This book was suggested to me by a friend of mine. He also told me that I should read ’’Starship troopers’’ and ’’Glory Road’’ as well. I rented ’’Tunnel in the Sky’’ from my local library and began my journey on Terra (Earth) where a young Rod Walker was preparing to take his final exam, a survival test on another planet. He winds up getting trapped on that planet with the rest of his class and three other classes from different schools. These teens are forced to set up their own society, which becomes a very successful civilization.
This was a very exciting book that kept me reading for hours. It is also reminiscent of ’’The Lord of the Flies, ’’ so if you liked that, you will like ’’Tunnel in the Sky’’ (although I don’t see how you couldn’t anyway). It is also aimed at teenagers/young adults. The beginning of the story is very detailed and descriptive of Terra. Heinlein spends the first chapter setting up the futuristic setting of Earth, and also the long tunnels that cross all over the United States. He came up with a great idea, then created a whole history behind it, making it a much more believable scenario.
The only part of this book I didn’t like was in the end, I really would have liked to see more of what Rod’s future was like, the book doesn’t really explain much about what happened to him when he grew up, just that he became a Captain. Overall, I would rate this book a 9.8 out of 10, and could be rounded to a perfect 10!