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As I noted in a recent thread, that’s the dodge people have used when re-telling stories from the 40s and 50s – take something set on “desert” Mars or “swampy” Venus and replace it with an extrasolar planet. That’s what Leight Brackett did with her Eric John Stark stories when she started writing new ones in the 1970s, and what Robert Sheckley did when he rewrote is 1950s story “The Humors” as the novel Crompton Divided.
While The Star Beast doesn’t have much in the way of dated science or technology, somehow the overall feel of the story seems a lot more rooted in the 1950s than for many of the other juvies. Though there’s nothing in particular I can put my finger on.
And while there are some books that don’t fall on the Official List of Heinlein Juveniles, so far as I’m concerned, all of the stories with a teenaged or younger protagonist and with the sex and politics toned down to a level acceptable for middle-school libraries are “juvies”.
One of the things, to my mind, that pegs it in the early 1950s is the reference to “Pidgie Widgie”, the kids’ show that people had to go home and watch. Aside from the fact that such a thing might be a podcast or something on a streaming service these days, that you could watch any time, it’s become clear ro me that this was inspired by Bob Clampett’s puppet TV show Time for Beany, which was immensely popular with a lot of adults.
Nothing quite like it has been around since. Bill Scott, who wrote for it, went on to Rocky and Bullwinhkle. MST3K, of course, was puppets and had an enthusiastic adult following. But this was a first, and was disproportionately popular and influential because of that.
You could substitute “Time for Beany” for “Pidgie Widgie”, but trying to substitute “Mystery Science Theater 3000” just ain’t the same.
I think they still hold up pretty well as interesting, very readable sf adventures (and my teenage son agrees), but the absence of women cadets in Space Cadet, and the general Fifties stereotypical “heroic young guy/decorative gal pal” vibe in most of them, is hard to overlook these days.
Tunnel in the Sky and Citizen of the Galaxy are in my top-five list of Heinlein’s books.
They certainly hold up better than Asimov’s Lucky Starr juvenile series. I remember liking them as a kid, then when my son was the right age I tracked down a set of the books on eBay. He definitely didn’t like them. I tried re-reading the first one - ugh.
I can believe that. I’ve never felt any desire to go back and reread the Lucky Star books, but I like to go back to Space Cadet, etc.
Yeah, Lucky Starr wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t anything special, either.