Heinlein novel imagines a future America patterned on Alberta

CBC News ^ | 12/9/03 | Robin Rowland

[Jonah Hex]

John Ringo also is a fan of Sluggy Freelance and works Sluggy references into his novels, I believe.

[theFIRMbss]

>Being a friend of Rand should be enough to convince you that he had no Socialist leaning

Heinlein was a close friend of Jack Parsons. Throughout Heinlein's whole career, almost all of his social depictions -- people living together, beautiful red haired women, guys and girls hanging with, well, guys and girls come directly from the real life of Jack Parson's communal coven. Heinlein was complex, and only all his writings seem to capture him.

[George W. Bush]

Slashdot thread (300+ posts and growing)

Some very interesting Heinlein and sci-fi discussion over there today. I thought some of you might enjoy it.

[Wonder Warthog]

"...and all the more enjoyable for being a blatant ripoff of C.S. Forester's "Horatio Hornblower" series. Another modern SF author with many of Heinlein's strengths is Lois McMasters Bujold."

Yup--Weber did a masterful job of "stealing" Hornblower. And Bujold is also very good.

[FreedomPoster]

>>Niven is good, but his best work was done in collaboration with Jerry Pournelle, IMHO.

I would second that. If you haven't read The Mote in God's Eye, do so. You will likely be hooked on reading their collaborations after doing so.

Pournelle is a very interesting guy, a true polymath. Cold Warrior (space/ICBM systems), Republican political operative, computer columnist, and science fiction writer (generally heavy on the science), are all "hats" he has worn. He was a close personal friend of the Heinleins, who was a mentor of sorts to Pournelle. His first computer, Ezekial (aka "Zeke"), is in the Smithsonian, as he was the first professional writer to use a personal computer to produce his work. He also arguably has the original blog, started long before the word became popular. It is one of the few sites outside of FreeRepublic that I regularly read. I pretty much read all new material on his site, and many of the links. I highly recommend it. It's a little clunky to navigate at first, but worth the effort to figure it out, much like FreeRepublic.

http://www.jerrypournelle.com

[redhead]

"Never liked Heinlein. He was always a transparent pinko. I've reviewed some of his writing in recent years and noticed even more of it now that I'm older. He fed socialist communitarian philosophy to several generations of young readers. Frank Herbert was a far better thinker and writer."

I agree. His books got so preachy and his characters became so verbose that the stories were lost in the dialogue. Early stuff for young readers was exciting, though.

[gymbeau]

Ditto for me.
He was the greatest. Clarke second, Asimov third, but Heinlein stands so tall compared with them!

On a totally irrelevant note, I found out that he and I share a birthday, July 7. Made me feel a little closer to my hero.

Funny how those who call him a pinko or socialist of fascist (usually the media) have probably never actually read him and formed their opinions on hearsay.

[FreedomPoster]

BTW - It's the only site outside of FreeRepublic for which I voluntarily lay down cash to support.

[sonofatpatcher2]

Re: Something for the Heinlein fans among us. He was my favorite writer when I was growin up.

Me, too! And I'm way past grown up...

[Lazamataz]

I hate people that have accomplished more than me.

That's why I hate everybody.

[poindexter]

"As others have pointed out, his morality (and his writing) deteriorated drastically in his later years."

There are rumors that he had "help" in his later years.

[aruanan]

Something for the Heinlein fans among us. He was my favorite writer when I was growin up.

Same here. And I've really enjoyed reading them again recently.

[GummyIII]

You know I cut my sci-fi teeth on Asimov and Heinlein.

[Phsstpok]

Neither Clark nor Asimov was worthy to shine Heinlein's shoes.

Clarke and Asimov are much better at the SCIENCE of speculative fiction. Heinlein was better at social speculation and character development.

Clarke "invented" the idea of geostationary communications satellites (I have a photocopy of the paper he presented, complete with hand written notes). His stories were mostly about the science with some fair to middling characters added in to carry his words to the reader.  One that strays a bit from hard science, but that I love, is Childhood's End.

Asimov is almost nothing but science and leftist world view, particularly in his later years.  The robot books and the Foundation series are required reading, in my mind.  The 3 laws of robotics are still held sacred by most real researchers in the field.  His science fact books are still good reads, even if some parts of them have been outdated, though the science in them (as well as his fiction) holds up better than most (except the teeny tiny nuclear reactors powering everything) 

Asimov draws better characters than Clarke, but not as alive as Heinlein's.  I can hardly remember any of Clarke's characters (not counting the ones in the movie versions, and even they're one dimensional) and have no desire to meet Harry Seldon, but I'd love to spend a LONG time talking to Jubal Harshaw!  My only problems with Heinlein is that he got obsessed with sex in his later stories and he also started ending his books, too often, with trite or unsatisfying endings.  It was apparent in many cases that he had lost interests and just wanted to end the stories.  Number of the Beast comes particularly to mind.

I think you can judge Heinlein's political philosophy (if you can't get it from his books directly) by examining the two writers who he deemed his successor's, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.  He nurtured both of their careers as well as influencing their writing.  Particularly reading the things they've collaborated on you'll get the feeling that their about 3 sigma to the right of Rush Limbaugh (of course, that's not a recommendation for some freepers <g>).

As I mentioned, Jubal Harshaw is my favorite character from anything by Heinlein.  He is who Heinlein would have liked to be, and somewhat was.  I think the philosophy Harshaw speaks is straight from the author, with no intervening twists or turns.

If you enjoy Heinlein, and particularly if you like Pournelle's military SF, then you'll enjoy a relatively new author, John Ringo.  Combine mobile combat suits, nasty aliens and a "tank" the size of a football stadium with a switchblade wielding rabbit named Bun Bun painted on it's turret (two stories tall) and you have quite a combination.  Any novel that has the line "That's what you get for letting redneck's play with anit-matter" can't be all bad.

[boris]

"Frank Herbert was a far better thinker and writer."

Frank Herbert plagiarized 80% of the ideas in Dune from a little-known author with the pen-name of "Cordwainer Smith."

I can prove this and have done so via extensive email with "Smith"'s daughter--who was unaware of this fact until I told her.

For my credentials, I am a former "keyholder" of the M.I.T. Science Fiction Society (assistant librarian) and was head librarian of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Association for nearly a decade.

--Boris

[Jonah Hex]

Your image and this one are my favorite ZOT images. Gotta love that rabbit with a 'tude!

[EveningStar]

I'm a LASFS member but I've not been to a meeting in years.

[freedumb2003]

Frank Herbert plagiarized 80% of the ideas in Dune from a little-known author with the pen-name of "Cordwainer Smith."

You know, I always suspected something was amiss -- Herbert's writing was very uneven -- I liked the Dune trilogy but the follow-up books weren't nearly the calibre of those.

His other writing tended to be very self-absorbed. He came across as an egotist trying to convince the reader that he is right (RAH was a very very very good-writing egotist).

My pantheon consisted of (in order):

1. The Good Doctor
2. RAH
3. Harlan Ellison

Clark was OK but he spent too much time on self-promotion (he and Bradbury made themselves self-styled "spokesmen for SF").

[pabianice]

In his later years, Heinlein's writings revealed him to be just another sex-starved, socialistic dirty old man, with many of his futuristic female characters being "free love" bimbos who frequently just flopped down, opened their legs, and let middle-aged men (Heinlein) have their way with them.

However, "Tunnel in the Sky" was one of the turning points for me in becoming a lifetime lover of scifi.

[Phsstpok]

Chaos Manor Rules!

I met Pournelle (and Niven) at a con and spent a very long and interesting weekend getting drunk with them in the Con Suite. I then saw Pournelle almost every year for several years at Comdex and a couple of other geekfests. He remembered me, but couldn't remember what we'd done that weekend. Just in case, he'd always say "don't say anything in front of my wife."