Beyond This Horizon
Encyclopedia
Beyond This Horizon is a science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel by Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...

. It was originally published as a two-part serial in Astounding Science Fiction (April, May 1942, as by Anson MacDonald) and then eventually as a single volume by Fantasy Press
Fantasy Press
Fantasy Press was an American publishing house specialising in fantasy and science fiction titles. Established in 1946 by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach in Reading, Pennsylvania, it was most notable for publishing the works of authors such as Robert A. Heinlein and E. E. Smith...

 in 1948.

Overview

The novel depicts a world where genetic selection for increased health, longevity, and intelligence has become so widespread that the unmodified 'control naturals' are a carefully managed (and protected) minority. Duel
Duel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.Duels in this form were chiefly practised in Early Modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period especially among...

ing and the carrying of arms is a socially accepted way of maintaining civility in public - a man can wear distinctive clothing to show his unwillingness to duel, but this results in a lower social status. The world has become an economic utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...

; the "economic dividend" is so high that work has become optional
Post scarcity
Post scarcity is a hypothetical form of economy or society, in which things such as goods, services and information are free, or practically free...

. The chief economic problem is in fact using up the economic surplus: many high-quality goods actually cost less than those of lower quality. But as many use the lower quality goods anyway as status symbols, much goes into scientific research, but this has the side-effect of further increasing productivity a decade or three later, so long-term projects with no (expected) possible economic return are favored above all but medical research (longer lifespans will consume more surplus).

The story's protagonist, Hamilton Felix (surname first) is the archetypal superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...

; he possesses a superhuman physique, an intellect to match it, and can expect to live centuries without any form of medical assistance. Authorities aware of his genetic makeup consider him to be the most advanced human in existence - the "star line". However, he lacks eidetic memory
Eidetic memory
Eidetic , commonly referred to as photographic memory, is a medical term, popularly defined as the ability to recall images, sounds, or objects in memory with extreme precision and in abundant volume. The word eidetic, referring to extraordinarily detailed and vivid recall not limited to, but...

, which disqualifies him for what many consider to be humanity's most important occupation: that of an "encyclopedic synthesist", one who analyzes the sum total of human knowledge for untapped potential. As such, he finds his life - and the society he lives in - to be enjoyable but meaningless. However, when one of these synthesists seeks him out, inquiring when he plans to continue his line, he finds himself drawn into an adventure which not only gives him purpose but convinces him that his society is worth saving after all.

A major theme in the novel is reincarnation, the immortality of the soul, and telepathy. Hamilton Felix is the product of generations of genetic engineering. He is almost but not quite the perfect human. In the second half of the book his genetically engineered son is born. The son is the final climax of generations of genetic engineering and selective breeding, and is a genetically perfect human. As the son grows he begins to develop almost super human mental abilities and a surprising telepathy ability. As the novel draws to a close, it becomes apparent that the son senses that Hamiton Felix's second child, a daughter, is the reincarnation of a wise elderly government official who foresaw her own death and arranged to die shortly before Felix's daughter was born. This official understood that the soul is reincarnated, and in preparation for her own death and reincarnation she was instrumental in the genetic engineering of the son and daughter.

Literary significance and criticism

In the first two decades of his writing career, Heinlein averaged writing a novel every year, of which nearly all were intended for young adult readers. Beyond This Horizon was his second published novel, and the last adult novel he was to write for a long time. The recent publication of his lost first novel, For Us, the Living
For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs
For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, written in 1938 but published for the first time in 2003...

, reveals that Beyond This Horizon is largely a second attempt to treat most of its ideas. For Us, the Living consists largely of thinly-fictionalized lectures on social credit
Social Credit
Social Credit is an economic philosophy developed by C. H. Douglas , a British engineer, who wrote a book by that name in 1924. Social Credit is described by Douglas as "the policy of a philosophy"; he called his philosophy "practical Christianity"...

 (a movement that Heinlein later hid his involvement in), as well as free love, and criticism of religious fundamentalism. From the first page of Beyond This Horizon, Heinlein shows a revolutionized mastery of storytelling applied to the same materials. The title of the first chapter is "All of them should have been very happy —," and it introduces the utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...

 by the expedient of the protagonist's inexplicable dissatisfaction with it.

Eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...

 is shown as the wave of the future, and yet it is a eugenics that explicitly rejects racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

, and can be reconciled with Heinlein's strongly held belief in cultural relativism
Cultural relativism
Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture. This principle was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and...

. Scientific progress is satirized as often as it is glorified, and Heinlein displays his disdain for positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....

, as his protagonist convinces the society's leaders to plow vast amounts of money into research on topics such as telepathy
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...

 and the immortality of the soul.

One sub-theme of the book is the carrying and use of firearm
Firearm
A firearm is a weapon that launches one, or many, projectile at high velocity through confined burning of a propellant. This subsonic burning process is technically known as deflagration, as opposed to supersonic combustion known as a detonation. In older firearms, the propellant was typically...

s. In the novel being armed is part of being a man; otherwise he wears a brassard
Brassard
A brassard or armlet is an armband or piece of cloth or other material worn around the upper arm, used as an item of military uniform to which rank badges may be attached instead of being stitched into the actual clothing...

 and is considered weak and inferior. Women are allowed but not expected to be armed. Duels
Duel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.Duels in this form were chiefly practised in Early Modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period especially among...

, either deadly or survivable, may easily occur when someone feels that they have been wronged or insulted, a custom that keeps order and politeness. A defining quote from the book which is repeated throughout Heinlein's work is, "An armed society is a polite society", is very popular with those who support the personal right to keep and bear arms.

The novel is also interesting for what it leaves out. Nudism and free love
Free love
The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...

, which had been prominently featured in For Us, the Living, are absent from this story. Nudism would not appear again in Heinlein's work until 1957's The Door Into Summer
The Door into Summer
The Door into Summer is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, originally serialized in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and published in hardcover in 1957. It is a fast-paced hard science fiction novel, with a key fantastic element, and romantic elements...

; free love next made an appearance in 1961, in Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians. The novel explores his interaction with—and...

.

Boucher
Anthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...

 and McComas
J. Francis McComas
Jesse Francis McComas was an American science fiction editor. McComas wrote several stories on his own in the 1950s using both his own name and the pseudonym Webb Marlowe....

 characterized Beyond This Horizon as among "the finest science fiction novels of the modern crop." . P. Schuyler Miller
P. Schuyler Miller
Peter Schuyler Miller was an American science fiction writer and critic.-Life:Miller was raised in New York's Mohawk Valley, which led to a life-long interest in the Iroquois Indians. He pursued this as an amateur archaeologist and a member of the New York State Archaeological Association.He...

reviewed the novel favorably, saying "in true Heinlein manner the basic theme of the book smashes the screen of action only in the closing pages."

Release details

  • 1942, USA, Astounding Science Fiction magazine (ISSN NA), Pub date April 1942-May 1942, orig. serial
  • 1948, USA, Fantasy Press (ISBN NA), Pub date ? ? 1948, hardback (First edition)
  • 1948, USA, New American Library(ISBN 0-451-07599-4), Pub date ? ? 1948, Paperback
  • 1964, USA, Signet (ISBN NA; Signet D2539), Pub. Date August 1964, Paperback
  • 1981, UK, Gregg Press (ISBN 0-8398-2672-9), Pub date ? ? 1981, paperback
  • 1975, USA, Signet (ISBN 0-451-08966-9), Pub date ? ? 1975, paperback
  • 1975, UK, Panther Press (ISBN 0-586-02348-8), Pub date ? ? 1975, paperback
  • 1981, USA, Ultramarine Publishing (ISBN 0-89366-282-8), Pub date ? June 1981, hardback
  • 1983, UK, Hodder & Stoughton (ISBN 0-450-06022-5), Pub date 1 May 1983, hardback
  • 1985, USA, New English Library (ISBN 0-450-03289-2), Pub date 1 November 1985, paperback
  • 1989, USA, Signet (ISBN 0-451-15616-1), Pub date ? April 1989, paperback
  • 1997, USA, Atlantic Books (ISBN 0-451-16676-0), Pub date 6 August 1997, paperback
  • 2001, USA, Baen Books (ISBN 0-671-31836-5), Pub date ? September 2001, hardback
  • 2002, USA, Baen Books (ISBN 0-7434-3561-3), Pub date 1 September 2002, paperback
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK