“In
the future, Earth has had interstellar spaceflight for centuries and has made
contact with numerous extraterrestrial intelligent species. John Thomas Stuart
XI, the teenage protagonist, lives in a small Rocky Mountain town, Westville,
caring for Lummox, an extraterrestrial beast his great-grandfather had brought
home. Lummox has learned how to speak, and has gradually grown from the size of
a collie pup to a ridable behemoth—especially after consuming a used car. The
childlike Lummox is perceived to be a neighborhood nuisance and, upon leaving
the Stuart property one day, causes substantial property damage across the
city. John's widowed mother wants him to get rid of it, and brings an action in
the local court to have it destroyed.”
An
entertaining, if somewhat talky tale of diplomacy and family issues, The Star
Beast excels in balancing humor with what is a very obvious plot. Designed for
a male teen audience, it’s also clearly “of an age,” as the saying goes. I’ve
said this before about the classic writers of the Golden Era of Science Fiction
that as smart and often clever they were, when it came to actually try and
predict a future beyond the 1950s, they fail. I mean, despite its futuristic
“setting”, Westville is every homely small town Hollywood spit out in the era.
And John Thomas Stuart and his girl Betty could be played by Mickey Rooney and
Judy Garland (I’m almost sure Heinlien used them as basis here). Everyone still
smokes, there is not much in the way of advanced technology in Stuart’s home
(or anywhere else, it seems), and has about as much tension as a deflated
balloon.
Still,
there is something charming about a 1954 book when read in 2024. Beyond the
annoying mother, who clearly has issues trying to both mother and father to her
son, the “real” world is sort of suspended and we get a simple, familiar, predictable
tale about a boy and his alien Lummox who, in the end, is not what he/she (who
has, apparently, six sexes) and a His Girl Friday who seemly is brighter and
tougher than the hero of this tale.
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