I suppose you can’t really call anything by Heinlein a forgotten book, though I did find an old post on the net that used the phrase “forgotten book” about TUNNEL IN THE SKY. Her theory was that when people talked about Heinlein’s writings, they always talked about books published after 1960(his last juvenile was 1963).
I recently had a forty year old friend ask me what Heinlein juveniles would be best to start his son(who’s on the verge of ten) reading. He remembered even for him, some of them seemed dated when he read them as a “young adult”(that’s the phrase now instead of juvenile). I think the reason is they were based on the science known at the time. But for sheer fun, all of them still have that awe and wonder of life in space that fascinates the target audience then and now.
Though I like almost all of his books, this one is probably my personal favorite. that’s because it was the book that introduced me to science fiction and skewed my reading patterns for a good many years until a little maturity set in, making me realize there was a lot of good stuff out there.
When i entered the first grade, I knew not a whit about reading. Back then, there was no such thing as kindergarten(at least so in my small town) and Mama was to busy trying to raise three kids by herself to give any of us any early schooling.
But I hit the ground running and by the end of that first year, I won the class award for reading the most books.
I’ve been waxing nostalgic lately and I lay the blame on Charles Gramlich. LOL. His recent post for a forgotten book reminded me of an old favorite I had forgotten. I ordered a copy and read it, bringing back a flood of memories from my youth. I even passed it on to my previously mentioned friend’s son to try.
The easiest description of the plot of the book is to say it’s a science fictional Lord of The Flies.
In the Earth of this book, teleportation devices make colonization of planets easy. But as it’s very expensive, colonists have to be self-sufficient for a number of years until they can afford to re-establish contact with the home world.
There are advanced classes to train one in survival.
Rod Walker is seventeen years old and dreams of being a colonist. His sister is military and gets him into one of the classes. The final exam involves being dropped onto an unknown planet and surviving for from two to ten days. You can take anything you want, but you must survive off the land.
Rod, on advice, takes only a couple of knives, and a few basics. He’s attacked shortly and when he comes to, he’s been robbed of everything but one small knife hidden under a bandage.
Rod starts to hook up with other people and when the deadline passes without the tunnel reopening, and as that deadline gets further into the past, they realize something has gone terribly wrong.
Humans generally are social animals, so groups of the students start drawing together, soon reaching fifty+. With no authority to govern them, the worst traits start to emerge. Bullies. Laziness.
The group starts to organize and set up a functioning society. Rod becomes the ad hoc leader, though not without challenges. The years start to go by and babies start to be born.
Here is civilized man having to live by primitive means. Think about it. If we were suddenly cut off from the rest of the world, most of us couldn’t build a car, a phone, a refrigerator, let alone the infrastructure to run it all. They don’t have any of the amenities they are used to and have to figure out how to live by the best means they can.
Years later, contact is reopened and this now functioning colony has to reintegrate into society. Their accomplishments are brushed aside-“They’re just kids.”
For a book published in 1955, there were several strong women characters and even hints that Rod was black, though that was something I never fully caught. That’s other people’s thoughts.
As I said earlier, this book was my first brush with science fiction. Back then, a small rocket adorned the spine of this type of literature. I spent a good many hours after that haunting the school and public libraries looking for those rocket books.
Not The Baseball Pitcher 
I have read a few of his books but not this one. Thanks, Randy.
You know, I have this but have never read it. Makes me want to pick it up now. I’ve got to dig it out of my rather largeeeeee pile.
I just finished rereading Tunnel in the Sky after not having read it in thirty years. I have never read Lord of the Flies but have seen several movie adaptations and as I recall its central theme was the loss of civilization and a regression to superstition and barbarism. In Tunnel in the Sky there are attempts to establish a workable government and develop what technologies that they able to. No comparison.
Whereas reading it at forty five was less exiting than at fifteen I still thought it to be well written and enjoyable.
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Also one of my personal favorite Heinlein novels!
Have you read Double Star? (I just wrote a review for it)