n a future where humanity has begun to settle the solar system, Earthbound teenager Kip Russell tells his father he wants to go to the moon. Dad says, "Certainly. Go." When Kip asks Dad how, Dad tells Kip that it’s up to him to figure out a way.
One possible opportunity comes in the form of a free trip offered as top prize in a contest for Skyway Soap. Kip devotes all his waking hours to concocting slogans, producing thousands of them. He doesn't win first prize, but is declared runner-up, winning a used spacesuit which he dubs Oscar and immediately sets about restoring. He persists in his dream despite the constant mockery of Ace Quiggle, a local bully and know-nothing.
Kip happens to be wearing Oscar when his radio picks up a distress call from a young girl who claims to have been kidnapped by aliens. Surprise--she really has been. Soon joining her in captivity, he meets Peewee herself, an abrasive but likable 10-year-old genius. She introduces him to yet another prisoner, a lemur-like alien cop named the Mother Thing, who was captured while in pursuit of other aliens Kip soon dubs Wormfaces. The Wormfaces, who are operating with human allies, wish to conquer Earth and reduce humanity to a delicacy.
Oscar soon comes in handy indeed. But imprisonment at the hands, or whatever, of the Wormfaces is a small threat indeed, compared to the even greater challenge that lies ahead for Kip: testifying at a tribunal held by the sentient species of three galaxies, which has gathered to judge whether humanity should be permitted another chance--or summarily destroyed.
A book to entertain and inspire
Reduced to its bare-bones summary, Have Space Suit--Will Travel doesn’t sound all that promising. It in fact sounds corny and hackneyed. And though it’s actually somewhat better than that, it is also, when judged alongside Heinlein’s large and influential body of work, a minor novel at best. Even with its juvenile target audience taken into account, it’s still a simplistic and schematic melodrama.
Still, its status as a specimen of lesser Heinlein is precisely what makes it such a worthwhile candidate for examination. The strengths that make Heinlein such a resonant science-fiction author are after all still present here. The book’s general weakness allows the more characteristic strengths to stand out in higher relief.
Take the early scenes, involving the contest and the restoration of the spacesuit. By telling Kip that making his way to the moon is his own problem, Kip’s dad places the responsibility for the realization of this dream squarely on the young man’s own shoulders. Kip doesn’t shrug and choose a lesser ambition. Instead, Kip works hard to win the contest, and harder to render the spacesuit functional; Heinlein refuses to skimp on addressing just what this young man is willing to do to pursue a dream. He addresses the limits of popular education in providing Kip with the knowledge he needs to know. He contrasts Kip’s drive with the know-nothing character of Ace Quiggle, to whom the dreams and ambitions of others are nothing but the opportunity for scorn, wondering through another character "just to what extent civilization is retarded by the laughing jackasses, the empty-minded belittlers."
Nor does Heinlein go for empty action scenes, even when the alien-abduction plot begins. His young protagonists show physical courage, of course, but that’s no more a factor in their eventual survival than their intelligence, their well-rounded educations, their willingness to endure hardship and stand up for themselves, their innate morality and--ultimately--their selflessness and willingness to sacrifice for each other. In this book, such factors have a lot more to do with the survival of Kip and Peewee (and, by book’s end, of humanity as well) than the empty skill with fists and ray guns that has powered the work of any number of lesser writers. It’s hard to avoid the realization that Heinlein was telling tales not only to thrill his young audience, but also to educate them--an achievement that helps explain why his fingerprints are still found in the work of so many writers who followed him.
