Immediately after Starman Jones, Heinlein wrote his seventh juvenile novel (ninth or tenth novel, total, if you keep track of that sort of thing). What a reversal. He’d been getting steadily more adult in his writing, perhaps as much because of his increasing clout and the resulting power reversal between him and his editors as much as his own maturation as a writer. Then he puts out some silly book about a kid and his alien pet.
But you know what they say about books, covers, and rushing to judgement. Let’s talk about The Star Beast.
