Outward Bound

By Robert A. Heinlein

Book Overview

Have Spacesuit-Will Travel: Kip, a high school senior, wants to go to the Moon-badly. Now that he owns an obsolete space suit, he gets his chance...thanks to a race of highly advanced aliens who see... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 073946891X
• ISBN13: 9780739468913
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: SFBC
• Length: 586 Pages
• Weight: 1.47 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Excellent stories, but ...

"Outward Bound" contains three excellent stories by Robert Heinlein. Vanya has written a very good review. I am only adding my two cents worth because I have doubts about putting three Heinlein novels into one book. My own choice would be to savor these stories, one by one.

read or re-read: the best of an era

"Outward Bound" is a new title by Robert A. Heinlein, composed of three of his novels from 1958, 1959 and 1963, a period when his Juveniles were maturing and merging with his adult stories. Heinlein wrote 13 Juvenile Novels between 1947 and 1963, plus "Starship Troopers", which is listed as one of his adult novels, probably because it is the only one in the set in which the young protagonist becomes a man while fighting a war. As I write this I am simultaneously rereading "The Rolling Stones", "Citizen of the Galaxy", and "Have Space Suit---Will Travel". "The Rolling Stones" is about a family surnamed "Stone" who decide to leave their settled life on Luna and travel to Mars and the asteroids in their own spaceship. This is possibly the most humorous and sheer pleasure reading of all his novels. "Citizen of the Galaxy" is arguably his best Juvenile. It is certainly the most inspiring. A young boy rises from slavery to a very influential and responsible position in a society of the far future. "Have Space Suit---Will Travel" starts on an almost trivial note and expands by leaps and bounds. The author has a knack for suspending the reader's disbelief by knocking it unconscious. Heinlein's Juvenile Novels and one on the borderline with his adult fiction have been republished in four volumes of three or four stories. Any of these volumes should make an excellent introduction to Science Fiction for young readers, and all of them make a convenient selection for older SF Fans to immerse themselves in some of the best and most readable stories of the period. If you are not yet a Heinlein Fan try one of these volumes. You are very likely to become a Fan and you might also become an addict. If you are already a Heinlein Fan but have not read some of these stories recently, now is the time. Juvenile Novel collections by Robert A. Heinlein: "Four Frontiers" ---"Rocket Ship Galileo" (1947) ---"Space Cadet" (1948) ---"Red Planet" (1949) ---"Farmer in the Sky" (1950) "To the Stars" ---"Between Planets" (1951) ---"The Rolling Stones" (1952) ---"Starman Jones" (1953) ---"The Star Beast" (1954) "Infinite Possibilities" ---"Tunnel in the Sky" (1955) ---"Time for the Stars" (1956) ---"Citizen of the Galaxy" (1957) "Outward Bound" ---"Have Spacesuit---Will Travel" (1958) ---"Starship Troopers" (1959---not quite a Juvenile) ---"Podkayne of Mars" (1963) ++++++++++++++++