Orphans Of The Sky

Orphans of the Sky (1987) – Robert A. Heinlein
Grafton Books | ISBN: 9780586042045
Condition: Good | Sold by Crappy Old Books

Space travel. Humanity’s glorious ambition to escape the confines of Earth, explore distant stars and boldly venture into regions where the nearest roadside assistance service is several light-years away. It sounds magnificent, particularly when the journey involves enormous spacecraft, sophisticated technology and the promise of establishing a new civilisation. Unfortunately, Robert A. Heinlein has identified one rather serious complication: what happens when the passengers forget that they’re travelling anywhere at all?

Welcome to Orphans of the Sky, Heinlein’s brilliantly imaginative exploration of ignorance, superstition and the extraordinary consequences of allowing several generations of humanity to inhabit a spaceship without remembering what a spaceship actually is.

Our hero is Hugh Hoyland, a young man living aboard the enormous vessel Vanguard, although he doesn’t know it as a spacecraft. To Hugh and his fellow inhabitants, the Ship is the entire universe, a self-contained world governed by ancient traditions, rigid social structures and religious beliefs that have gradually transformed the original mission into something resembling a particularly confused theology.

The Ship has been travelling through space for generations, but a long-forgotten mutiny has destroyed the civilisation and knowledge required to operate it properly. The descendants of its original passengers now occupy a bizarre society in which scientific terminology has become religious doctrine, ancient technical manuals are treated as sacred texts, and suggesting that the Ship might actually be moving through an enormous universe is considered dangerously heretical.

A perfectly reasonable arrangement, provided nobody insists upon checking.

Beyond the supposedly civilised sections of the vessel live the muties, descendants of those affected by radiation and generations of isolation, whose existence provides a constant source of fear and hostility. Hugh’s encounters with this forbidden world gradually lead him towards discoveries that challenge everything he has been taught.

Among the most memorable inhabitants is Joe-Jim Gregory, a two-headed mutant whose unusual circumstances have done remarkably little to diminish his intellectual curiosity. Together, the characters begin uncovering the truth about their environment, their ancestors and the extraordinary destination that the Ship was originally intended to reach.

Heinlein constructs a wonderfully entertaining adventure around a deceptively serious question: how much of what people believe is based upon evidence, and how much survives simply because generations of supposedly respectable authorities have insisted that it must be true?

The novel combines scientific speculation with religious satire, political conflict and an affectionate suspicion of humanity’s remarkable ability to turn misunderstood technology into unquestionable tradition.

Originally published in two parts, Universe in 1941 and Common Sense in 1941, the stories were subsequently combined as Orphans of the Sky, becoming one of the defining early examples of the generation-starship concept.

This 1987 Grafton Books edition, offered in Good condition by Crappy Old Books, is an appealing acquisition for Heinlein enthusiasts, collectors of classic science fiction and anyone fascinated by stories in which the greatest discoveries involve questioning the supposedly obvious.

A gripping adventure through a forgotten technological world, where ignorance has become institutionalised and the truth is considerably stranger than anybody imagined.

And a useful reminder that if your entire civilisation insists the universe consists of a collection of corridors, machinery and agricultural compartments, somebody really ought to investigate what lies beyond the walls.

Preferably before the spaceship reaches its destination.

Assuming, of course, anybody still remembers how to land it.

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