Robert A. Heinlein: A Biographical Sketch

The Heinlein Society ^ | 1999 | Bill Patterson

[Sparta]

Robert Anson Heinlein was born on 7 July 1907, in Butler, Bates County, Missouri, the third son of Rex Ivar Heinlein and Bam Lyle Heinlein. At the time of Robert's birth, the family had been living with his maternal grandfather, Alva Lyle, M.D. A few months after Heinlein was born, his family moved from Butler to Kansas City, Missouri, where he was to grow up, but Heinlein vividly recalled the summers spent with Grandfather Lyle until his death in 1914.

[philman_36]

You're welcome to use it and to complain about it and think how it applies to YOU!
I don't want to use it and it doesn't apply to me. I'm neither in a conspiracy, ignorant nor masquerading like some others do. I also have, IMHO, very good common sense. I guess that personal observation is subjective, isn't it.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

As any number or RAH's characters may have said, most 'personal observations' are semantic nulls. If your PO's falsity can't be objectively argued then of what use is it?

Truly...

The VAST conspiracy of ignornace masquerades as common sense.

[philman_36]

If your PO's falsity can't be objectively argued then of what use is it?
And yet you're arguing PO's from a subjective, not objective aspect.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

Read, understand and practice (to rip Norm Abrams off) the epistomology of Hofstadter's GEB: The Eternal Golden Braid and The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray for a reasonable lay-introduction to this topic.

I'm not arguing anything with you. I'm trying to illustrate to you the trivial quality of your observations. Worse, observations post here in a tribute to RAH!

The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense. My 'sense' is uncommon and tested many times at +4 s. d.

[Wonder Warthog]

"See the above post :)"

I stand corrected on authorship, but I still think it was included by Spider Robinson in his memorial anthology for/about Heinlein--I'll have to recheck. Lots of real good "Heinleinia" included in that one. Spider worshipped the ground Heinlein walked on, with good reason.

[techcor]

Heinlein was great. My friends and I wanted to go kidnap him once when I lived in Santa Cruz. You know, hang out, get to know him, then take him back. Good thing we didn't try . He probably would have shot us. Yep, Heinlein was great.

[freedumb2003]

Thanks for the info.

I, too, was a very early Heinleinian and Asimovian. I must have read Past through Tomorrow about a dozen times, then the Foundation series by the good doctor, then back.

I think the knock on RAH's later works is not that they were bad (the man was incapable of writing a bad sentence much less a bad book) but rather on how impatient Heinlein was. By the 70's and 80's his books (which I always thought were projections) had the average person essentially able to do everything Lazarus Long could do. So his Competent People got more competent and there was an underlying contempt for those who hadn't advanced to the level RAH knew could be achieved.

When we lost Heinlein and Asimov within a few years of one another, the true golden age of great science fiction authors was over.

[OWK]

In a mature society, "civil servant" is semantically equal to "civil master."
--Lazarus Long

[steve-b]

An honest politician is one who stays bought... paraphrased from one of his books.

This was said by Simon Cameron (the Union Secretary of War during the Civil War -- who was as crooked as a bolt of lightning), and was probably an old truism even then.

[BlueLancer]

My favorite Heinlein novel is one of his last:
Job: A Comedy of Justice

My favorite short (to use the term loosely) story is:
If this goes on ...

[hollywood]

Thanks for the family bio. Robert Heinlein was a brother of Oscar Heinlein, my maternal grandfather.

[B-Chan]

Great post.

My affection for RAH's works has diminished over the years, but my respect for the man has not. By all accounts he was a true Amercan great -- the Mark Twain of science fiction.

Even though I only like his juvenile books (his adult fiction, with all its incest and libertinism and irreligion and speechifying, leaves me cold), I consider RAH to be the best science fiction writer of all time, and I am a better person for having read him in my youth. I re-read his juveniles each year and always find something new to enjoy in them. Along with Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, and John Brunner, Heinlein was among the greatest writers of the 20th Century -- not just among SF authors, but among all writers in English.

My favorite RAH work is the short story "The Menace From Earth" (1959).

[archy]

Spider worshipped the ground Heinlein walked on, with good reason.

If you've not read Spider Robinson's Callahan's Key you're in for quite a treat, and you'll run across several old friends you may have encountered before...including a cat named Pixel who can walk through walls....

I just know I've heard that name before someplace...

[tomswiftjr]

I noticed this Sci-Fi book in the same section:
Ender's Game. Orson Scott Card. 1991. PS3553 .A655E5 1991

[archy]

An additional FReep thread devoted to RAH in response to a tribute by writer L. Neil Smith can be found *here*.

-archy-/-

[archy]

"I wish I could remember who wrote it, and the name of it, but I thought it was an excellent story"

I believe it was either written or anthologized by Spider Robinson.

Close. It was entitled The Return of William Proxmire and was by Larry Niven...likely the reason TB recalled it as an excellent yarn. It appeared in Requiem I believe, [Tor; 0-312-85168-5] and originally ran in What Might Have Been? Volume I: Alternate Empires edited by Greg Benford and Martin Greenberg for Bantam [Spectra] from 1989.

I wonder what H. Beam Piper thought of R.A.H's writing....

-archy-/-

[bert]

Thanks for this great bio.

As a result of the recent Heinlein thread I purchased and read The Moon is A Harsh Mistress. The Professor's organization of cells might be helpful as we try to learn how to heard cats here at Free Republic. The computer Mike preformed many of the functions we actually find today here on Free Republic.

I am now faced with the task of finding and rereading the Future history sagas of Lazarus Long.

[bert]

....so I take back the remark.....

Good!

Otherwise you might have been subject to flaming and remarks including ignorant Okie Jock and such.

Fortunately that won't happen.

[Wonder Warthog]

"It appeared in "Requiem" I believe, [Tor; 0-312-85168-5]"

Yup---the reason I thought it was anthologized by Spider was because he had written so much additional commentary/content for "Requiem", especially "rah! rah! RAH!" stuck in my mind along with the Proxmire yarn.

[alfa6]

Yes, I too remember this story. it was an outer space version of the "Puddin" stories. Have you had a chance to read any of those?

I too found that his later works, say after about 1970, got to be a bit warped for my taste. I did like the first half of the "Number of the Beast" and I thought "Friday" could be a pretty chilling prediction of what the USofA could turn into.

Regards

alfa6 ;>}