Red Planet (novel)

infobox Book |
name = Red Planet
title_orig =


image_caption = First edition cover
author = Robert A. Heinlein
illustrator = Clifford Geary
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series = Heinlein juveniles
genre = Science fiction novel
publisher = Scribner's
release_date = 1949
media_type = Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
pages =
isbn = NA
preceded_by = Space Cadet
followed_by = Farmer in the Sky

"Red Planet" is a 1949 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein about students at boarding school on the planet Mars. It represents the first appearance of Heinlein's idealized Martian elder race (see also "Stranger in a Strange Land"). The version published in 1949 featured a number of changes forced on Heinlein by Scribner's, since it was published as part of the Heinlein juveniles. After Heinlein's death, the book was reissued by Del Rey Books as the author originally intended.

In 1994, the novel was adapted by Lee Gunther's Gunther-Wahl Productions into an animated miniseries, featuring the voices of Mark Hamill, Roddy McDowall, and Nick Tate.

Plot summary

On Mars, Jim Marlowe and Frank Sutton travel to the Lowell Academy boarding school for the start of the academic year. Jim takes along his native, volleyball-sized pet, Willis the Bouncer, who is about as intelligent as a human child, but remembers and speaks as clearly as a recording machine. At a rest stop, Willis wanders off and encounters one of the adult sentient Martians. The three-legged alien takes the two boys and Willis to join a ritual called "growing together" with a group of its fellows. They also share water, making Jim and Frank "water friends" with the Martian, who is named Gekko.

At school, Jim gets into trouble with the authoritarian headmaster, Mr. Howe, who confiscates Willis, claiming that it is against the new rules to have pets. When Jim and Frank sneak into Howe's office and rescue Willis, the bouncer repeats two overheard conversations between Howe and Beecher, the unscrupulous colonial administrator of Mars, detailing Beecher's plans for Willis and the colony. When Beecher learns Howe has a bouncer, he is ecstatic, since the "London Zoo" is willing to pay a hefty price for a specimen. Worse, Beecher is secretly planning to prevent the annual migration (necessary to avoid 12 months of severe winter conditions) in order to save money. The boys run away from school to warn their parents and the colony.

The boys set out to skate the thousands of miles to their homes. The second night, they are forced to take shelter inside a Martian cabbage plant (nearly suffocating when it folds up at night). The next day, they contact some Martians, who accept Jim because of his relationship to Willis and water-friendship with Gekko. The Martians send the two boys home by a swift "subway".

Once warned, Jim's father quickly organizes the migration, hoping to catch Beecher off guard. The colonists take over the boarding school, and the turn it into a temporary shelter. Howe locks himself in his office, while Beecher sets up armed guards outside to stop the malcontents (as he calls them) from leaving. After two colonists are killed trying to surrender, and the power to the building is cut, the colonists decide they have no choice but to fight back. Jim and Frank show Jim's father how they can escape through the school's unguarded garbage hatch. The colonists take control and proclaim the colony's independence from the Earth.

Next, several adult Martians enter the school in search of Howe, angry over his scheme to sell Willis. They surround him, hiding him from sight. When they separate, Howe is nowhere to be found. The Martians then go to Beecher's office, and when they leave, he has also vanished.

The Martians then present the colonists with an ultimatum: leave the planet or else. Jim's relationship with Willis ultimately saves the colony. Dr. McCrea negotiates with the Martians, and finally is able to persuade the Martians to let the colonists stay.

Doctor MacRae theorizes that Martians start life as bouncers, metamorphose into adults (who do the work), then continue their lives after their deaths as the "old ones" (who make the decisions and direct the work). Whatever the reason, Willis's love for Jim persuades the Martians to let them stay. The Doctor MacRae and the two boys are heroes. In the end, Jim prepares to give Willis up so he can undergo the transformation to adulthood. As with "Podkayne of Mars", there are two versions of the ending. As originally written (and published much later) it is made clear that Willis will not emerge as an adult for fifty years. This was edited and changed by Heinlein's publishers, as was a discussion in which MacRae expresses strong support for the adults' and older children's being free to carry handguns, since there are dangerous Martian animals that are occasionally encountered.

Connections with "Stranger in a Strange Land"

The life cycle of Martians (as theorized by Doctor MacRae) is the same in "Stranger in a Strange Land". It is noted in this novel that the "old ones" inhabit two planes of existence: the physical and the (unspecified) other. Further, the water friends theme is recapitulated in "Stranger in a Strange Land" as "water brothers." Furthermore, the Martian ability to make an item or person disappear, which was a major plot point in "Stranger", is demonstrated here, and the general description of Martians is similar.

External links

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