Podkayne of Mars
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 First Edition cover for Podkayne of Mars |
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| Author | Robert A. Heinlein |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | G. P. Putnam's Sons |
| Released | 1963 |
| Media type | |
| ISBN | NA |
Podkayne of Mars is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, originally serialised in Worlds of If (November 1962, January, March 1963), and published in hardcover in 1963. The novel is about a teenage girl named Podkayne "Poddy" Fries and her younger, asocial genius brother, Clark, who leave their home on Mars to take a trip on a spaceliner to see Earth, accompanied by their uncle.
This book, along with Starship Troopers, shows Heinlein uneasily evolving away from his old, comfortable territory of juvenile SF novels. Both books were written for a publisher expecting to market a juvenile SF novel, and both raised serious objections from the publisher.
[edit] Plot summary
The book is a first-person narrative in the form of Podkayne's diaries. Due to the unscheduled "uncorking" of their three test-tube babies, Podkayne's parents remain behind while she (aged about 17 Earth years) and her brother Clark (aged about 12 Earth years) take a planned trip to Earth, under the protection of their uncle. The mistake has a silver lining however; in addition to paying damages, and at the prompting of their uncle (Senator Tom Fries, an elder statesman of the Mars government), the company responsible pays for an upgrade to a luxury liner.
Much of the believable description of the voyage is based on Heinlein's own experiences as a naval officer and world traveler. For example, Clark is asked by a customs official "Anything to declare?" and answers "Two kilos of happy dust!" This incident is taken from Heinlein's own travels, as related in Tramp Royale, in which his wife answers the same question with "heroin" substituted for "happy dust." Clark allows himself to be taken away and searched in order to divert attention away from Podkayne's luggage, where he has hidden a package a stranger paid him to smuggle aboard. He was told it was a present for the captain, but Clark is far too cynical to be taken in. He later carefully opens the package and finds a nuclear bomb, which he, in typical Clark-fashion, disarms and keeps.
Once aboard, they are befriended by Gertie, a capable and experienced woman left impoverished by her late husband. The normally self-contained Clark contracts a severe case of puppy love.
The liner makes a stop at Venus, which is depicted as a latter-day Las Vegas gone ultra-capitalistic. The planet is controlled by a single corporation; the dream of most of the frantically enterprising residents is to earn enough to buy a single share in it, which guarantees lifelong financial security. Just about anything goes, as long as you can pay for it. Kill somebody? Fine - all you have to do is make restitution for the victim's estimated value to the corporation plus his projected future earnings.
While there, Clark vanishes and the corporation is unable to find him. It is then revealed that the senator is on a secret interplanetary diplomatic mission. Podkayne, in an ill-judged attempt to rescue Clark by herself, falls into the kidnappers' clutches as well--only to find her uncle caught too. The captors' scheme is simple--they will use the children to blackmail Tom into doing their bidding.
Clark quickly realizes that once Uncle Tom is released, no matter what happens, their kidnappers will have little reason to keep him and his sister alive. Wily genius that he is, he is prepared, however, and engineers an escape. Heinlein's original ending did not please his publisher, who demanded, and got, a rewrite, over Heinlein's bitter objections.
[edit] Two versions of the ending
In Heinlein's original ending, Clark frees them both. Podkayne, fleeing to a safe distance, remembers that a semi-intelligent Venerian "fairy" baby has been left behind, and returns to rescue it, losing her life in the process. Podkayne dies from being too close when the nuclear bomb that Clark leaves for the kidnappers blows up--the blast kills her, but she is able to shield the young fairy. Clark takes over the narrative for the last chapter. The story ends with a hint of hope for Clark, as he admits his responsibility for what happened to Podkayne--that he "flubbed it, mighty dry"--then shows some human feeling by regretting his inability to cry and describes his plan to raise the fairy himself--a plan which includes a lot of selfless devotion, because they are often awake at night and need to be held.
Heinlein's publisher, however, asked him to change the ending. In the revised version, Podkayne is injured by the bomb, but not fatally. Uncle Tom, in a phone conversation with Podkayne's father blames the parents — and especially the mother — for neglecting the upbringing of the children. Uncle Tom feels that Clark is dangerous and maladjusted, and attributes this to the mother's failure to raise him better. Clark is still the narrator, and, again, he regrets that Podkayne was hurt and plans to take care of the fairy because Podkayne will want to see it when she is better.
The 1995 Baen edition includes both endings (they differ only on the last page, and Jim Baen, owner of Baen Books, gives his own, third, edited postlude to the story), as well as a collection of readers' essays giving their opinions about which ending is better. Most of these readers favored the sad ending, partly because they felt Heinlein should have been free to create his own story, and partly because they believed that with the changed ending, a tragedy had been made into a mere adventure, and not a very well constructed one at that. To many readers, Podkayne's death is one of the more moving passages Heinlein ever wrote. They felt that Heinlein was pointing out how the innocent and pure of heart so often pay for the sins of others, and was trying, through Uncle Tom's narrative, to make a point about the upbringing of children: who takes the place of a working mother? The changed ending also removed the depiction of the powerful sense of loss when the innocent die through no fault of their own.
The opposing view, in favor of the happy ending, may be preferred by many simply because they have grown to love Podkayne's sweet personality, or because the tragedy lacks logic: the earlier parts of the book do not in fact describe the mother as neglectful, and in any case there is no dramatic reason to punish Podkayne for her mother's supposed sins. Heinlein wrote in a letter to his literary agent that revising the story would be like "revising Romeo and Juliet to let the young lovers live happily ever after." He also declared that changing the end "isn't real life, because in real life, not everything ends happily."
Interestingly, Captain Poddy Fries (Poddy's ambition is to be a space pilot) attends the party which concludes The Number of the Beast.
[edit] Editions
- February 1963, G. P. Putnam's Sons, hardcover
- Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, 176 pages, ISBN 0-425-08901-0
- January 1, 1976, Hodder & Stoughton General Division, paperback, ISBN 0-450-00278-0
- December 1976, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0-425-03153-5
- December 1976, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0-425-03434-8
- June 1979, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0-425-04236-7
- March 1982, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0-425-05713-5
- September 1983, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0-425-06826-9
- June 15, 1987, Ace, paperback reissue edition, ISBN 0-441-67402-X
- August 1, 1993, Baen, paperback reprint, 224 pages, ISBN 0-671-72179-8
- July 1, 1995, Baen, paperback, 288 pages, ISBN 0-671-87671-6
- April 1, 1999, Yestermorrow Inc, hardcover, ISBN 1-56723-164-0
- October 1, 1999, Sagebrush, library binding, ISBN 0-613-01568-1
- January 31, 2003, Robert Hale Ltd, hardcover, ISBN 0-7090-7139-6
- June 28, 2005, Ace, paperback, 224 pages, ISBN 0-441-01298-1
