Louie the Mustache Matos's Reviews > Sixth Column

Sixth Column is one of the early Heinlein novels I collected in high school. It was originally published, pre-WWII in the Astounding Science Fiction magazine as a pulp, multi-part story. Clearly, Heinlein had some foresight into the world events that would culminate in a world war involving many countries including Pan-Asians as they were called in the novel. Unfortunately this novel would contribute to the "Yellow Peril" scares that were rampant in the 1950s.

As for this novel, it begins in a secret underground facility in Colorado where it seems that an experiment has caused the death of all but six men in the facility which will vanguard the entire resistance movement of a conquered future United States. The six survivors organize themselves as a fighting unit made up of scientists, soldiers, and civilians. The scheme involves a great deal of subterfuge and ingenuity developing a weapon that attacks specific racial characteristics, which of course opened Heinlein to criticism. Along with the obvious negative dregs of war, carnage, and trauma that resulted in what we later came to understand as the attempted extinguishing of an entire group of people, an entire generation learned that war was to be avoided at all cost.

Sixth Column is interesting because unlike WWII, the war is fought on American soil which adds a certain level of danger that has never been felt by Americans of the current generation. I hope the depths and breadth of its messages are not lost on us. This book does what great Science Fiction (yes, in caps) should do; it makes us think.