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"Tunnel in the Sky" a reviewer's musings 
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Post "Tunnel in the Sky" a reviewer's musings
I don't know when I first read 'Tunnel'. In fact, it seems as if I've been reading Heinlein since birth, he's such a part of my life. Recently I re-read 'Tunnel' and was startled to find how much more I enjoyed it as a 59 year old adult. 'Tunnel' is packed with subtly and insights into human nature.

We're introduced to the main character Rod Walker at school, worried about his upcoming test in a class very important to his future. Best friend, other students, and then the standard Heinlein character: The wise experienced older mentor, present in all Heinlein novels, bit always only briefly. The main character will soon be on his own, and with classic advice. "Man is the only animal that can't be tamed." The next few pages are PACKED with philosophy; sound, practical philosophy that anyone would do well to memorize.

Diversion: I read a trilogy once, and in the last novel at the climax where a character is attempting to establish a dictatorship among Earth's few survivors far in the future, there is a crowd that is 'sensibly' giving in. Then one woman stands up and states, "I'm not a tame human," and makes a break for the door (and succeeds). Brilliant. I can't remember much else about the novels, but that stuck. To be free, once must never be tamed.

Then Rod goes to Emigrant's gap; fascinating and exciting, nevertheless it's an everyday part of Rod's world.

Here come some of Heinlein's gems I've always found mesmorizing; one or two throw-away sentences that nevertheless reverberate deeply. The replica Statue of Liberty, where the original had stood was now Bedloe's Crator. (Hey! Who was Bedloe?) The view through the open gates. The chlorine breathing alien, which is all we hear of aliens. Two pages on Asiatics, their conquest of Australia, the irrigation of the Australian desert while all Aussie survivors were moved to New Zealand, His Serene Majesty of the AustralAsian Republic and a page of Oriental stereotypes. The first mention of Rod's government being 'Terra Corp.'. (Is this a world government or only a large region? We don't know.) A Prince of Terran Corp is present. It's made clear Earth's natural resources are almost exhausted.

Nowhere is birth control mentioned. Those teeming masses yearning to breath free, might just be yearning to breathe. The novel was written in 1955 as what is now called a 'young adult' book and sex is never mentioned.

Rod's attention is caught near the end by a professional settlement Captain. A hint of what's to come.

Background on the development of the Sky Tunnel is finally given in Chapter 4. I've always hoped that Romsbatham, the mathematician and engineer of the Tunnels, finally made friends with the, female, chief programmer. Or that she took him by the hand to everyone's satisfaction.

Note: A woman as Chief Programmer for one of the region's biggest computers was a surprise to me, and no doubt to many readers in 1955.

His parents mean well but don't understand him, are too protective, with problems of their own. They follow a religion that swept out of Persia a century ago. Despite the apparent strong pacifist teachings implied, his older sister is a very tough professional soldier. She mentions a shortage of men on Earth: A recent war perhaps, leaving a situation similar to England's after World War I? His sister is his second, older, wiser, mentor in private after supper.

Rod at last leaves for his Solo Survival test. His wits and training and very few supplies on a planet unknown to him and uninhabited. A few more characters are introduced, one who will be killed immediately on planet. With a powerful weapon and a trained dog he's cocky; hinting at his future, he offers to let Rod try out the gun once they're through the gate.

Rod goes through the Tunnel.

One of the first things he finds is his cocky classmate, dead. This is where I started to realize there's more to this novel. What Heinlein doesn't say is sometimes crucial. Even naive Rod can figure out someone killed Johan. He doesn't, he never, takes it any further. Classes were evidently dropped in one general area, one student at a time then move on. To get to Johan so fast, the killer must have been one of Rod and Johan's classmates. "Hey Jo! Great to see you. Hey, do you suppose I could try out your rifle?" While friendly Jo turns over his weapon and controls his hostile dog, the classmate kills the dog first (faster aggressor), then Johan.

Later the next day, Rod is attacked, hit in the head with a rock, and everything taken except evidently his shorts and a knife strapped as if a bandage. This cannot be the same killer. He would have used the rifle. There are two students out there killing (or trying to kill) other students. No one ever puts the evidence together.

By the way, why a rock? Everyone's carrying weapons even if only knives. Why not a knife through Rod's heart? Is this a student whose somehow already lost all his gear and is down to rocks? Or someone obsessively careful of his Earth gear? Or maybe, he or she just prefers a nasty rock.

Where's Sherlock Holmes when you need him?

Jackieville is founded. That's what I call the settlement.

Rod is elected Captain, but Jackie and Jimmy and Rod don't call it an election, and they don't use the title Captain. I have to believe that both outland and Terran Corp law would recognize an emergency election of a leader as legal to create a Captain. Nor do I believe this is never covered in romantic novels and movies everyone reads or sees, or even in their Survival readings. However, it does setup the central events of the book.

In one day, two revolutions are attempted. The first one, a violent event, fails. The second one, political and peaceful, succeeds.

We meet Jock and his 3 male followers without any previous introduction. Everyone who remembers the Rape of the Sabine Women, raise your hands. Jock refuses to work, nor will his tribe. They're there for the food, and (despite Heinlein writing in 1955 for young people) I have to assume for other reasons. If Jackie and Caroline hadn't caught on to the attack on Rod, the men would have succeeded.

Rod banishes them.

However, reading the book now, I cannot believe that if Jock had won he would have just smiled and said everything was fine, only when we don't want to work, we don't. Having knifed Rod and told everyone to start putting down their weapons, would he have stopped? Could he? No.

By nightfall, Rod and any loud supporters would have been in the river, eaten by piranha. Guessing at Jock's ugly sense of justice and need to intimidate the camp, Rod would have been put in s-l-o-w-l-y. Jock would be King. The women would be divided up and the rapes already starting.

No one seems aware of the disaster missed by Caroline and Jackie's alertness.

Then Grant Cowper starts another, political revolution the same day, heavily laced with vitriol disguised as polite pleading to Rod. The old "Have you stopped beating your wife?" There's no answer for the innocent. "You don't want to act as a dictator, do you Rod?"

This revolution Rod loses. Afterward Caroline again shows she understood what was happening at the camp meeting that night; so why didn't she speak up? Well, the plot had to move on to show how disastrous a well-meaning government can be, one that doesn't address the real needs of a community.

In this case, survival.

Again, reading it recently I saw another basic problem. This is a flat river valley between steep cliffs far back from the bank. The river winds about (it's very close to the bottom of the cave), and no mention is made of thick forest in the river.

I think these student settlers have made the classic mistake of many civilizations. They're building on a flood plain. Heinlein even mentions that the cave shows signs of being carved out by water. So wet season floods to the base of the cliffs, and the talus there. Rare catastrophic floods at the level of the cave, near the top of the cliff.

Rod's wall to keep them safe where there's a large gap between cliff and river at the north end, isn't going to do a bit of good against floods. They'll be in piranha up to their waists.

That river bothers me another way too. Heinlein's trying to setup a safe settlement site, east and south, a wall to the north, dangerous river to the west. However, the river really is dangerous. Someday someone scrambling up the talus to the cave is going to slip and fall in, as Rod almost did when carrying Jimmy. Someday a river dinosaur (I call them Loch Ness monsters, or Nessies), which is capable of jumping at least partly out of the river to catch prey, is going to go after a settler; especially if they keep tossing their trash in the river thus training the piranhas and Nessies to hang around.

The cliffs. We've been told about gigantic lions. Once, in the mad animal stampede a bull antelope falls over the ledge. If a lion's hungry, would s/he even hesitate about leaping, scrambling down that cliff into a herd of tender humans?

The conflict between Rod the do-er and Grant the thinker is brilliant. Grant's speech on government should be read aloud in every high school government class, and emailed to every elected representative -- especially in these years when self-interest and right wing political inflexibility is paralyzing our government

Grant is not a bad guy. In fact, he dies a hero. He's just too far along for this settlement group which still doesn't have the basics of survival firmly nailed down.

Rod however, gets to go exploring and as Heinlein always does, we're startled by what he finds. I love the dome builders and the salt sea edged with bones.

Eventually, they are rescued, just as Rod is firmly recognized as Captain and the settlement is starting to build beyond mere survival.

Abruptly, from being a man and the alpha man, he's a boy again.

Even he can't hold on to the maturity he had at the settlement. "I can't STAND it!" he cries to his mentor, just as a kid would.

Nevertheless, he does. He gets through, and in our last glimpse of him he's riding through a Tunnel, the professional Captain of a new settlement.

Diversion: I was so angry when I read the second novel in the Colossus trilogy, that I completely rewrote it. Now I'm so happy with Tunnel in the Sky that I'm writing my own version. (I'm a retired librarian and yes, I know about copyright.)



Hope you enjoyed this. I did.


Sat Feb 18, 2012 7:37 am
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thanks for sharing some keen observations ! am hoping they provoke folk out of their winter malaise :)


Sat Feb 18, 2012 8:47 am
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A nice summary of one of my favorite Heinlein's. I will make two quick points.

1) "right wing political infletxibility is paralyzing our government" seems out of place here. FWIW, RAH often seemed to be rather in favor of paralized or at least minimalized government.

2) I'd like to thank you for writing several thousand words about Rod Walker without once mentioning his race.


Sat Feb 18, 2012 6:12 pm
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'twas irrelevant to RAH in this and many other stories and in "In This I Believe"- his belief wasn't in race but in humanity


Sat Feb 18, 2012 7:53 pm
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"Bedloe's Crater" is a classic Heinlein device to seduce you into the fictional universe; he writes as though you know what he's talking about, and gives you just enough context to get it. This does make me wonder how much back story he created for these books. I mean, did he just go, "Okay, we're in a post-nuclear age here, need to show it - I know, a crater where Liberty Island used to be," or did he have unpublished detail on when it happened, where it happened, and who Bedloe was? (Yes, of course I know about the Future History timeline.)


Sat Feb 18, 2012 7:58 pm
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Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:47 pm
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"Tunnel" was the very first Heinlein I read, that would be right on 40 years ago. A sixth-grade friend sung its praises and I bit...funny, I remember that he was also a fan of Andre Norton, and 40 years later I still haven't gotten around to reading any of her work. Must remedy that.

Great summary/review VeraLenora. Obviously I loved the book and went on to read evrything by RAH I could get my hands on; but I was very curious and somewhat dissatisfied at the time that that the loop never gets closed on Johan's killing and Rod's being assaulted. I had read all of Sherlock Holmes at 10 and was used to everything being tied up neatly!

The other thing I really remember is how cool and strange it seemed that high schoolers would actually be sent where they could die, rather than being coddled by Mommy until age 18. Heinlein was a revelation on how big and different the world is, rather than just whatever milieu we are living in at the moment.

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Fri Feb 24, 2012 10:51 am
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Fri Feb 24, 2012 11:51 am
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Fri Feb 24, 2012 9:10 pm
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Thu Mar 01, 2012 1:25 pm
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Thu Mar 01, 2012 5:22 pm
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Rod was definately white or maybe black, or perhaps some other hue. There are certain clues in the book that indicate that he was indeed black. It's all a bit ambigius, likely intentionally so. In my ever-so-humble opinion, it makes no difference as race is not a factor in this excellent story.


Thu Mar 01, 2012 5:31 pm
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See my Web Entry:


Thu Mar 01, 2012 6:12 pm
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Interesting, David. I had simply assumed Rob was white too, but although I grew up in Texas, I didn't even notice that this made his relationship with Caroline an interracial relationship. My mother was rather scornful about southern racism (she was a Yankee girl through and through), and I picked up her attitudes on the subject. I *did* find his obvious assumption that being female did not mean that you had to be locked into a traditionally feminine role inspiring, especially since he also didn't look down on traditionally feminine work or traditional females.

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Thu Mar 01, 2012 8:08 pm
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:?
It occurs to me that movies and TV (and whatever dramas are called in Rod's day) would be having a field day with the emigrant movement. Does anyone remember the old black and white "Wagon Train", and all the other cowboy Western shows? The U.S. was still trying to find a metaphorical grasp of the western expansion (and not doing a good job of it).
Certainly in Rod's time the same would be going on. They would have some truthful content. Of course, the heroic Captain would be an irresistible icon.
So I propose all of the students would have some grasp of how early settlements form and work, including the role of the Captain.

Break it down:
A Captain would be chosen by the settlement in many different ways.
Most common would be a response by the trained Captain to a listing. Then an interview by an elected committee, who would interview the Captain candidate, make a recommendation to the settlers, and wait for a vote of acceptance or refusal. This would happen on Earth, before emigration of course.
Variations would occur:
Theocratic settlers might have their Captain chosen by an inspiration of their theocratic leader.
Settlers in a breeding plan might scour the Captain's genetic code.
Or a Captain might be chosen by any plan. Humans can get crazy and still believe they're logical.

However, disasters happen. Captains can be killed or so badly hurt they can no longer act as Captain.
So in some way reflective of the settlement's goals, a new Captain would have to be chosen. Isn't this close to what happened to the students?
Most often, IMO, an emergency Captain would be elected after nominations of the most qualified candidates.

We're getting closer.

Once elected, the Captain is it. The Captain does not have to be reelected every time someone arrives or leaves, nor every time the settlers change their mind about something. That would lead to chaos.
Rod is accused of being a dictator. The Captain must be a dictator. The Captain is in charge while the settlement is in it's most vulnerable period. There's little time for debate, and in an emergency there must be no doubt that the Captain is in charge. The reason is simple: Survival of the settlement until it's strong enough to start forming a civilian government and civilization.

Titles may vary. Leader, or Foreman, or Straw Boss, or God's Anointed, but the person in charge is the Captain with all authority and responsibility.

All the students would know election makes a Captain and is irrevocable. That the Captain has dictatorial powers for the survival of the settlement. That regardless of the title the person in charge is the Captain. The only excuse can be that the students are still in a state of shock, not recognizing that now, now, they are no longer students but settlers.

(Of course it's just a story, but logical extrapolation can be fun.)

What do you think?

I have more ...


Tue Mar 06, 2012 4:08 pm
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I like your suggestion that the "Captain" would be an iconic figure in the period of the story. But would there be as much interest in fiction then as there is now? I'm thinking of Dr. Matson's comment to Rod that theirs is not a romantic period in the human cycle but a practical one that needed practical people. Maybe there would be a reduced interest in romantic fiction in such a non-romantic period. Still, the "news" crew at the end of the story that makes up a story only loosely based on the facts suggests that the media is still selling fiction, even if they aren't calling it that.

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Wed Mar 07, 2012 8:01 am
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Must have been from Fox.


Thu Mar 08, 2012 7:20 pm
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Tue Mar 13, 2012 8:27 am
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Tue Mar 13, 2012 12:35 pm
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I think y'all are missing the essential part of Grant's character: he is one of those people, heroes, who puts the welfare of the group ahead of his own, and he pays the ultimate price. There is no higher hero in all the Heinlein canon.
Grant was the right person at the right time, in my humble opinion (or IMHO).


Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:01 pm
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grant, the thinker, and rod, the do-er, assured tyranny could not rule in Cowpertown- like water and cement they bonded the citizenry together in common cause


Thu Mar 15, 2012 8:39 pm
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