Book 18: Orphans Of the Sky

Orphans of the Sky

 

Robert A. Heinlein

First Published as a two-part serial in 1941

Published by Putnam in 1964

My love affair  with science fiction continues.

The most recently published SF I've read was P.D. James' The Children of Men,, which, in case you didn't know, is almost nothing like the film.  I wouldn't say it's better than the film.  Honestly, I would go so far as to say that the film is not only better as a piece of entertainment, but better as a criticism. It has its literary merits and they extend much farther than.... wait... back to Orphans

One of the things about SF, especially old SF, that I find exciting is the cover art. New SF cover art seems to fall into two categories-- Words and colors, or cartoonish depictions of characters in the novel.   Older SF covers seem to be a lot more soulful, imaginative and abstract. 

The reason the cover image in this post is so much bigger than the others is because I really, really like this image.  It says a lot and doesn't say a goddamn thing all at once.  I would like for this to be a large poster.

In fact, I might just do a grid transfer someday. I need a new poster in my office.

I mean, click the link to the amazon page and compare that cover art to this cover art. One looks like some kind of crap you'd see on the back of a cereal box. One is definitely more imaginative and exploratory. That's what SF is all about.

Or maybe I'm just being romantic. 

Back to Orphans...

Heinlein wrote this in 1941, which is really damn shocking when one thinks about it.  You can imagine how far out there the notion that we would be sending people into space in a ship which would be able to support life for dozens of generations into perpetuity based on technology which converted matter into hydrogen to be used for fuel was in a world before most people had TVs.

Now that we have the things we have and  understand the things we understand about the mechanics of matter, it doesn't seem entirely impossible for this to be an eventuality.

It's unlikely, of course, that we will ever get over ourselves enough to put the necessary time and effort into developing this kind of technology.

We're too busy trying to figure out the best ways to kill each other for resources or fuck each other over for money. Why waste time exploring the natural world beyond our atmosphere, right? Probably not any oil out there, anyway...

Orphans Of the Sky is clearly a critique of religion and human credulity.

It centers around people who, generations after the craft they live on left Earth, have devolved to the point that reading and writing is considered a special skill, history is passed down in rhyming oral tradition, and women are treated like property.

This is much the same condition that produced things like the Bible, Koran, Vedas, Bhagavad Gita, and Days of Our Lives.  The characters of Orphans, who have never been or seen outside of their ship consider it the entirety of the universe. Why wouldn't they?

Any suggestion otherwise is heresy and the heretics are treated as heretics are always treated-- with the noble, compassion befitting someone who thinks differently.  Death without appeal, I mean.

We also see how the powerful classes use the religion of the ship to control the lower classes and extract labor. Nothing new, but it does help to illustrate the point. And remember, this was 1941.

This is kind of like Lord of the Flies but in a giant spaceship. And with adults. And mutants. And spousal women.

A couple of particularly neat things about my copy of this book:

It has the cool old cover art.

It used to be part of the Amarillo Air Force Base library (other stamps confirm this).  From there, it apparently went to West Texas Technical Institute. Then it wound up in a library with a barcode-scan checkout system  which was possibly, but not definitely, the Canyon Area Library. I bought it from the CAL used bookstore for $.25.

Neat.

Like all Heinlein, it's both challenging and enjoyable to read. Proto-Vonnegut.

Do you know what "sotto voce" means?

I didn't either, until I read Orphans.

Check it out. It's neat. Just goes to show you that there's a phrase or term for just about everything in English (and that phrase or term was likely borrowed from another language).