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HEINLEIN

                                                  This is a small
                                                  collection of some
                           December 12, 2003      random things I've
                                                  said about Heinlein.
Heinlein for beginners:
                                                  Some other things are:
If you haven't read any Heinlein, try
reading the quote juveniles unquote               STRANGER
that he wrote for Scribners:
                                                  GRUMBLES
  "Red Planet"
  "The Rolling Stones" (no relation)
  "Space Cadet"
  "Have Spacesuit Will Travel"

And so on.  These are all great books.

Most of the excesses (political and stylistic)
that Heinlein-haters like to complain about           "The general rule if you
are soft-peddled for these.                           haven’t read any Heinlein
                                                      is to start with anything
                                                      less than an inch thick."
                                                           -- Jo Walton
A personal favorite of mine is                             [ref]
"Have Spacesuit Will Travel",
which is a mix of                                         Excepting "The Past
                                                          Through Tomorrow",
gritty hard SF:        & crazed space opera:              or course.

  (e.g. a survival       (e.g. an amorphous
  situation on the       alien blob named
  moon involving         "The Mother Thing",
  solving a problem      representing the
  with incompatible      authority of the
  valve fittings)        unified Three
                         Galaxes).



The three books by Heinlein that may ultimately be the
most interesting (and also the most controversial) are:

   "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" -
    Lunar colonists rebel against an
    oppressive earth government, in
    alliance with an accidentally
    developed artificial intelligence.

   "Stranger in a Strange Land" - A boy
   raised by Martians is brought back to
   earth, where he displays some
   tremendous parapsychological powers,
   and not incidentally, an odd
   philosophical outlook.

   "Starship Troopers" - Space wars
   of the future (featuring some
   interesting speculative hardware)         TROOPERS
   fought by an earth government
   ruled by a strange form of
   democracy where only military
   veterans are allowed to vote.        Yes, I said "*military* veterans".
   Some grim philosophy is presented    I do know what Heinlein said in
   about the inevitability of war.      "Expanded Universe".  Try reading
                                        this essay: "The Nature of "Federal
                                        Service" in Robert A. Heinlein's
                                        Starship Troopers":

                                           [ref]




      "Mistress" is beloved by libertarians;
      "Stranger" was worshipped by sixties hippies     "Strangers" is 
      "Troopers" is beloved by conservatives.          literally a cult 
                                                       novel.

          Be careful about making rash
          generalizations about what
          Heinlein was "really" about.



                                            "In a field whose most brilliant
                                            and well-established writers seem
                                            to flip sooner or later, Heinlein
                                            is preeminently sane."

                                                 -- Damon Knight,
                                                    "In Search of Wonder"
                                                    (1956)





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