TUNNEL IN THE SKY

'Tunnel in the Sky' is a science fiction book written by Robert A. Heinlein and published in 1955 by Scribner's as one of the Heinlein juveniles. The story describes a group of students sent on a survival test to an uninhabited planet. The themes of the work include the difficulties of growing up and the nature of man as a social animal.

Contents

Plot summary

Themes

External links

References

Plot summary

A Malthusian catastrophe has been averted only by the invention of teleportation, called the "Ramsbotham jump," which is used to send Earth's excess population to colonize other planets. However, the costs of operating the device mean that the colonies are isolated from Earth until they can build up a sufficient trade surplus to pay for two-way travel. Because modern equipment requires limited resources that are impractical to bring into the new planet, more primitive settling methods are used — horses and knives instead of tractors and rifles.
Rod Walker is an urbanite teenage high school student with dreams of becoming a professional colonist. One of his classes is ''Advanced Survival'', and the final test involves being dropped into a hostile, unfamiliar environment for a duration not less than 48 hours, but not more than 10 days. During this time, students will have no communication with, or assistance from Earth. They may equip themselves with any gear they can carry. Going into the survival test, the students are told only that the challenges are not insurmountable or unreasonable. Several students fail the exam by disregarding this information and showing up over-prepared; e.g. with pressure suits. The last advice the students receive is to "Watch out for stobor."
After 10 days have undeniably passed since the beginning of the test, Rod finds himself apparently stranded on an uninhabited planet. He becomes a leader in a small group of students from his own and other classes that were testing in the same area. He is instrumental in establishing a stable community which eventually grows to around 75 people.
Heinlein tracks the social development of this village of educated Westerners deprived of the rudiments of technological civilization, followed by its abrupt dissolution when contact with Earth is reestablished. After several years of separation, the culture shock experienced by the colonists becomes a metaphor for the pain and uncertainty of becoming an adult. Rod Walker, developing by necessity from a typical teenager into the mature head of a sovereign state, is suddenly returned to the status of a half-educated boy. When he speaks with his professor (now his brother-in-law), Rod learns that the warning against "stobor" was more lie than truth — the test administrators were not warning against any specific danger. Rather, the open-ended warning was simply to create fear — and thus caution — in the students.
Years later, he has achieved his heart's desire; the novel's ending finds him preparing to lead a formal colonization party to another planet.

Themes

As in ''Lord of the Flies'', which had been published a year earlier, isolation reveals the true natures of the students as individuals, but it also demonstrates some of the constants of human existence as a social animal. Some of the students fall victim to their own foolishness, and others turn out to be thugs. The numerous political crises of the fledgling colony illustrate the need for legitimacy in a government appropriate for the society it administers. The book's rejection of unearned authority meshes with the libertarian character of Heinlein's works. In both its romanticization of the pioneer and its glorification of ''Homo sapiens'' as the toughest player in the Darwinian game, it presages themes developed further in books like ''Time Enough for Love'' and ''Starship Troopers''. Unusually for science fiction at the time, the novel portrays several competent and intelligent female characters, including an African woman.^[1]

External links

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References

1. James, Edward and Farah Mendlesohn (2003). ''The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction''. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-01657-6 p. 245.