual nature of some of Heinlein's juvenile novels. In certain of these "classics," it seems almost as if this vertical, analytical pattern has been superimposed over the initial horizontal impetus of the action novel. In this way, the "fast starts" we find in many Heinlein novels of the 1950s—where hero and reader are thrown at top speed into the middle of a train of events rushing forward toward denouement—are literally sabotaged. The forward thrust is made to coagulate around a problem center. This may indicate a preference for the novella form; but it does not necessarily mean Heinlein has lost structural control…. [He] can write adventure novels of a more conventional sort when he so wishes. We can only assume, from the persistence of these hybrids, that Heinlein intends this fusion of forms, and is actively seeking some structural advantage from it. Not only are Heinlein's early novellas strongly didactic; they illustrate, in their expansive and contractive structures, a vision of man in which the individual's relation to the whole is predestined and unchangeable. Fusion of this form with the patterns of heroic adventure in the middle novels allows Heinlein to redirect a view of man that must have been basically alien to him. Freedom of individual action, rational control of destiny—values implied in the narrative of heroic quest, no matter how debased—are gradually cancelled out as this axial form spreads from the center of these novels. (pp. 24-5)

[The] high points of action and intrigue in Heinlein's work are Rocket Ship Galileo and The Puppet Masters. Heinlein is often praised for the quality of his intrigue…. [These two works] best measure the extent to which intrigue leads an independent existence in his fiction. We will find it, even here, oddly qualified, mitigated by the need to shape parables. Billed as "the classic Moon flight novel that inspired modern astronautics," Galileo remains a narrative very much in the tradition of the pulp serial. Brassy chapter headings like "Let the Rockets Roar," and melodramatic cliff hangers like "Danger in the Desert" betray its origins. As is typical of certain pulp adventures, flamboyant scenes of action alternate with fictionalized lectures to young scientists…. [Digressions] are always controlled in this novel by the exigencies of intrigue. Once the action starts on the Moon, there is no time for school. Things are just the opposite in an earlier narrative like "Beyond this Horizon" (1942). Here, the characters hardly find time to act. The few episodes of intrigue seem added merely to enliven the series of dialogues that expose the central problem of genetic engineering. These, rather than the feeble actions of the Order of the Wolf, dominate and impel this story. In Galileo, there is hardly enough time to explore the city of the original lunar dwellers. The heroes are too busy with the Nazis; and though the Nazis used these ancient tunnels as a base, they neither noticed nor cared where they were. In the compass of this novel, the mystery is hardly touched: the heroes bring back some pictures, and the Moon dwellers remain in limbo. In later novels, however, similar mysteries suddenly expand to overwhelm the initial conflict. As early as Red Planet, the enigmatic Martians awake, and Heinlein's subplot suddenly suspends and invalidates the intrigue. (p. 44)

[In addition to intrigue, the] other major shaping pattern in Heinlein's novels of adventure (a pattern present in most of his fiction to some degree) is that of initiation. Several kinds of initiatory experience must be distinguised here: First, there is the novel of Bildung—the individual is mysteriously chosen for admission in some select group, and actively guided by its members through a series of trials to the goal. These works are the most backward-looking; often, they seem little more than elaborate extensions of a novella like "Gulf." Then there is the novel of false heroic formation—individual deeds and accomplishments turn out, in the end, to be superfluous: all along the hero has been following the guiding hand, intimate and invisible, of grace. In this overleaping election, the heroic conventions are subverted. Finally, there is Have Space Suit, Will Travel. This seems an unusual novel for Heinlein, for not only is the hero a free agent to an appreciable degree, but his individual acts have a real bearing on the outcome of events. Has the author simply relaxed his stance, and fallen back upon the stock juvenile formula? On the contrary, Space Suit is very much Heinlein, very much concerned with election and the destiny of the human race. A marvelous dynamic balance has been struck here between two states—heroic insecurity and sureness of the elect—which elsewhere function as contraries. In spite of its infelicitous title, this novel is a masterpiece.

Heinlein's period of juvenile adventure is roughly bracketed by two works that bear much resemblance to each other—Space Cadet (1948) and Starship Troopers (1959). Both represent a crude variation on the novel of Bildung as Goethe practiced it. In Goethe's work, coming of age is seen as a process which prepares the individual to assume his social responsibilities. To this worthy (and classic) goal, some modern factors are added. The hero (as the name Wilhelm Meister implies) is both everyman and a special man. Or rather, the "master" is somehow immanent in the bumbling commoner, and only waits to be drawn out. Mysteriously, he is chosen to become part of a powerful secret society, and guided until he discovers his true vocation. The hero is separated from the ordinary world; the society to which he accedes is an elite within the general society of man—benevolent, aristocratic, above the law. Space Cadet is exactly this kind of tale. Here, the dream of the inner circle is incarnate in an even more romantic vision of the military organization. The bulk of this story focuses on the apparatus that trains the hero. Individual action is relegated to a brief coda, in which Matt Dodson (now aware of his role in this elite group) performs a mission. The heroic act is illustrative rather than formative.

In a later novel, Starman Jones (1953), we have a significantly different process of initiation. Not only is the shaping group gone, but the hero finds himself apparently thrown against a select clique which stands for repression rather than election…. Growing up, it seems, is a much different process here: this boy appears to shape his own future through acts of perseverance and courage. But does he really do so? Traditionally, heroes are superior men. But if they differ from us, it is more in degree than in kind: they possess a greater force of will, or a higher capacity for suffering, or more willingness to risk their existence in perilous actions. If we look twice, we suddenly see that Jones is not such a hero at all. Far from smashing the caste system, his acts only serve to confirm its validity by revealing that he (by inalienable right) belongs among their number…. As ever in Heinlein's universe, the attempts of the non-elect to rule are only self-damning. In Starman Jones, Heinlein offers the promise of heroic adventure and of growth in action, and then cancels them out in a flash.

In both cases, Heinlein forces us to read the adventure of initiation allegorically. On one hand, the process of Bildung, is made to incarnate an older, more familiar form of "common grace." On the other, the classic adventure story is overturned by the revelation that its "free" hero has been following a preordained path all along. Here things turn in a different direction. In the surprising career of Max Jones, there is perhaps the analogue of that other direct and overleaping mode of grace. In a later novel like Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein strikes a new balance between the elect group and the individual recipient of "supernatural" grace. Here is a new centrifugal form in which grace, as an expanding center, comes to dominate the structural rhythms of the whole. Heinlein has also given us another alternative to this dichotomy. The one tale of initiation that escapes this easy conversion into allegory is Have Space Suit, Will Travel (1958)…. [This novel] looks across the gulf of a year at Heinlein's next effort in the vein—Starship Troopers. It is hard to imagine two more disparate treatments of the same theme—the coming of age. Space Suit remains a tale of election and destiny. Its patterns are relaxed, while those of Troopers are harsh and rigid. This time, within the broader frame, there is latitude for individual action. True, the story has a typical Heinleinian confrontation: a young boy stands at the bar of universal justice, and is called upon to defend the human race against the charges of these superior aliens, to thwart the menace of punishment—man's extermination. Again, the center makes direct contact with the circumference. Rather than elision, this time there is unbroken linear development from one extreme to the other: the adventure pattern holds. Symbol and concrete object relate to each other in a manner resembling causality. If Kip's actions are exemplary, it is not at the expense of his personal drama of formation, but because of it…. [He] would never have evolved as a chosen representative of the human race had he not also grown as an individual. Election is only the starting point, and destiny the end. If the path here seems too full of twists and fortunate surprises, these are interlinked each step of the way with real, believable human agents. The plan works in Space Suit, but it is not so absolute or restrictive. The elect are less obvious, less certain. Mankind is not so rigidly divided, nor are human will, heroic deeds, always blatantly superfluous. In its more tentative nature Have Space Suit—Will Travel is interesting Heinlein. Somehow in this novel, the contrary patterns of heroic adventure and predestination reach a moment of miraculous balance.

In Space Suit, Heinlein achieves the conflation of personal adventure and exemplum through skillful use of the first person narrator…. This exemplary situation, where a young American dreamer and his battered space suit come to stand for humanity as a whole, is not the product of ellipsis. It results instead from a clearly triadic rhythm—thesis, antithesis, synthesis—in which the logical action of the hero's mind becomes inseparable from the progression of events. (pp. 49-52)

The truly "classic" Heinlein is [an] allegorical writer…. There is a basic pattern, shaped in the earliest tales, and carefully elaborated in his subsequent work. But there is also a distinct development of allegorical forms on a diachronic axis as well. The early stories and novellas are more obviously parables, and whatever action and adventure there is has an overtly symbolic or illustrative function. The middle novels are different: here, an allegorical purpose gradually informs and transforms conventional adventure. Rightfully, then, Heinlein's later "problem" novels are hybrids. In their didactic and "philosophical" emphasis, they mark a return to the more static patterns of the early stories. At the same time, however, their form has benefited from the development of Heinlein's art during the decade of juvenile writing. The curious subversion of the linear patterns of intrigue and initiation in these works has contributed as much to the form of Stranger as the vertical configurations of a story like "Waldo."

In spite of this merger, these adventure forms have a certain life of their own in Heinlein. Running parallel to the revival of openly philosophical works on a grand scale in the 1960s is a current of shorter works in which the impetus of a decade of action and intrigue is sustained…. True, these novels eventually blend with the philosophical stream, if only through the fact that their heroes get progressively older. We go in the span of a decade from youth to middle age, and finally to senescence. In Heinlein's latest work, Time Enough for Love, adventure of all sorts (intrigue as well as the drama of coming of age) is absorbed into a new narrative center—the exemplary life of ancient and deathless Lazarus Long.

One novel of the 1960s does stand out—Glory Road (1963). The last of Heinlein's juvenile adventures is an interesting work, both from its position in this decade, and in itself. It has many of the faults of the Heinlein novel in general, and a dogmatic edge that places it unquestionably in his late period. Yet somehow it remains a satisfying piece of work. Again, in a novel apparently about the formation of a hero, there is no individual growth…. In terms of traditional patterns initiation, the action centers here in another huge elision—the hero doesn't face his world, he circumvents it. But might it not have been (as the rival convention demands) only a dream after all? Heinlein strikes, it seems, a new note of ambiguity. In openly stressing the dream-motif, which has propelled the hero of many a romance into fabulous adventure, and brought him safely back again, Heinlein seemingly seeks to parody his own process of suppressing the middle. (pp. 57-8).

[Glory Road] shares with Space Suit the same creative interplay (if to a lesser degree) between Heinlein's persistent patterns of election and predestination, and those of the action genre he adopts…. [As] with Space Suit, the meaning of this novel is to be found not in a separation of these two strands, but in their interaction. The message, however, is a different one—and a poignant sign of the alteration in Heinlein's world view that occurred during the '60s. Scar goes down the "glory road" to the heart of a universal order that would seem a Heinleinian paradise. Instead of big government, there is no government…. Democracy and freedom for all? Far from it. In this universe, the ablest rule, and order is strictly maintained. Yet even in an Eldorado such as this, Scar becomes restless—without his heroic task, the hero feels "useless." An alien on the planet Center, Scar goes back to Earth, only to discover that he is alien there too. Glory is the goal of Heinlein's man. Here, between center and circumference, it can be found only on the endless road that moves back and forth. Here begins that pattern of perpetual motion from one meaningless extreme to the other which receives its ultimate incarnation in Heinlein's latest novel. Lazarus Long moves forever between what for him are the mutually cancelling terms of time and love.

Glory Road, then, is both a "classic" and an anomaly in Heinlein's canon. Less overtly allegorical than most of his works, it remains nonetheless a superb parable, in which the higher workings that control man's destiny are deftly exposed to view. On the other hand, as the last of those novels of juvenile adventure in which the patterns of action not only co-exist but actually interact with those of election, it represents in Heinlein's fiction the current that lost. (pp. 59-60)

George Edgar Slusser, in his The Classic Years of Robert A. Heinlein (copyright © 1977 by George Edgar Slusser), The Borgo Press, 1977, 63 p.