Kevin's Watch

Morning folks (for me anyway)

Just curious to see what sort of following there is here for R. A. Heinlein's books. I very rarely see him mentioned (although I must admit that I haven't done a search) and yet, in my humble opinion, he ranks up there with Asimov as one of the greatest Sci-Fi authors of the last century.

He's one of the author's whose views and opinions have influenced my own outlook on life, and I was wondering if anyone else has strong feelings (either way) about his work.

My personal favourites are probably Stranger in a Strage Land, Time Enough for Love and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I own about 20 of his novels, and will read anything of his, once at least.

Anyone else?

--Avatar

I like Heinlein. I read a few of his books, but only remember reading Stranger. I think the main knock on him is Starship Troopers, though the movie is not his fault.

dANdeLION wrote:I think the main knock on him is Starship Troopers, though the movie is not his fault.

Exactly. In fact, I'm pretty sure he was already dead when it was made. If you read the book, you'll find an excellent story with a searching look at the questions of franchise and totalitarianism.

Excellent stuff. That damned movie...

But then, I'm sure it's something that all of us have been affected by. The ruination of a good book by some inept screen-writer. I sometimes wonder if the people who make them even bother reading the books themselves. It often seems that the guy saw a title, liked the blurb, and made up his own story around just those elements.

Starship Troopers is a perfect example.

--A

I'm a great admirer of Heinlein. Red Planet was the first SF novel I ever read (about age 7). In general I prefer the juveniles to the later 'adult' novels, and for two reasons. First, they are more tightly written, without the monologues and longueurs that characterized books like Time Enough for Love. Second, the juveniles, by nature, spare us his leering disquisitions on what he fondly imagined to be 'enlightened' sexuality. To take one cardinal example, 'line marriages' and similar large-group unions have been tried (though not with legal sanction) since he wrote about them; they have uniformly proved to be catastrophic failures. (I recall reading about a sociologist who wanted to do a study of the dynamics of large group marriages — seven participants or more — over a one-year period. He gave up in disgust when every single group he studied fell apart before the year was up.)

My personal favourite is Tunnel in the Sky, and has been since I first read it in childhood. It is my firm belief that that book should be in the curriculum of every school that makes children read Lord of the Flies — as an antidote.

Variol, that is why I never go out of my way to read his stuff. I'll try to find some of his earlier works in the future.

VS wrote:My personal favourite is Tunnel in the Sky, and has been since I first read it in childhood. It is my firm belief that that book should be in the curriculum of every school that makes children read Lord of the Flies - as an antidote.

Superb quote! Tunnel Rocks! IMHO The Green Hills of Earth ranks up there with Bradbury's numerous outstanding short stories collections; R is For Rocket, Golden Apples of the Sun, In Dandelion Wine, The Illustrated Man, i.e. as the best in Sci Fi!

Yes Sci Fi movies can def pervert the public's perception of a story-like the fact that The Postman almost has nothing what-so-ever to do with David Brin's classic...

danlo wrote: Yes Sci Fi movies can def pervert the public's perception of a story...

*coughIRobotcough*

What two SF authors had to say about him

Robert Silverberg:

The word that comes to mind for him is essential. As a writer -- eloquent, impassioned, technically innovative --- he reshaped science fiction in way that defined it for every writer who followed him...He was the most significant science fiction writer since HG Wells

Samuel R Delany:

Robert Heinlein, as much as any writer while I was growing up, taught me to argue with the accepted version

'Chip' Delany, also, said his influence was so large

modern critics attempting to wrestle with that influence find themselves dealing with an object rather like the sky or an ocean

I've read Glory Road and Starship Troopers. I've wanted to read more, but Martin reared his head, then King with the Dark Tower. Now I'm going to have to wait until after I read Runes of the Earth.

Variol, Tunnel in the Sky is my favorite Heinlein novel, too. It was my first sf book, read when I was fourteen, although I had previously read some fantasy.

It's one of only a handful of books I ever read three times. Rod Walker was a great protagonist and role model.

Your antidote to Lord of the Flies idea is brilliant - exile and colonization in a primitive environment by youth does not necessarily always result in barbarism and anarchy.

My favorite adult novels are Starship Troopers and The Puppet-Masters.

There are a few Heinleins that I enjoy, but as I recall his later books, they seemed to me chaotic rehashes of his earlier work. THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS is the only adult one I still reread.

Oddly, I grew out of STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, but did not grow out of TUNNEL IN THE SKY and PODKAYNE OF MARS, both juveniles.

Edge wrote:*coughIRobotcough*

From what I have heard, I plan to watch "I, Robot" as THE NAKED SUN under another name, not as a filming of I, ROBOT.

The one later Heinlein that I truly enjoy, despite the silliness about the 'line marriage', is Friday.

Other Heinleins I recall (and sometimes reread) with especial fondness:

Space Cadet
The Star Beast
Starship Troopers
Double Star
The Past Through Tomorrow

But my favourite Heinlein book of all time is Expanded Universe, which is not a novel, but a collection of stories and essays with long, rambling, interesting autobiographical notes between them. Many of the Heinlein fans I know agree with this assessment.

My favourite Heinlein short story, oddly enough, is 'The Man Who Travelled in Elephants'. This is also Spider Robinson's favourite, and he is probably the greatest living Heinlein fan on this planet. (I reserve judgement with respect to other planets, pending further data.) And it was apparently Heinlein's own favourite. At any rate, when Spider told him how much he liked it, Heinlein's eyes misted over and he said that it was his favourite, too, but that was the first time anyone had ever said a kind word about it in his hearing.

Without any spoilers whatever, 'The Man Who Travelled in Elephants' is not science fiction, scarcely even qualifies as fantasy, but is chockablock with the nostalgic Americana that Ray Bradbury made into his signature style. In fact, TMWTIE is the only story I've ever read that managed to out-Bradbury Bradbury.

Well, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one.

I understand the comments about his juvenile novels, many of them are firm favourites of mine, Citizen of the Galaxy comes to mind.

However, as regards his ideas of "enlightened sexuality", while I agree that they are unrealistic, I think the point he was trying to make was that they are unrealistic because of the way humans view these things.

Perhaps the fault lies not in his theories, but in the fact that they are a reflection of our prejucides in this area (and I certainly don't exempt myself).

That aside, however, I must primarily agree with Samuel R. Delany's quote, (whose Dahlgren remains one of the most surrealistic books I've ever read), in saying that his first value is the challenge to question the established.

--Avatar

I agree about DAHLGREN. I read it 3 times to see if I could make it form a story in my mind. I finally decided it was stream-of-living (as opposed to stream-of-consciousness) and let it be.

By contrast, Delany's BABEL-17 is one of my all-time favorites. He used that same skill at sharp, rich visuals and creating a culture to match. This time he used them to drive a plot. But IMO, his greatest invention was the language that so limited yet marvelously enhanced the thinking of anyone who understood it.

Sorry, digression from Heinlein.

Digression is the spice of life

I've got Triton by Delany, but have never got around to reading it. Sort of feel that everything would be a let-down after Dahlgren.

Love the description of it as "stream-of-living".

--A

No let-downs about BABEL-17.

Well, there is one dinner scene filled with so much detail that it wiped out the necessary significance -- confusing. I'm sure that isn't what Delaney had in mind. But the book overall I found supremely satisfying, whatever plane I looked at.

*trying to type with my cat's nose pushing at my hand*

Thanks. In that case, I'll keep an eye out for it.

--A

It won the Nebula.

Dragonlily wrote:From what I have heard, I plan to watch "I, Robot" as THE NAKED SUN under another name, not as a filming of I, ROBOT.

Even then it is not an accurate Asimov movie. There is no Daneel Olivaw, no Elijah Bailey, and Susan Calvin is nothing like how Asimov described her. Still, I enjoyed the movie for what it was, which is a heck of a lot more than I can say for Starship Troopers.

Try Delaney's Einstien Intersection it's no Dhalgren but it rocks! I love Babel-17 too