The Heinlein Juveniles Multiple Choice Quiz | Authors

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Bill and his family emigrate to Ganymede and try to start a farm there. After planetquakes and blizzards they finally made a go of it. The Boy Scouts was also prominently featured.

Answer: Farmer in the Sky

Due to Earth's overwhelming population and food rationing, Bill Lermer and his family take a spaceship to a colony on Jupiter's third moon, Ganymede. During the trip Bill forms a Boy Scout troop and saves the ship from a meteor impact. While on Ganymede there was a planetquake that destroyed his step-sister's pressurized room, and she died shortly after.

The family decided to stay and eventually made a success of their farm.

2. Juan decides to join the military after high school and ends up in the Mobile Infantry. Earth is being attacked by an alien race called "Bugs" and it is their job to go in and destroy the Bugs on their home planet.

Answer: Starship Troopers

Juan Rico reluctantly joined the military in order to impress his classmate, Carmen Ibanez, who went on to become a starship pilot. During the course of his service he was promoted, demoted and promoted again, eventually commanding his own squad, Rico's Roughnecks.

He also found out that his dad had joined the MI after Buenos Aires was destroyed by the Bugs in their first attack on Earth where his mother died.

3. After running away from his Ozark home, Max uses forged papers to get menial work aboard the starship Asgard. After the ship was lost through an uncharted anomaly and all others with astrogation skills died, he successfully pilots the ship back to known space, and is accepted as an apprentice astrogator by the Guild.

Answer: Starman Jones

After the Captain got the ship lost through his miscalculations he committed suicide which left no other Astrogators on board except for Max Jones, who had memorized the entire astrogation tables that his uncle had left him. The ship found itself on an uncharted planet that seemed pleasant at first but ended up being inhabited by a race that turned out to be less than friendly.

4. Matt joins the Interplanetary Patrol and, after training, is assigned to a ship sent out to investigate a distress signal coming from Venus. After diffusing an interplanetary incident caused by an ex-classmate of theirs, they discover a lost ship which they pilot back to civilization.

Answer: Space Cadet

One of the main duties of the Interplanetary Patrol is to monitor the network of H-bombs that orbit the planets to prevent any one government from committing aggression against others. Matt made friends with Tex Jarman and Oscar Jensen who went with him on the assignment to Venus.

The ship they discovered was the Astarte, the ship that carried the first expedition to Venus in 1971. Her crew died of a virulent fungal infection shortly after landing.

5. John's pet, Lummox, was handed down to him from his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather. After Lummox escaped from his holding cell, she and John tried to hide out in the wilderness but were brought back when it was discovered that Lummox was a very important member of a race threatening to destroy the Earth.

Answer: The Star Beast

Lummox ended up being what we would consider royalty for the Hroshii who were threatening to exterminate the planet Earth. Earth authorities considered Lummox to be a "dumb animal" until she later grew arms and was reduced in size by members of her race. John Thomas Stuart XI accompanied her to her home planet along with a contingent of Earth scientists and diplomats in order to improve relations with the Hroshii.

6. Hugh discovers the true nature of the Ship and finds out that there is a world beyond its steel walls. After being captured by the Muties, Hugh is shown the Outside and tries to convince the rest of the population of his discoveries.

Answer: Orphans of the Sky

Both the original name of the ship, the Vanguard, and the original purpose of the ship's voyage, "the first recorded attempt to reach the nearer stars of the galaxy", were lost to history. The crew mutinied and killed all officers capable of running the ship; thus it drifted in space for generations afterward.

Although the inhabitants retained enough skill through the generations to keep the ship habitable, they lacked any real understanding of science and all knowledge of their origin and history.

7. Thorby is bought by Baslim the Cripple from whom he learned the art of begging. After being smuggled aboard a ship of the Free Traders, he was handed off to the Hegemonic Guard to find his true identity.

Answer: Citizen of the Galaxy

It was discovered that Thorby was actually Thor Bradley Rudbek, heir to the Rudbek fortune. After finding out that many of his own companies were involved in the slave trade in the Nine Worlds Empire he dedicated himself to the eradication of slavery. He even joined the X-Corps, his adoptive father, Baslim's old unit.

8. After winning a real spacesuit in a slogan contest, Kip finds himself aboard a spaceship heading to the moon with two other hostages. After a few adventures, Kip and Peewee find themselves having to defend the Earth in a trial that could end in the destruction of their own planet.

Answer: Have Spacesuit, Will Travel

Although the Mother Thing was a comfort to have around during a crisis, Kip discovered that she was actually an interplanetary police officer of sorts. Although she felt affection towards Kip and Peewee, it was her job to bring the Earth to trial. Both Kip and Peewee decided that if the Earth was to be destroyed, they would return instead of staying with the Mother Thing.

9. Jim and his pet Martian, Willis, foil an attempt by the Company to prevent the colonists' regular migration to more tolerable climates. With the help of adult Martians he was able to warn the colonists about the Company's plans and to establish the colony's independence from control by Earth companies.

Answer: Red Planet

Jim Marlowe never realized that his pet Martian, Willis, was in fact the larval form of an adult Martian. Willis could reproduce human speech exactly as if it were from an audio speaker. This talent was instrumental in foiling the plan of the Mars Company when a private conference was held in his presence.

10. The heroine of this story is 8 years old with ambitions of becoming captain of a space liner. She was captured, along with her brother, by political enemies of her uncle. In the original published book she was injured in a bomb blast. In the revised book, which was Heinlein's first draft, she was killed in the blast.

Answer: Podkayne of Mars

Podkayne Fries, who was named after a Martian saint, was 8 Martian years old and 15 Earth years old. Her uncle, Tom Fries, was a transportee who had participated in the Martian Revolution and now served as Senator-at-Large of the Martian Republic. A survey was recently taken by Baen books as to whether Poddy should die.

The overwhelming consent was that she should die as Heinlein orginally envisioned. Podkayne of Mars was also Robert A. Heinlein's last juvenile and could almost be lumped in with his more adult novels to follow. Thank you for taking another of my Robert A.

Heinlein quizzes. I hope you enjoyed playing it as much as I enjoyed creating it for you.

Source: Author derickwjazz

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor MotherGoose before going online.
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The Heinlein Juveniles Trivia Quiz

Robert A. Heinlein began his career writing science-fiction adventure stories for young boys and girls. I'll give you a short description of the plot and you pick the title of the book.

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