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3.0 out of 5 stars
There's no Jack in this Beanstalk, Sep 8 2002
Back in the fifties Robert Heinlein pretty much perfected the science fiction 'juvenile' (which merely means that his protagonists were normally adolescents - not that the novels do not deal with difficult, complex, 'adult' themes and ideas). Few authors have had the temerity to write works that use the Heinlein model as their basis, but Gerrold has attempted it here.As a starting point, Gerrold takes a very dysfunctional family consisting of three brothers, all of whom have various highly anti-social character traits, and their divorced parents, who are constantly squabbling over custody and visitation rights to their children. He places them in a reasonably near-term future, where the multi-national corporations have pretty much taken over, 17 billion people are voraciously consuming what little resources planet Earth still has, and the defining technological development is the 'beanstalk', a massive wire hung from geosynchronous orbit all the way down to the planet surface and extending upwards nearly as far for balance. The father, at the end of his wits and finances, decides to 'kidnap' his children and take them up the 'beanstalk' as the first part of a journey to the moon and beyond in an attempt to leave his troubles (and legal jurisdiction) behind. The story is told from the viewpoint of the middle 13 year old brother, who feels 'left out', that his parents and brothers never really talk to him or deliver on their promises, leaving him cynical and withdrawn. As the story progresses, he begins to develop his own sense of responsibility for his actions and depend less on the 'that's not fair' type argument. Unfortunately, most of this development is somewhat hidden from the reader till near the very end of the book, where the statements he makes seem to almost come from nowhere, as too little of his underlying thinking has been previously shown. Starting as a complete techno-geek with few defining human characteristics, the eldest brother is only slowly developed, so that only at the end of the book does he come to the point where he seems like a real person worthy of your notice. The youngest brother starts as and remains a near cipher, a tool for showing the need for parental discipline and allowing brotherly responsibility to be exhibited. Still, Gerrold is better in his characterizations than while trying to explain the technology of his world. While the ideas are good, sometimes exemplary, such as his concepts on the flow of various types of money, his exposition is too often dry, near academic in tone. Here he definitely suffers in comparison to Heinlein, who could write twenty page essays on the care and feeding of space suits and remain entertaining and continue to further his story line during the exposition. On the other hand, the courtroom scenes that Gerrold presents are just as good (and very similar in tone and action) as any of Heinlein's, and his societal ideas (such as being able to divorce your parents) are very much in the Heinlein tradition. There are some items touched on here that Heinlein could never have gotten by the editors of his time, such as homosexuality (of both sexes) and certain bodily functions. While these items play a role in the story development, they are not gone into in any detail, though it might have made a better, deeper book if they had been. But with these items, it makes the book unsuitable for very young readers. Even with these flaws, this is still a good, very readable book that brings the old Heinlein model into the world of today. Today's teens may find this book more relevant, more in tune with their world, than the older Heinlein works.
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