Posted on 06/23/2006 10:43:25 PM PDT by narses
This is presumably the last book in Heinlein's Future History, taking place during the late Coventry period (circa Methuselah's Children or late 23rd Century). Heinlein completed a detailed outline and partial draft of this book in 1955 and then abandoned it to work on other projects. Recently, the estate arranged for Spider Robinson to complete the work. Without giving anything away, this story would have taken the History in another direction from the body of his published work.
On all but one page, Spider Robinson has done a great job here of channelling the Master, and for the most part this book is extremely well done, both in the style and flavor of late 50's Heinlein, and in the way it winds itself into the Future History canon. I recommend it for all Heinlein fans. But...
Alas, that one page. Mr. Robinson has big issues with the War and couldn't resist an extremely cheap and gratuitous shot at George Bush. Judging by nearly everything he wrote, and particularly his dislike of pacifism, Heinlein would never have allowed such a rant in a book he co-wrote. But, being 20 years dead, all he can do is spin.
Except for this unforced error, I'd give it four stars. Maybe between the galleys and the bookstores someone will have enough respect for Heinlein to not put factually challenged rants in his mouth. One would hope.
(the rant, with a mild spoiler appears below the fold)
A character is speaking about the group's shock and dismay over a large and murderous attack (pp 263-264 of the uncorrected proof), trying to talk them out of hasty action. This is couched in the timeline of Heinlein's Future History, but it's not exactly rocket science to figure out the context. Nehemiah Scudder (The Prophet) is an American Christian theocratic dictator in the canon, overthrown at great cost.
"I will offer only a single example: the Terror Wars that led inexorably to the Ascension of the Prophet.
"Shortly after Captain Leslie LeCroix returned home safely from the historic first voyage to Luna, fanatical extremist Muslims from a tiny nation committed a great atrocity against a Christian superpower. Suicide terrorists managed to horribly murder thousands of innocent civilians. The grief and rage of their surviving compatriots must have been at least comparable to what we all feel now.
"Intelligently applied, that much national will and economic force could easily have eliminated every such fanatic from the globe. At that time there were probably less than a hundred that rabid, and by definition they were so profoundly stupid or deranged as to be barely functional. It was always clear their primitive atrocity had succeeded so spectacularly only by the most evil luck.
"We all know what the superpower chose to do instead. It crushed two tiny bystander nations, killing some dozens of actual terrorists, and hundreds of thousands of civilians as innocent as their own dead loved ones had been. The first time it was suggested that nation's leaders had perhaps known about the terror plot and failed to give warning. The second invasion didn't even bother with an excuse, even though that nation had been famously hostile to terrorists. Both nations were Muslim, as the nineteen killers had been: that was enough. The nation nearly all of them had actually come from remained, inexplicably, the Christian superpower's almost only Muslim ally in that region.
'The generation of a large planetary web of enraged Muslim extremists was so inevitable it is difficult for us now to conceive of the minds that did it. They were some of the most intelligent and humane people in the history of the planet: what could they have been thinking?
"Of course they were not. They were feeling.
'They were a superpower, and monotheist. No one had ever hurt them remotely that badly, and they were utterly certain no one had any right to hurt them at all. They reverted to tribal primate behavior. Beaten and robbed of your banana by a bigger ape or a more clever chimp ... you find some smaller, stupider primate, beat him, and steal his banana.
"So doing, they ignited a global religious war that threatened to literally return the whole world to barbarism. The only thing to do then was crush it under the iron and silicon heel of a slightly smarter barbarism, a marginally less bloodstained religion, the best of all possible tyrannies. Nehemiah Scudder became the Holy Prophet of the Lord, smote the false prophets, and darkness fell."
Contrast this with actual Heinlein (Notebooks of Lazarus Long):
Those who refuse to support and defend a state have no claim to protection by that state. Killing an anarchist or a pacifist should not be defined as "murder" in a legalistic sense. The offense against the state, if any, should be "Using deadly weapons inside city limits," or "Creating a traffic hazard," or "Endangering bystanders," or other such misdemeanor.
One book I won't be reading.
Actually, this was one of the books that Heinlein deliberately chose *not* to write, IIRC. See the postscript to _Revolt In 2100_, "Concerning Stories Never Written."
Variable Star was *never* supposed to see the light of day.
Nor I. Too much respect for medically-retired Naval officer Heinlein.
Spider Robinson, you ignorant slut.
thanks for posting this review.
interesting tidbit.
I hope that the Heinlein estate or the ownwer of the Heinlein literary name has the good sense to fire this loser and either start from scratch or do some judicious editing.
I have read every available thing Heinlein ever wrote, but i won't be reading that abortion.
Hard to believe something that plain could be bungled that badly.
I specially like this part:
"... there were probably less than a hundred [muslims] that rabid, and by definition they were so profoundly stupid ..."
That atrocious fiction could not have been more egregiously treasonous than if it had been written or paid for directly by Saudi Arabia!
I'll pass, I've read all of Heinlein's books several times. By his own standard this is not one of his books.
That the book "reads" like Heinlein makes my point: A writer with a distinct, individual style wouldn't be spending his time mimicking someone else.
One of Heinlein's comments on the rise of Nehemiah Scudder, from the same post script.
"The first of these unwritten stories, 'The Sound Of His Wings', starts shortly before 'Logic Of Empire' and continues for several years beyonf the ending of 'Logic'; it would have recounted the early life, rise as a television evangelist, and subsequent political career of the Reverend Nehemiah Scudder, the "First Prophet," President of the United States, and destroyer of its Constitution, founder of the Theocracy."
Elsewhere in the series, he explains why this story will remain unwritten (but it's evidently been plotted out at the time of writing) forever. This is probably the passage that Robinson drew his source material from.
The problem is that he completely ignores something from three paragraphs earlier!
"This present Volume Three starts about seventy-five years later than the end of the last story in Volume Two - and a great amount of "Future History" has taken place between the two volumes [Volume 2 was 'Green Hills Of Earth', Volume 3 is 'Revolt in 2100' - edit mine]. 'Green Hills' ended with [pay attention now -] the United States a leading power in a systemwide imperialism embracing all the habitable planets."
Scudder's rise and the end of interplanetary flight came WELL after what Robinson proposes. Robinson broke canon.
Great reference. If Heinlein "abandoned it", hre did so because he didn't like it. I hate this recent practice of resurrecting dead novelists anyway. Robert Ludlum, Lawrence Sanders, and a host of other long-deceased writers seem to have left stockpiles of "manuscripts" for no-name authors to "put the finishing touches on".
I love "Glory Road." When I first heard of the recent movie of the same name, I suffered a moment of panic-stricken nausea at the prospect of some sodomitic Hollyweird pudknocker trying to turn it into a movie.
Thank God that wasn't the case.
Now I understand why C. S. Lewis left orders that his papers be burned upon his death.
They did a fairly good job with Puppet Masters - but it got crushed by the premiere of Stargate at the box office.
Time Travellers Strictly Hack Garbage.
I can imagine what Heinlein would say about the current crop on the left, and it wouldn't be pretty.
I just went back and reread the entire postscript - and I missed something. This further damns Robinson's idea.
"I imagined Nehemiah Scudder as a backwoods evangelist who combined some of the features of John Calvin, Savonarola, Judge Rutherford and Huey Long. His influence was not national until after the death of Mrs. Rachel Biggs, an early convert who had the single virtue of being the widow of an extremely wealthy man who shared none of her religious myopia - she left Brother Scudder several millions of dollars with which to establish a television station. Shortly thereafter he teamed up with an ex-Senator from his home state; they placed their affairs in the hands of a major advertising agency and were on their way to fame and fortune. Presently they needed stormtroopers; they revived the Ku Klux Klan in everything but the name - sheets, passwords, grips and all. It was a 'good gimmick' once and it still served. Blood at the polls and blood in the streets, but Scudder won the election. The next election was never held."
Game, set, match, I should think.
FYI, Heinlein was a Reagan Democrat and had nothing but contempt for Jimmah, IIRC.
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