[PREV - BEYOND]    [TOP]

GRUMBLES

                                          TOADKEEPER

                                          Originally an outake
                                          from letters to Ed Brenner

                                          April 20 - May 31, 1992


     Heinlein's _Grumbles from the Grave_:

     I thought that the section covering
     his struggles with his editor Alice
     Dalgliesh over the "Juveniles" he
     wrote for Scribners was the most
     interesting.


     The general review of his career was
     somewhat interesting...  I think of
     him as being a Campbell writer, but
     really he spent very little of his
     career with Campbell.  Only a few
     novels and about 20 short stories
     (not even all that much of _The Past
     Through Tomorrow_) were born under
     Campbell's wing.

     Most of his great work was done after
     his marriage to Virginia.

        Speaking of which: why didn't
        he and Virginia have any
        children?  All of those later
        stories put so much emphasis
        on the importance of raising
        kids... was that some kind of
        compensation for his wife's
        lack of interest?

          I would presume it
          wasn't sterility on
          her part -- harping
          on it would be too
          insensitive.

            Maybe there's some sort of
            personal dig going on here?
            When Heinlein's character's        Or alternately, it
            sing the virtues of child          could just be that
            bearing, maybe it's his            he felt his life span
            wife that he's talking to?         was too uncertain to
                                               plan on raising
                                               children.



     Heinlein's attitude toward
     _Starship Troopers_:

     Back then, in an old letter to a fan,
     he he called it an inquiry, a book
     that tries to raise questions.

     In _Expanded Universe_, an older,
     crankier, Heinlein seems to be
     calling it a book full of answers...


                                               May 31, 1992

     I can't say I recommend Heinlein's
     _Job_.  I thought it started out
     okay, but by the end it descends
     into another arbitrary Universe,
     an "Everyone is Right",
     whatever-you-believe-is-true
     cosmology.


     On the other hand, I read both

        _The Cat Who Walks Through Walls_
        _To Sail Beyond The Sunset_

     recently, and I was actually
     impressed with _To Sail_.

     It's mostly a sequel to "Da Capo" from
     _Time Enough_. The best things about
     it are the turn-of-the-century
     stuff, the Howard family libertines
     living undercover in a puritanical
     world.

     Maybe it's not great but at least
     there's a little bit of reality
     injected into all of the sexual
     wish-fufillment.  Before it's over,
     our perfectly well-adjusted Heinlein
     heroes have to deal with divorce, and
     there's an interesting bit about
     psychological problems in families
     where incest is an accepted form of
     recreation.


--------
[NEXT - PRIGOGINE]