History Literature / TheRollingStones1952

* HenpeckedHusband: Roger gets grief not from his wife, but from his ''mother'', who insults him constantly and literally calls him a sissy when he refuses to rise to the bait.
-->'''Cas to Pol''': "Have you ever noticed how Dad gets pushed around until he gets his own way?"

* ShoutOut: The movie ''Literature/FaceOff'' has two evil brothers named Castor and Pollux. the same way this book's twins are named.

It takes place in the same universe as ''Literature/TheMoonIsAHarshMistress'', which is a direct prequel.

* ImADoctorNotAPlaceholder:

* ThemeTwinNaming: Castor and Pollux are of course named after the twins of GreekMythology.

-->'''Cas to Pol''': "Have you ever noticed how Dad gets pushed around until he get's his own way?"

* NoodleIncident: After Cas and Pol are arrested on Mars for tax evasion, their father notes that at least it wasn't for experimenting with atomics inside city limits.

* ShownTheirWork: In the book ''Literature/ExpandedUniverse'', Mr Heinlein explain how Mrs Heinlein and he spent many hours calculating the precise orbit of the spaceship when it departs Luna and slingshots around Earth toward Mars. They had to do it with paper and pen, because in the early 1950s there was no other way and he wanted it to be correct.

* TakeThat: You have to wonder if some of Roger Stone's rantings about his much hated science-fiction show contract had anything to do with Heinlein's experiences working on DestinationMoon, or TomCorbetSpaceCadet.

* CliffhangerCopout: Appears in-universe in a StoryWithinAStory, "Scourge of the Spaceways". John Serling ends one season in an unsurvivable DeathTrap. He starts the next season out of the DeathTrap and, hero that he is, is too modest to tell people how he managed to escape. Then the next adventure starts.

* OlderThanTheyThink:
--> '''Edith Stone''': [[ImADoctorNotAPlaceholder I’m a doctor, not a fortune-teller.]]

* DontMakeMeTakeMyBeltOff: Roger Stone talks the twins after Hazel and Buster are rescued, telling them the history of the belt in his hands, and how his whole was raised on it. He seems to be threatening them with it for their screwup, but then notes that they're too old for it to do any good, and they're going to have to live with the consequences of their actions like adults, instead of just being punished and getting over it.

* YamatoNadeshiko: Edith Stone skirts this. Outwardly she's the quiet, solid center of family with seemingly no strong opinions and who seems to have given up on her career as a doctor when she married. On the other hand Cas and Pol note that no family argument is decided until she weighs in, and she politely but firmly ignores her husband Roger's objections when she volunteers to transfer to a ship [[spoiler: that is suffering from a viral plague that has already killed their ship's surgeon.]]

It takes place in the same universe as ''TheMoonIsAHarshMistress'', which is a direct prequel.

* DontMakeMeTakeMyBeltOff: Played with when Roger Stone talks the twins after Hazel and Buster are rescued. He seems to be threatening them with it for their screwup, but then notes that they're too old for it to do any good, and they're going to have to live with the consequences of their actions like adults, instead of just being punished and getting over it.

[[spoiler: Later in the book, the Rolling Stone essentially does just that in order to reclaim the cargo they had to abandon in order to reach a plague-infested ship.]]

* YouAreGrounded: Roger Stone confines Cas and Pol to quarters after [[spoiler: they almost kill Hazel and Buster by not logging a malfunction in the family rocket scooter.]] In typical fashion they break it to save the day.

A well-loved YA novel written by RobertAHeinlein and published in 1952, ''The Rolling Stones'' follows the adventures of the Stone family, primarily through the viewpoint of fifteen year old red-headed troublemakers Castor and Pollux. Together they finagle their father, beleaguered script writer Roger Stone, into purchasing a space ship for a family outing through the solar system. HilarityEnsues.

* AsteroidThicket: Averted. The book takes care to note that the asteroids are far enough apart that the risk of being hit by one is infinitesimally small. Nevertheless ''The Rolling Stone'' takes precautions anyway when they enter an unusually dense field that's a haven for miners.
* CaptainSpaceDefenderOfEarth: Roger Stone and, later, Grandma Hazel help support the family by writing a deliberately over-the-top three-vee serial in the Captain Space Defender mold.

* ShownTheirWork: In the book ''Literature/ExpandedUniverse'', Mr Heinlein explain how Mrs Heinlein and he spent many hours calculating the precise orbit of the spaceship when it departs Luna and slingshots around Earth toward Mars. They had to do it with paper and pen, because in the early 1950s there was no other way and he wanted it to be correct.

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: Averted in the book proper of course. In Hazel's serial she cheerfully make Science whimper loudly and hide its head in the very first episode she writes.

--> ''Roger'': For starters, spaceships do ''not'' make 180 degree turns!
--> ''Hazel'': Mine do.

* ExpospeakGag: Hazel tries to pull this along with a big helping of Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness to explain to Captain Vandenberg why they got a flat cat for Buster, trying to satisfy his need to see the intelligent Martian natives. The boy sees right through it.

It takes place in the same universe as ''TheMoonIsAHarshMistress'' and can be seen as a direct sequel.

* AsteroidMiners - The titular family Stone travels to the Asteroid Belt, where the twins of the family hope to sell food and luxury items to the miners extracting radioactive ores.

* CaptainSpaceDefenderOfEarth - Roger Stone and, later, Grandma Hazel help support the family by writing a deliberately over-the-top three-vee serial in the Captain Space Defender mold.

* MostWritersAreWriters - As is a common theme in Heinlein's work, Hazel and Roger both have careers as fiction writers.