Posted on 12/10/2007 3:55:30 PM PST by TFFKAMM
He was a onetime utopian socialist who became an assertive right-winger, a libertarian nudist with a military-hardware fetish, a cold warrior who penned an Age of Aquarius sensation with a hero who preached free love.
He won admiration from Ronald Reagan, who enlisted his ideas in his "Star Wars" missile shield, and Charles Manson, who was captured with the novel "Stranger in a Strange Land" in his backpack. He predicted the European Union and invented the water bed.
But Robert A. Heinlein, the California-based science-fiction writer who stood over the midcentury decades like a colossus, casts a different kind of shadow now, on the 100th anniversary of his birth, as his archives, held by UC Santa Cruz, are being placed online, making his work even more accessible to scholars and fans. Most of his work is in print, but opinions vary wildly about how important a writer Heinlein was: He's both a life-changing inspiration and a "dinosaur" who exerts less cultural presence than, say, Philip K. Dick, the drug-addled oddball who was a footnote during the field's golden age.
Heinlein, who in life was a divisive figure, has become, in death, a polarizing one and even something of a punch line. "When an emerging science-fiction writer's work earns him comparisons to Robert A. Heinlein," Dave Itzkoff begins a 2006 New York Times review, "should he take them as a compliment?"...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. “, Robert A. Heinlein
You grok Heinlein or not.
Ping
“I think all HS kids should have to read Brave New World, 1984, Animal Farm, Farenheit 451, I Robot and Stranger in a Strange Land.”
Yeah. So we don’t have to explain what “Grokking” means to them.
"Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss." Robert A. Heinlein
Don't forget the short story Harrison Bergeron, by Kurt Vonnegut
Stranger in a Strange Land is one screwed up book. Think that one’s more college-level.
You forgot “Starship Troopers”. No better work for ideas on duty and citizenship.
ping. LA times hit piece (IMHO) on Heinlein.
“Here at the store I actively resist promoting him, because he was a fascist,” said Charles Hauther, the science fiction buyer at Skylight Books.
Regarding Heinlein..... I believe.
or in his lexicon.... I grok
Ah. That explains it. I had wondered why so much new science fiction these days is so completely devoid of ideas. Or science.
It's funny seeing all the Liberal stereotypes of conservatives applied to Heinlein's writing. It's a shallow analysis at best.
Jonathan Swift to Mark Twain to Robert Anson Heinlein.
His juvenile Science Fiction got me interested early.
His short story “The Man Who was Too Lazy to fail” in
“Time enough for love” could stand up in any type of
Fiction.
***Stranger in a Strange Land.***
Read it. DULL.
I’ll take Starship Troopers anyday.
I think for the most part that the early Heinlein is the best, up through his fairly late book, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. But the last few books kind of went around the bend, IMHO.
What say you??
Harrison Bergeron was a great short story. I sometimes wonder if Vonnegut regretted writing it.
Heinlein was a very strange bird—a very contradictory man. I loved “Them” (short story) and “Starship Troopers”, but “Time Enough for Love” really creeped me out. Especially the part about Lazarus Long going back in time to do the dirty with his Mom. Ickers.
total hit job - this weenie reviewer doesn’t like him because Heinlein was once liberal and then turned on them. The reviewer denigrates him savagely over politics. sigh.
I totally hated Stranger in a Strange Land.
It was so different from his early works.
But I read it, lo those many years ago. Wonder if I’d like it now???
“Stranger in a Strange Land” is a pretty erotic work in places.
Are you sure?
A wise man could not be insulted, since truth could not be an insult and untruth was not worthy of notice. - Robert A. Heinlein, Citizen of The Galaxy, 1957.
That was the way to operate—pick your men, then trust them. No regular reports, no forms, no nothing—just do what needs to be done. - Robert A. Heinlein, Citizen of The Galaxy, 1957.
One can lead a child to knowledge but one cannot make him think. - Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers, 1959.
A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not. - Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers, 1959.
He looked at us. "You apes--No, not 'apes'; you don't rate that much. You pitiful mob of sickly monkeys... you sunken-chested, slack-bellied, drooling refugees from apron strings. In my whole life I never saw such a disgraceful huddle of momma's spoiled little darlings...." He never once repeated himself and he never used profanity or obcenity. (I learned later that he saved those for very special occasions, which this wasn't.) But he described our shortcomings, physical, mental, moral, and genetic, in great and insulting detail. - Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers, 1959.
War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your governments decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him... but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing... but controlled and purposeful violence. - Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers, 1959.
As to liberty, the heroes who signed that great document [The Declaration of Independence] pledged themselves to buy that liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost. - Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers, 1959.
Maybe not, now that I’ve read some other comments.
Depends on which RAH era we're talking about. A comparison to any of his pre-60s works is most complimentary.
1st SF book I ever read was Heinlein’s “Citizen of the Galaxy”
Pre-1960, that is...
I read it in 6th grade (on my own, not part of schoolwork, but it did come from the school library).
Anybody who calls Heinlein a fascist conclusively proves he is too shallow to be commenting on science fiction. ;)
And it was erotic in a depressing, soulless way (as I recall)
But I don’t recall yesterday that well.
Are we having a literary discussion? How cool.
I’ve read all those books, but I’d like to see the person who could make my children read them.
You got it. I always figured him for the libertarian side.
“He was the enemy,” recalled Disch, who was an emerging novelist in the “new wave” of the 1960s.
“Those writers, often liberal or radical, aimed to move away from pulp space operas and toward literature, from tales of physics to stories about psychology and sexuality and drugs.”
New wave (read liberal) science fiction. Who needs science when it can be replaced by sex and drugs.
“Fascist” = “literate White Male who does not live in a perpetual state of self-loathing and neurotic angst”
I always think of Apollo 15 when he is mentioned.........
Allen: As the space poet Rhysling (the blind poet in Robert Heinlein’s The Green Hills of Earth) would say, we’re ready for you to “come back again to the homes of men on the cool green hills of Earth.”
[Scott - “That’s from the Green Hills of Earth. That’s one we talked about before the flight. Have you read that one?”]
[Jones - “Oh, yeah! That was a favorite when I was a kid. Had you read it?”]
[Scott - “Sure. (Quoting from memory) ‘We pray for one last landing, on the globe that gave us birth. To rest our eyes on fleecy skies, and the cool green hills of Earth.’”]
[Scott - “In thinking about perception kind of stuff, if you think about where we are (at Hadley), the thing that’s really different about the Earth is ‘cool green hills’ with the fleecy skies and the blue sky. So Heinlein’s perception of a meaningful thing for the Blind Poet of the Spaceways is pretty good. That he could transport himself out.”]
[Jones - “It was written sometime in the 40s, I think.”]
[Scott - “And here we have black skies, and a gray surface. Dramatic difference. I always think it’s amazing. Some of those science fiction guys can really project themselves out there that way.”]
[Jones - “The good ones could.”]
[Scott - “Cause one of the questions people ask about this is, ‘Is the sky really all black?’ Yeah. ‘When it was daylight?’ Yup. ‘Wow!’”]
[Heinlein’s short story, “The Green Hills of Earth”, was published in the February 8, 1947 edition of the Saturday Evening Post and was included in a collection of the same name first published in 1951.]
[The title is that of a Rhysling poem:
The Green Hills of Earth
Let the sweet fresh breezes heal me
As they rove around the girth
Of our lovely mother planet
Of the cool, green hills of Earth.
We’ve tried each spinning space mote
And reckoned its true worth:
Take us back again to the homes of men
On the cool, green hills of Earth.
The arching sky is calling
Spacemen back to their trade.
ALL HANDS! STAND BY! FREE FALLING!
And the lights below us fade.
Out ride the sons of Terra,
Far drives the thundering jet,
Up leaps a race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet -—
We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.
Robert A. Heinlein]
The Number of the Beast was a little over the top, IIRC.
But that's just because I lost interest about 50 pages in.
One of my kids did read F451 as part of a HS class. I reread it then thought it better than I had remembered.
A very complicated man indeed. I must say that his detractors don't come across very well in this review; in fact, I suspect that most of them haven't bothered to read his books. The genius who dismisses him as a "fascist," for one. If there's one thing Heinlein was not, it was a fascist. In my opinion Heinlein's future is anything but "past" - that of the idiots quoted in the article, however, have had their day and thank God that is what is past.
"When an emerging science-fiction writer's work earns him comparisons to Robert A. Heinlein," Dave Itzkoff begins a 2006 New York Times review, "should he take them as a compliment?"
Well, Dave, you might find a real writer and ask him. I'd think it a tremendous compliment, but then I've read his books.
I would replace SIASL with “Moon is a Harsh Mistress” and “The Puppet Masters” .
Only the unimaginative see Heinlein as being dated. For while it is true that science fiction reflects its author’s times, it is only the case if you let it.
For example, one of Heinlein’s short stories seems especially dated: The Roads Must Roll. The idea of vehicles standing still and the roads beneath them moving. On the surface, it sounds terribly impractical. But is it?
There are stretches of freeway in California where at least twice a day for hours, drivers are lucky to average 5mph. Probably less.
But at the same time, in many airports, long passageways now have moving sidewalks, that efficiently speed along pedestrians at a far greater volume and clip than would be possible if they were walking.
So imagine if the perhaps the 3 mile long worst bottlenecks of the freeway were instead moving roads? Just drive onto them then stop your vehicle and turn off your engine. You cruise along at say 20mph! Eventually you see a sign that tell you to turn on your engine again, and you return to conventional freeway four times faster than normal.
Of course, there would be other details, such as the rolling roads only being needed during rush hour. But all told, by doing it this way, it would not only move traffic in a much more efficient manner, but might actually *save* energy.
That is, instead of having hundreds of cars idling, then rolling, then idling, burning up a lot of fuel over the course of an hour, powerful machines underneath the freeway propel them to their departure point in only 15 minutes. Then when the traffic jam is abated, so that drivers can drive faster than 20 mph, the machines turn off.
So while it might have been written in 1940, it might become a reality in 2040. Not precisely what he wrote, but he got the gist of it right.
Make it a choice: Any RAH book published before ~1963
The idiot left feels it has to denigrate Heinlein? Guess he still scares them.
Your comments about Starship troopers are truly “right on!” The movie by the same name with it’s Nazi overtones must have had RAH spinning in his grave. Another one that should be required is “Citizen of the Galaxy.” I just introduced my son to it a few weeks ago with a Audiobook we listened to on a long car trip. It’s a juvenile -but it offers some significant lessons to be learned.
I can safely say that RAH was the most influential author I read growing up. Many of my ideas of proper conduct likely can be found in some of Mr. Long’s sayings. The many societies and planets I visited as a youth through his books helped lead me to a career in engineering as well!
Well, given what kids are exposed to now, it's probably old hat to them..however, I object to the cannibalism which I have seen described as a ham-handed slap at Christian communion.
I read the book in my twenties, and was impressed with the "love everyone" aspect, but now, am wondering just how much influence that book had over the mores of the US we know today. I think it encouraged a lot of the hippy philosophy.
Heinein's detractors come mainly from the left and from writers who will never achieve his fame. As far as the left is concerned I think that comes from Heinein's resistance to the collective.
Another good Heinlein quote:
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once.
-Robert A. Heinlein
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