Friday
Mar042011
Farmer in the Sky
By Robert A. Heinlein
First published in Boy's Life magazine in 1950 under the title Satellite Scout Farmer in the Sky tells the story of a teenage boy and his family who travel to Ganymede and become farmers. In many ways this story feels more connected to works like Little House on the Prairie than other science fiction works with most of the story being about the difficulty of this life, though there is considerable focus on the science.
This story has a large focus on the Boy Scouts. This is interesting because it helps to remind a modern reader just how important the boy scouts were. This was not the small group that met once a week if that that we have now but a major organization with real power.
This story was given a retroactive Hugo in 2001 fifty years after is original publication because Hugos were not being given at this time. That this story is remembered is impressive because it is not the style of epic science fiction that is often remembered, such as the Foundation Series.
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 8:33PM
