a book report, by dougie

the stools would like to present dougie's book report on the red planet, by robert a. heinlein


RED PLANET by Robert A. Heinlein.

RED PLANET by Robert A. Heinlein is the story of a boy, Jim, and his friend, Frank, and also Jim's pet, a native animal of Mars, which is where they live, because RED PLANET by Robert A. Heinlein is set in the future, when Mars has become a colony of Earth administered by a company called the Company. Jim's pet is called Willis, and is basically a furry tape recorder that can record all amounts of sounds, and play them back. He is also, when it is convenient to the plot, a furry Swiss Army Knife. Jim and Frank are shipped off to boarding school at the beginning of the novel, although it takes a long time for this to happen. On the way to the school they end up meeting some Martians, who are basically very tall, three-legged, blue hippy plot devices. Jim and Frank do some transcendental meditation with the Martians, and this makes them something like blood brothers with the Martians. When they get to the school, the doddering old and loveable headmaster, who I guess is more or less Mr. Chips or something, has been sent away by the Company, and a new, dickhead headmaster is put in charge the next day. It quickly turns out that he's a Company agent, sent to help change the rules about the annual migration, which is important to Earthlings on Mars for some sort of climatic reason. And, if the plot weren't so full of holes, some sort of climactic reason, but I digress with my bad puns. Why the school should be of such strategic migratory importance is only sort of satisfactorily explained. Anyway, Frank and Jim run away from school, and the Martians turn up to help them (after they spend the night in a giant cabbage), and they get the news about the migration back to their parents, but only after learning that they've become outlaws. Somewhere in there they eat some food that is basically Quorn, which I thought was pretty impressive. But anyway, Jim's dad organizes a militia and they migrate despite the Company's policy or intention or rules or something, but then at this point the plot turns into a replay of the American Revolution (they stop just short of chanting, "No Taxation Without Annual Migration!", but Heinlein does somewhat self-consciously namecheck the Declaration of Independence). Some stuff happens and then the Martians demand the Earthlings all leave because they've violated the Martians' sacred trust. The only reason they didn't just kill all the Earthlings is because of that meditation brothers thing with Jim and Frank, which is pretty lucky. The prose is generally wooden, and the dialogue woodener. It's mellow, but not smooth. And kind of shitty. I liked it.

Dr. Douglas Cowie