History Literature / TunnelintheSky

** Also, after reading this book one cannot help but get the idea that there are some ''very'' unpleasant things about the society that turned out these teenagers, judging by their callous behavior. The test is only supposed to be less than two weeks, to see how they manage to survive, but almost immediately after arrival Rod finds ''the dead body of a boy who was murdered for his equipment.'' The threat of being killed by the other students is very real and makes everyone paranoid. During a misunderstanding, Jack even says that she'll hunt down and murder Rod if he doesn't leave. What would happen if things went normally and everyone went home after the test? Would people get away with murder? Would parents be demanding to know what happened to their missing children? Has a society gotten so superficially civilized but basically barbaric that high school students are tested in ways that will result in deaths, either by accident or design? Remember, these aren't soldiers being sent on training missions and taking risks they signed up for, these are ''high school students.''

* TechnologyMarchesOn: Rod contemplates the flow of people through the Ramsbotham Gate to another planet and decides to calculate how long it would take the current population of the Earth to go through, accounting for deaths and births along the way. He uses a slide rule.

** [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] between Matson and Rod. Any planet used for the survival test would be Earth-like, and if it wasn't Earth-like the students would be informed about hazardous environmental conditions first.

* YearOutsideHourInside: When Rod's father is diagnosed with an incurable disease he and his wife go into a Ramsbotham field where two weeks to them will equate to twenty years in the real world. They will stay in the field until a cure for the disease is found, [[spoiler: which turns out to have been discovered a lot sooner than the estimate of twenty years. Rod's parents exit the field just as he returns home from his time on the alien planet.]]

* YearOutsideHourInside: When Rod's father is diagnosed with an incurable disease he and his wife go into a Ramsbotham field where two weeks to them will equate to twenty years in the real world. They will stay in the field until a cure for the disease is found, [[spoiler: which turns out to have been discovered a lot sooner than expected, since they exit the field just as Rod returns home from his time on the alien planet.]]

* HourInsideYearOutside: When Rod's father is diagnosed with an incurable disease he and his wife go into a Ramsbotham field where two weeks to them will equate to twenty years in the real world. They will stay in the field until a cure for the disease is found, [[spoiler: which turns out to have been discovered a lot sooner than expected, since they exit the field just as Rod returns home from his timem on the alien planet.

** And averted when one of the first kids Rod himself sees dead was one equipped with a whole bunch of top-of-the-line gear, including an expensive energy weapon. He was ambushed and killed by a thief ''because'' he brought that expensive weapon.

* DisasterDemocracy: The stranded students' mistake isn't establishing a democracy but making their government more complicated than primitive survival warrants. Still, as the guys who attempt to turn the thing into a ''Lord Of The Flies''-style "do-as-you-please" TeenageWasteland end up showcasing ([[TakeThat by means of getting killed quickly]]), a degree of society ''is'' needed in a disaster, and on this all of the kids agree on trying to make it work.

* DisasterDemocracy: The stranded students' mistake isn't establishing a democracy but making their government more complicated than primitive survival warrants.

-> "Rod, everyone of us is beset by two things: a need to go home, and the impossibility of doing it."- Deacon Matson.

* StrangerInAFamiliarLand: [[spoiler:When Rod gets back home, his parents and family friends all seem like petty jerks that don't understand anything. He can't relate to them anymore and no longer accepts their authority. He quickly finishes college and hands out to the Outlands again.]]

* TeenageWasteland: Type 1, the kids are stranded on an alien world because the recall to Earth never came.

* FiveManBand: Our five main characters form this.
** TheLeader: Rod Walker
** TheLancer: Jack Daudet
** TheBigGuy: Caroline Mshiyeni
** TheSmartGuy: Grant Cowper
** TheChick: Jimmy Throxton

%%* RaceLift: Rod is turned into a white kid on the covers.
%% PM me anything from the text that suggests Rod is a POC.

%%* AmbiguouslyBrown: [[spoiler: Rod Walker, and by extension the Walker family]].
%% PM me anything from the text that suggests Rod is a POC.

* FiveManBand: While there is a large cast of survivors, our five main characters form this.
** TheLeader:Rod Walker
** TheLancer: Jack
** TheBigGuy: Caroline
** TheSmartGuy: Grant
** TheChick: Jimmy
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Matson asks Rod who gave him the good survival advice and Rod explains it came from his sister in the Corp of Amazons. Matson grumbles that a woman like her would have kept him from being a cranky old bachelor. [[spoiler: When Rod returns, Matson is now his brother-in-law]].

[[caption-width-right:236: Children are another race and adults deal with them as such. But adolescents are neither adult nor child. They have the impossible, unsolvable, tragic problems of all fringe cultures.]]

* CoversAlwaysLie: The teenager portrayed on the front cover (presumably Rod Walker) is white, despite our protagonist being black.

[[caption-width-right:236: Our black protagonist.]]

** The reason Helen recommends that Rod takes only a knife: a gun's power will give Rod a false sense of courage and safety which would possibly get him killed. A knife is only so much better then being unarmed and his vulnerability will make him paranoid enough to avoid conflicts and survive. Helen knows from experience, she took a gun on her first expedition and losing it saved her life: she ran from a native beast rather then fighting it and learned later that the creatures were virtually ImmuneToBullets.

[[quoteright:227:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rah_tunnel_4389.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:227: Our black protagonist.]]
'''''Tunnel in the Sky''''' is a 1955 juvenile SciFi novel written by Creator/RobertAHeinlein.

* CelibateHero: Rod actively avoids any romance, though his own naturally obtuse attitude helps the process along quite nicely. For example, [[ShipTease Jack shows early jealousy of Caroline]], but since Rod is ignoring that sort of thing [[spoiler:she ends up marrying Jimmy and the two are perfectly happy together. Rod also avoids becoming close to any one girl with a personal vow that the day he does is the day he steps down as leader. He's particularly careful to keep Caroline at a distance.]]

** The final word of advice given to students is to beware of "stobor". They're very cautious around the unfamiliar native animals until they finally identify what stobor actually are: [[spoiler: "dopy joes", normally dim-witted and lethargic creatures who have an annual TheSwarm season. However, after the rescue, Rod finds out that there never were any "stobor" it was specifically vague warning to frighten the kids into being cautious. Nearly every life-bearing planet has some animal that turns out to be a monster of legend under the right circumstances and the best protection is being completely paranoid.]].

* AmbiguouslyBrown: [[spoiler: Rod Walker, and by extension the Walker family]].

* RaceLift: Rod is turned into a white kid on the covers.