Sci-fi version of Lord of the Flies, only happier

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	• Tunnel in the Sky Robert A. Heinlein Del Rey, 2003 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 67 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Final Exam Gone Wrong

"Tunnel in the Sky" is another one of the so-called "juveniles" Robert A. Heinlein wrote in the 1950's for Charles Scribners Sons. As I have explained in other reviews, virtually all of these novels remain in print. Actually none of them has ever gone out of print. None of them are sold for the juvenile market anymore either.

In this future, we have the Ramsbotham Jump, the `tunnel in the sky'. To travel long distances or even between stars, you simply walk through a gate and you're at your destination. Earth has colonized other worlds not with starships but with old-fashioned wagon trains driven through Ramsbotham Jump gates.

The point about the wagon trains is important. To the best of my knowledge, Heinlein was the first to point out distant colonies on other planets won't have a necessary high-tech industrial base for years. That takes a lot of people and a lot of specialties. Consequently, rather than air cars and ray guns, life will initially be draft animals, home-spun and no electricity.

Rod Walker is a high school senior taking an advanced course in survival. You only pass or fail this course. There is no middle ground. The final exam consists of Rod and his classmates being transported by gate to another world. They can take whatever equipment (including weapons) they want. Once they are through the gate, they can partner with whomever. They must be able to survive in any environment, on any planet for a period of not less than two and no more than ten days.

In order to pass, you must survive. On the other side there are no rules. You don't know what animals are dangerous. You don't know what plants are dangerous. Nor do you understand the extremes of the environment or anything about the eco-system.

Look at it like this, if you were from another planet, would you know a rattlesnake was dangerous? Would you be able to tell the difference between a dog barking a greeting and one threatening attack? You might even think a scorpion is cute. Or you'd be terrified of a rabbit.

In this test, there is one danger not born at the exam site. Remember there are no rules. It is perfectly legal for students to prey on other students. By `prey' that means up to and including murder.

So what happens? The time for recall comes and goes. It slowly dawns on Rod and the other students that wherever they are; they are stranded light years from Earth. They do not know what happened. They do not know if they will ever go home again. No doctors, no ready-made meals, no chance for re-supply.

They do know they must survive.

This book is about civilization. It's about how people act without it and why it is necessary. We all live in comfort and security. But it took a lot of suffering for that to occur. Rod, his classmates and the students from other classes have to build civilization from scratch. That is not just creature comforts. There is also the rule of law and it's enforcement.

Personally I never warmed to Rod very much. His most charming trait is he's stubborn. At times he's not too bright. But he never loses his moral compass and first and foremost he survives.

While this isn't Heinlein's best work, it is still better than must books in the genre.

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Brings back old times

I read this book when I was in my early teens. I learned a lot from it, it was my first look at life on the edge. I was 13, cut me some slack. It gave me the first inkling of what being an adult was. The book showed a kid in a dangerous situation, growing up faster than any kid should have. The things he went through, losing his dream and finally, getting everything back he'd lost and more.

Pretty heavy stuff for a 16 year old. But, it made a long lasting impression on me.

A couple of years later, I wound up in Vietnam...and I carried two knives.

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Sci-fi version of Lord of the Flies, only happier

I highly recommend this for teenagers -- and like all Heinlein, it has some good stuff in there for any thoughtful person. This is the sci-fi version of the darker Lord of the Flies (pulished one year earlier in 1954).

Beware of the stobor!

Tunnel in the Sky should be required reading for all kids. I haven't read it in a couple of decades so this review will serve as an indicator of what impressed me when I first read it and what has stuck with me over the oh-so-many years since.

It's final exams for a survival class and in typical Heinlein fashion, it is a practical exam. The class is to be dropped on a wilderness planet where they must survive until they are picked up. But something goes wrong and the kids are left there long after the pick up time.

I remember the main character's sister helping him choose the one weapon he was allowed to take with him. She was a Marine or something, which was a surprise to me since I had never read about women in such careers. Its commonplace now. Her advice to him was to foget guns and fancy tech. Take a knife. I thought, "What?!" But she explained the value and psychology of that choice and suddenly, it made sense. Later in the book, we see just how brilliant a choice it was.

When preparing for the test, the instructor gave the class one warning: Beware of the stobor. I was certain that I knew what the stobor were going to be. You're probably guessing it now, but we're both wrong. To this day I remember how I SHOULD have been right, but alas, I must live with that failure. Heinlein had a better answer, but I do think he was playing with us.

Tunnel in the Sky is a great book for young readers and a quick fun read for adults. I recommend it highly.

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A Walk In The Park.

The two Science-Fiction novels I hold close to my heart are 'The Martian Chronicles' by Ray Bradbury and the 'The Time Machine' by H.G. Wells ( NOT the movie!! ). They both have in common a certain poetry and melancholy that are appreciated mostly by adults.

Because of his pseudo-religious 'Stranger in a Strange Land', I know what Heinlein is capable of, and 'Tunnel In The Sky' doesn't really meet his own high standards. This novel will be appreciated mostly by the teenagers among us, though I quiet liked it myself I might add.

The story plays in the far future where almost any planet in the galaxy can be colonized. This colonization is apparently very important because in order to get a high-school diploma, you have to take part in a survival session on a 'Outlands' planet. If you succeed you are allowed to colonize a planet (at least a part of it of course).

The initial problem is overpopulation. The scientists found a way to literally walk to another planet in the galaxy. They manage that by using Space-Time Gates ( this will sound familiar to those who watched the 'Stargate-Atlantis' TV series ). These stargates are used by thousands of emigrants ( there are five gates ). The duration of the survival test on each planet is between 24 and 48 hours. For Rod Walker however, something went wrong. A week has passed and he didn't receive his recall-sign. What happened?

Characterization is always a little shallow in adventure novels like this, but all in all it's a good story by one of the great names in SF-literature.

The Martian Chronicles (The Grand Master Editions)
The Time Machine (Signet Classics)
Stranger in a Strange Land

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

It was just a test . . .
But something had gone wrong. Terribly wrong. What was to have been a standard ten-day survival test had suddenly become an indefinite life-or-death nightmare.
Now they were stranded somewhere in the universe, beyond contact with Earth . . . at the other end of a tunnel in the sky. This small group of young men and women, divested of all civilized luxuries and laws, were being forced to forge a future of their own . . . a strange future in a strange land where sometimes not even the fittest could survive!
". . . fascinating . . . ingenious . . . this a book in the grand tradition of high literature!"
-- The New York Times

From the Paperback edition.

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