Robert Heinlein, I find, is an oddity in fiction...he is completely reliable.

I have been troubled lately by a lamentable absence of good books. I have bemoaned my fate not only to epinions readers, but also to my mentors in life, demanding of them new reading lists. These having not arrived (said parties being in England, and despisers both of electronic communication) I decided that I would read some Heinlein, thereby guaranteeing a good result.

No disappointment in "Citizens of the Galaxy".

In this short and absorbing novel, we follow the story of young Thorby. Thorby has no last name, as he is deprived of this when he is taken as a slave in the first years of his life. He finds himself on an alien world, about to be sold into bondage, but no-one will place a bid for him except the local beggar, who could use the help. Thereby, he falls into the hands of Baslim the cripple. This is all much to the amusement of the populace, but Baslim is not what he seems….disgusted by the slave trade, Baslim buys Thorby in order to raise him as a free man. Baslim is not your common-or-garden beggar, but is an intelligence gatherer for the governments of the free world, and he is present on the planet Sargon for the sole purpose of busting the slave trade. He does this in disguise, and meantime he mentors and fathers young Thorby into a strong and proud young man. But a young man who also wears a disguise…the disguise of a slave.

Years pass, and eventually Thorby and Baslim are forced apart upon the discovery of Baslim’s true identity. Baslim dies, but not before arranging for Thorby to be carried off world as a free man, into the bosom of a clan of space-faring traders. Here Thorby must face all kinds of new pressures, associated with the trials and responsibilities of freedom. Unused to having status, and still grieving for his surrogate father, he struggles to find himself a life-meaning, as he is aculturalised into the ways of the free traders. Thorby finds his strict tutelage in the ways of discipline from Baslim sets him in good stead for life in such an environment. He becomes a valued member of the crew, but despite all the love and worth this culture can provide him, Thorby cannot lose sight of the fact that he belongs somewhere else, and he has not yet learned his name aright.

Baslim placed Thorby in good hands however. The Captain of the traders ship passes Thorby along when the time is right, into the officialdom of the space navy. Thorby is alarmed to leave his clan, but also excited and intrigued by this new culture, since it is a branch of this navy in which Baslim served. Indeed, Thorby comes to understand that his beloved mentor was beloved of most of the corps of the navy too. By extracting information from Thorby under hypnosis, Baslim’s legacy of intelligence on the workings of the slave trade is finally put into hands that can make use of it. Finally in the presence of someone who can access the true records of the galactic databases, Thorby discovers his original identity…he turns out to be none other than the long-lost inheritor of one of the largest corporations in the known universe.

Lucky, huh?

Determined to learn about his new role, and what he can achieve with it, Thorby sets out to take control of the corporate entity that his family has entrusted to his care through their wills. He discovers however that even caretakers of fortunes do not want to give up the power that goes along with that role. Weaving his way through a web of corporate beurocracy and intrigue and double talk, he sets about learning the dark secrets of corporation, and their nebulous link to the very slave trade which took his life on this crazy ride in the first place!!!

I think you’ll agree, a decent piece of story, plenty of rich plot.

Not only is it good plot , good story, but Heinlein even goes on to make good use of it. How often, and so sadly in science fiction, the very finest stories and ideas are thinly or half-heartedly executed by authors whose vision far outstrips their capacity within the writing arts. Heinlein was not in this category, and Citizen of the Galaxy is superbly executed as a coming of age tale, woven with a tour of three cultures.
As you can see from a brief synopsis of the plot, this is essentially three stories. Three cultures are illustrated and realized. They all succeed in showing us a completely new set of challenges for young Thorby, and through them Heinlein presents a critique of various socioeconomic set-ups…the slave/master relationship… the itinerant trader, living within his/her own peculiar caste system, under a matriarchal dictatorship …and the corporate nobility, heaving with hypocrisy. Heinlein subjects each of these systems to his own brusque and rather utilitarian analysis.

The seedy underworld of the planet Sargon works best for me…here we are given a handsome and often sensitive portrait of a gentle boy being raised with art by an ungentle father. I’m not sure I would have expected to ever describe Heinlein as sensitive but there you are. Here, through the mouthpiece of Baslim, Heinlein gives us more of his blunt advice and earthy axioms….anyone familiar with his “Lazarus Long” character will enjoy this style. Baslim is one of those gritty fellows who stares an icy stare back at danger, and casts a masterly and ever-cynical eye over all of creation, vigilant for wrongdoing. Baslim would make a good superhero. Heinlein would have been fantastic as a writer of comic books.

Heinlein clearly hates the idea of slavery, but is just fine with the idea of inequality. His hopeless attitude towards women is as outrageous as ever in this book….”Women have no head for numbers or business…..” etc etc. I try to put this aside during my reading, and try to think of him as just a bit of an eccentric old man, an anachronism, but its not easy!

In the second section I was fascinated by the complex and original culture which Heinlein creates. Here, again, I found I was seeing a new side of the author, as he waxed lyrical on the subtleties of social anthropology. Indeed, his skill at presenting such matters using a utilitarian approach seems to make subjects become instantly transparent, and his great talent makes the writing here doubly fascinating. One not only feels an insight into the culture being described, but feels also empowered into how other cultures may be viewed through Heinlein’s magic goggles.

For me, it is the first two sections of this piece which worked the best…When I came to the final section, where Thorby is transformed into a kind of frustrated middle-management character, I wondered what had happened at all to the science fiction…..I don’t typically enjoy novels of corporate and political intrigue. Anyway, it was still entertaining, and I did enjoy the growing sense that a revenge against the money men was coming towards the end of the book. Yippee! Hurray for the good guys!

Some of my other science fiction book reviews:

Rama Revealed
Prelude to Space
Stand on Zanzibar
The Demolished Man
The Stars my Destination
Cat's Cradle
The Gods Themselves
Watchmen
A Canticle for Leibowitz
The Hammer of God
The Left Hand of Darkness
Flowers for Algernon
Lord of Light
Rendevous with Rama
The Tombs of Atuan
The Dispossessed
I am Legend
The Einstein Intersection
Earth Abides
Peace on Earth
The Farthest Shore
Methuselah's Children
A Call to Arms
To your Scattered Bodies Go
The Lion of Comarre / Against the Fall of Night
To Say Nothing of the Dog
The Doomsday Book
Frankenstein Unbound
Batman - The Dark Knight Returns
Imperial Earth
A Case of Conscience
Solaris
The Sands of Mars
The Land of Laughs
Eden
His Masters Voice
Citizen of the Galaxy
King David's Spaceship
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Double Star
The Fabulous Riverboat
Songs of Distant Earth
Way Station
The Fountains of Paradise
The Long Tomorrow
Lincolns Dreams
Alas Babylon
More Than Human
1984
The Forever War
All the Myriad Ways
I Sing the Body Electric
Gateway
Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said
This Immortal
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Recommended: Yes