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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   
are soft-peddled for these. 
                                    
A personal favorite of mine is
"Have Spacesuit Will Travel",          
which is a mix of 

gritty hard SF:        & crazed space opera:
                                          
  (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 AI.
                                                   
   "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
   philosphical outlook.
      
   "Starship Troopers" - Space wars                  
   of the future (featuring some    
   interesting speculative hardware)    
   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 "The Nature of "Federal 
                                        Service" in Robert A. Heinlein's 
                                        Starship Troopers": 
 
                                           http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/ftp/fedrlsvc.pdf 
 
 
 
 
      "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.


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