| Storer-Gulls Wings |
| Recreational aid for lunar colonists; lightweight wings for cave flying. |
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Posted in Robert Heinlein Tagged 1941, 2., Robert Heinlein, short story, Unknown Subscribe to Blog via Email Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Heinlein’s first short story was Life Line, which he had written for a contest but instead sold it to Astounding Science-Fiction in 1939 for more than the contest would have paid for first prize. Below is a list of Robert A. Heinlein’s books in order of when they were originally published.
This excellent short story is about a 15 year-old school-girl named Holly Jones. Holly was born on the Moon; her hobbies are designing star-ships and flying in a natural cavern called 'Bats' Cave', Luna City's air reservoir.
Just as people on Earth use water reservoirs for recreation, so the people of Luna use the Bat's Cave for recreational flying, using specially designed bat's wings. Remember, with one-sixth of Earth's gravity, it is much easier to stay aloft. With the right equipment, of course.
| They're lovely! - titanalloy struts as light and strong as bird-bones, tension-compensated wrist-pinion and shoulder joints, natural action in the alula slots, and automatic flap action in stalling. The wing skeleton is dressed in styrene feather-foils, with individual quilling of scapulars and primaries. They almost fly themselves. I folded my wings and went into the lock. While it was cycling I opened my left wing and thumbed the alula control -- I had noticed a tendency to sideslip the last time I was airborne. But the alula opened properly and I decided I must have been overcontrolling, easy to do with Storer-Gulls; they're extremely maneuverable. Then the door showed green and I folded the wing and hurried out, while glancing at the barometer. Seventeen pounds -- two more than Earth sea-level and nearly twice what we use in the city; even an ostrich could fly in that. I perked up and felt sorry for all groundhogs, tied down by six times proper weight, who never, never, never could fly. Not even I could, on Earth. My wing loading is less than a pound per square foot, as wings and all I weigh less than twenty pounds. Earthside that would be over a hundred pounds and I could flap forever and never get off the ground. |
| From The Menace From Earth, by Robert Heinlein. Published by Fantasy House in 1957 Additional resources - |
Compare to the Dragonfly sky-bike from Rendezvous With Rama (1972) by Arthur C. Clarke and the bat wings from Limits by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
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Heinlein Short Stories Pdf Printable
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Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New. |
This is a guest post by Timothy Darling.
Doctor Hugo Pinero invents a device for measuring the length of life and predicting the date and time of death. This leads to the protests of insurance companies and the potential collapse of the industry, not to mention many personal concerns, and the dilemma of a humanity confronted with knowledge that they perhaps should not have.
The good: Pinero’s devise is unlike anything I’ve seen in any other SF story. It is a fascinating riff on a theme usually reserved for psychics and mediums.
The bad: Unfortunately, the story has rather flat characters. Most of them become symbols of a particular viewpoint instead of fully integrated personalities with interests outside the story line.
The interesting: The society reflects Heinlein’s own Kansas City of his younger days. It hearkens back to a reality that, truthfully, most of us would be just as happy without, an alternative to the golden-age view of the early 1900s.
'Life-line' is Heinlein’s first published story. This and the next two stories in the Future History are firmly set in the sociology of the 1940s. The heavy-handed, goon-squad politics countered by simplistic hucksteristic charm are from a less complicated era. The courtroom antics are reminiscent of tales from the Scopes Monkey Trial. The ruling is obviously that of a judge not beleaguered by unreasonable precedents. He is a stock RAH character, the cantankerous Mark Twainesque voice of wry, stubborn wisdom. Heinlein expresses his free-trade ideals with the moral triumph of his protagonist. It would be interesting to know what kind of protectionist legal decisions had been made that RAH is railing against. The importance of his viewpoint is underscored by the fact that Pinero is the only real character in the story. The other characters are almost silhouettes, props.
Pinero’s conflict with his relatives and his compassion on the young couple who go to him for a reading put his character in the third dimension. He is not a simple opportunist or a cold scientist. He is a man in charge of his own will and aware of the down side of his invention. His ultimate calm paints an interesting picture for Heinlein. Lazarus Long certainly doesn’t have this attitude… not when he’s in a good mood.
'Life-line' bears none of the polish of Heinlein’s later work. It lacks the complex characterization that makes for excellent story telling. However, it does bear the marks of RAH’s later tropes, a tantalizing inhale before a significant breath.
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'Life-line' is available free on-line from the publisher as part of Heinlein’s eclectic collection Expanded Universe. Baen Books has graciously also restored the story to its original collection The Man Who Sold The Moon, from which it had been removed for reasons that seem to escape analysts. It seems likely that it was removed to make the book shorter and cheaper to publish, but it is back (though not in RAH’s recommended order), and Baen can be given much credit for that.
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Thanks to Tim for this providing this article. You can read more of Tim’s stuff on his blog: The Darling Virtual Mind.