The Martians treat Frank’s illness and send the two boys home by a formerly unknown to the colony subway. The next day, they meet some native Martians, who accept Jim because of his relationship to Willis and water-friendship with Gekko. On the third night, they are forced to take shelter inside a giant Martian cabbage plant (nearly suffocating when it folds up at night). The boys decide to return home to warn their parents. The boys run away from school to warn their parents and the colony. Worse, Beecher is secretly planning to prevent the annual migration of the colonists (to avoid the most severe months of winter weather) in order to save money. When Beecher learns Howe has a bouncer, he is ecstatic, since the London Zoo is willing to pay a hefty price for a specimen. After Jim and Frank rescue Willis, the bouncer repeats two overheard conversations between Howe and Beecher, the unscrupulous colonial administrator of Mars, detailing Beecher’s plans for Willis and the colony. Jim gets into trouble when the authoritarian Howe, who confiscates Willis, claiming that it is against the new rules to have pets. Howe used to run a military academy, and believes in strict adherence to rules, and there are lots of them. They also share water, making Jim and Frank “water friends” with the Martian, who is named Gekko.Īt school, the well-liked and respected headmaster is retiring, and Mr. The three-legged alien takes the two boys and Willis to join a ritual called “growing together” with a group of its fellows. At a rest stop, Willis wanders off and encounters one of the adult sentient Martians. The trip is along the frozen Martian canals (it’s Winter) in a skate boat. Jim takes along his native Martian pet, Willis, who is a Bouncer, a round fur covered ball the size of a vollyball, who is about as intelligent as a human child and has a photographic memory for sounds, which he can also reproduce perfectly. On Mars, colonial teenagers Jim Marlowe and Frank Sutton travel to the Lowell Academy boarding school for the start of the academic year. The novel is set in the future when Mars has been colonized by humans, but is administered by a governor appointed by the Earth government and the colonists have no political power. It represents the first appearance of Heinlein’s idealized Martian elder race, which will reappear in Stranger in a Strange Land.
bad guys with the Martians caught in the middle. Juvenile novel # 3Ĭolonists on Mars: ever a popular science fiction storyline. Scribner’s 1949, hardcover and paperback.
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