Book Note: Robert A. Heinlein, Red Planet

This note contains spoilers for the book.

Very much an old favorite. This is the "uncut" version -- which, in general, seems to mean that both the editorial cuts, and Heinlein's own final polishing work, are missing. This one may suffer least from the missing polishing (Stranger in a Strange Land suffers most).

The idiot absentee landlords of mars nearly cause everything to come apart, but the smart colonists stop them in time, and a couple of younger boys (I don't think the ages are actually given; I'm envisioning mid teens, though) play a key role.

The martians in this book are closely related to those in Stranger. They have nymphs, adults, and old ones, withdraw to the other world when overly stressed, have been civilized for more than a million years, and can make people disappear without gadgets. (The gross physical characteristics match up well enough too.) There are hints that the ones in The Rolling Stones are the same as well. As usual, things don't match up perfectly; Heinlein recycled the parts he liked, and made improvements he'd thought of, or changes needed for the action of the book at hand.