Have Space Suit—Will Travel

Have Space Suit—Will Travel is a science fiction novel for young readers by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, originally serialised in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (August, September, October 1958) and published by Scribner's in hardcover in 1958. It is the last of the Heinlein juveniles. It was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1959.[1] It also won the Sequoyah Children's Book Award for 1961. Heinlein's engineering expertise enabled him to add realistic detail; during World War II, he had been, for a time, a civilian aeronautics engineer at a laboratory in which pressure suits were being developed for use at high altitudes.

Have Space Suit — Will Travel
Cover of the first edition
AuthorRobert A. Heinlein
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SeriesHeinlein juveniles
GenreScience fiction
PublisherScribner's
Publication date
1958
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Preceded byCitizen of the Galaxy 

Plot summary

The novel is set in the near future, when the Earth has established a few small scientific bases on the Moon. Clifford "Kip" Russell, enters an advertising jingle writing contest, hoping to win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Moon. He instead gets a used space suit. Kip puts the suit (which he dubs "Oscar") back into working condition.

Kip reluctantly decides to return his space suit for a cash prize to help pay for college, but puts it on for one last walk. As he idly broadcasts on his shortwave radio, someone identifying herself as "Peewee" answers and requests a homing signal. He is shocked when a flying saucer lands practically on top of him. A young girl (Peewee) and an alien being (the "Mother Thing") flee from it, but all three are quickly captured and taken to the Moon.

Their kidnapper ("Wormface") is a horrible-looking creature who contemptuously refers to all others as "animals". Wormface has two human flunkies who assisted him in initially capturing the Mother Thing and Peewee, a preteen genius and the daughter of an eminent scientist. The Mother Thing speaks like birdsong, with a few musical notations. Kip and Peewee have no trouble understanding her.

Kip, Peewee, and the Mother Thing try to escape to the nearest human base by hiking across the lunar surface, but they are recaptured and taken to a base on Pluto. Kip is thrown into a cell, later to be joined by the two human traitors (Wormface's two "human flunkies"), who have apparently outlived their usefulness. Before they later disappear, one mentions to Kip that his former employers eat humans.

The Mother Thing, meanwhile, makes herself useful to their captors by constructing advanced devices for them. She manages to steal enough parts to assemble a bomb and a transmitter. The bomb takes care of most of the Wormfaces, but the Mother Thing freezes solid when she tries to set up the transmitter outside without a spacesuit. Kip courageously goes outside himself to activate the distress beacon, and receives a terminal case of frostbite. Help arrives almost instantly from the Mother Thing's advanced race. Kip, Peewee and the Mother Thing are transported to Vega 5, the Mother Thing's home planet.

Kip has suffered severe frostbite and is kept in a state of cryopreservation while the Mother Thing's people figure out how to heal him. It turns out that the Mother Thing is far hardier than Kip had suspected and freezing did not hurt her. While Kip recuperates, a Vegan anthropologist, "Prof Joe" learns about Earth from Peewee and Kip. Once Kip is well, he, Peewee, and the Mother Thing travel to a planet in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, to face an intergalactic tribunal, composed of many advanced species which have banded together for self-protection.

The Wormfaces are put on trial first. They promise to annihilate all other species, and are judged to be dangerous. Their planet is "rotated" out of three-dimensional space without their star - effectively an act of genocide dooming them to freeze to death.

Then it is humanity's turn, as represented by Peewee, Kip, Iunio (an Ancient Roman centurion), and a Neanderthal man. The Neanderthal is rejected as being of another species. Iunio proves belligerent, but brave. Peewee's and Kip's recorded remarks are then admitted into evidence. In humanity's defense, Kip makes a stirring speech. The Mother Thing and a representative of another race argue that the short-lived species are essentially children who should be granted more time to learn and grow. It is decided to re-evaluate humanity after "a dozen half-deaths of radium" (19200 years).

Kip and Peewee are returned to Earth with advanced alien devices and scientific equations provided by the Vegans to help the human race. Kip passes the information along to Professor Reisfeld, Peewee's father. Reisfeld arranges a full scholarship for Kip at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Kip wants to study engineering and spacesuit design.

Legacy

Since the advent of amateur radio satellites in 1961, the majority have been known as Orbital Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio – OSCAR.[2]

An amateur radio satellite, dubbed SuitSat, was launched from the International Space Station in February 2006. This was an obsolete space suit with a ham radio transmitter inside it.

Reception

Floyd C. Gale wrote that the book "is possibly the most unabashedly juvenile of Heinlein's long list ... Great for kids, chancy for grownups who don't identify readily with adolescent heroes".[3]

Film adaptation

In 2010, it was announced that Star Trek writer Harry Kloor had written a script for a film version and optioned the film rights. The film was expected to have come out in 2013,[4][5] but as of the end of 2013 was still listed as "in development".

Editions
  • 1958, Charles Scribner's Sons, hardcover
  • 1970, Ace Books, paperback
  • 1971, NEL, paperback, ISBN 0-450-00729-4
  • 1977, Ballantine, paperback, ISBN 0-345-26071-6
  • May 1, 1977, Macmillan Publishing Company, hardcover, ISBN 0-684-14857-9
  • July 12, 1981, Del Rey, paperback, ISBN 0-345-30103-X
  • May 12, 1985, Del Rey, paperback, 256 pages, ISBN 0-345-32441-2
  • July 1, 1987, Hodder & Stoughton General Division, paperback, ISBN 0-450-00729-4
  • June 1, 1994, Buccaneer Books, hardcover, ISBN 1-56849-288-X
  • October 1, 1999, Sagebrush, library binding, ISBN 0-613-13639-X
  • July 2003, Del Rey Books, hardcover, ISBN 0-613-94907-2
  • July 29, 2003, Del Rey, paperback, 240 pages, ISBN 0-345-46107-X
  • December 1, 2003, Full Cast Audio, cassette audiobook, ISBN 1-932076-39-5
  • December 1, 2003, Full Cast Audio, cassette audiobook, ISBN 1-932076-40-9
  • December 1, 2003, Full Cast Audio, CD audiobook, ISBN 1-932076-41-7
  • February 8, 2005, Pocket, paperback, 256 pages, ISBN 1-4165-0549-0
  • December 2008, Virginia Edition (Vol. 21), hardcover, 192 pages, ISBN 978-1-897350-26-3

The cover for one of the French editions (Presses Pocket, 1978) is by notable science fiction illustrator Jean-Claude Mézières

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See also

References
  1. "1959 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-27.
  2. "The Extraordinary History of Amateur Radio Satellites". Space Today. 2006. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
  3. Gale, Floyd C. (August 1959). "Galaxy's 5 Star Star Shelf". Galaxy. pp. 138–142. Retrieved 14 June 2014.
  4. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-09-15. Retrieved 2011-07-14.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. Have Space Suit—Will Travel on IMDb
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