Hm. A friend gave me "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". Its been lying there, on my shelf, making me feel guilty. If that is the wrong book to start with, please warn me now...
Don't feel guilty, pick it up and read it Please have a nice weekend Hsing my friend. I haven't read Heinlein myself but I've heard that he is an excellent writer
I started off with "Stranger in the Strangeland", way back in 1999. It was practically a religious experience, and I walked around in a daze for a long, long time. Some years later, I read "Farnham's Freehold" It was quite cool, and the main character seemed like a close cousin of Jubal Harshaw, whom I loved madly in SITS. The only two things that gave me pause were the continuing riffs on incest (um, eew!) and the ease with which Hugh seemed to accept his daughter's fate at the end of the novel . Then last fall, I picked up "Friday", "Orphans of the Sky", and "For Us the Living", in that order... I hate to say it, but I couldn't finish any one of those . The first two seemed borderline sadistic, especially when compared with all the ooey-gooey "love-thy-fellow-human"ness of SITS. The third one was just a very hard read ... I might get back to it someday, but I'd have to give myself a very good reason why, since the author himself didn't seem to care much about what happens to the characters Point being: if anyone ever asks me to recommend a Heinlein book, I'll not only recommend "Stranger in the Strangeland", I'll chase that person home to make sure they pick it up and read it! But it's starting to look that no other Heinlein book will come even close to matching it afterwards!
For Us, The Living was an early novel of Heinlein's. It was never published in his lifetime. There is a reason for this. Heinlein was an extremely good writer in his prime. Unfortunately, he eventually became too big to edit. That is, he refused any changes to his books, and they grew bloated and rambling. Just when the rot set in is subject to much debate. For Ba's money, it was beginning in Time Enough for Love.
I read 'To Sail Beyond The Sunset' (think that's it), which was pretty good with all the different versions of Earth and its history, and the cats - including Pixel (who I believe our Pixel is named after) and Princess Penelope Ponderosa Peechfuzz or something. I've also seen Starship Troopers dozens of times for the comedy value in its savage removal of any meaningful parts from the book.
there were a few books that he wrote at a time when he litterally wasn't getting enough oxygen to his brain, and those were so far as I know never published. I find Time Enough For Love to be a damn fine book. if nothing else, the 'Exerpts' sections are worth the full mammoth length of the text (it's his longest novel). To Sail Beyond the Sunset... that's the one from Lazarus's mom's point of view, yes? That one... self indulgent, and suffering from the 'too big to edit' issue that ba mentioned, but a nice capstone to several different serrieses. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of his award winning books, and fantastic in its own right. The Rolling Stones, aimed at a younger audience, makes a nice follow up to one of the characters, but is by no means a sequel. The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, from which Pixel takes his screen name, revisits elements of TMiaHM a little further down the timeline, but it also intermingles with a few others... Number of the Beast was, while not as self indulgent as To Sail Beyond the Sunset, a simultaneous 'begining of the end' and a delightful way to break the fourth wall and combine the Future Histories into the entire Expanded Universe. the Future Histories are the collective reference to a number of his earlier short stories that concluded, at the time, with Methusela's Children. all good stuff, in my opinion... but Stranger... as Mowgli said, when I first read it i walked around for a while in a bit of a gobsmacked daze. there was a time when I could open my much abused copy of the book at random and pick up from any line without needing to read the preceeding text, and i'd know exactly where I was in the story and could continue from that point just fine. to some degree, I can still do that, I suppose. fantastic stuff in that book, it's still, so far as i'm aware, the best selling sci-fi novel ever.
There is no way that this discussion could possibly happen without me - Mal and Garner are right - when I signed on to the old board, Greebo was already taken, so it had to be Pixel or Petronius the Arbiter (Pete) from "The Door into Summer" - the two Heinlein cats who are major characters rather than just walk-ons (stalk-ons? pad-ons? pussyfoot-ons??) Pixel won - he appears more often and I'm an actor at heart! I have been a Heinlein fan for decades - although I do agree that some of his work was "less than perfect" - 'Friday' does spring to mind - this is only a personal opinion - remember, this was the author who could break off from writing "Stranger In a Strange Land" to write "Starship Troopers", complete "Stranger", and end up being practically worshipped by the hippy culture for "Stranger" while being enjoyed by others for a militaristic story. He always maintained that no-one could tell his religious or political opinions from his fiction - despite the claims that he had in later years, like H. G. Wells "sold his birthright for a pot of message" - I don't think that his religious views ever became public (and since his widow Virginia died a couple of years ago, they probably never will) - but his political views are made very clear in "Expanded Universe" - a collection of stories, speeches and articles which he never wanted distributed outside of the U.S.A. (it was written into the contract) because some of the articles were critical of the United States government - fortunately some copies escaped ( I have one) and I think in this case he was mistaken - it was published when the Cold War was still happening, and I felt that it would have been seriously beneficial if it could have been distributed behind the Iron Curtain in a way that could have proved that in the free world, it was possible to publish something criticizing the government and still walk around free. He was a very thoughtful man - his ideas on political systems, for instance, whether in speeches or fiction, were always well thought out - not necessarily as "this is the way it should be" but more as "think about this - will it work?". He was also meticulous in his science - there is an anecdote (in "Expanded Universe") where he and Virgiina used yards and yards of paper to establish that the bit of space-travel in one line of a book would work - when he mentioned this to a young astronomer [i:a65928fc38]many[/i:a65928fc38] years later, and was asked why he hadn't simply run it through a computer, was able to respond 'Dear boy, this was in [i:a65928fc38]1947[/i:a65928fc38]!" "To Sail Beyond the Sunset" - clearly from both the title and the gathering together of the threads, he was seeing his own mortality looming (or possibly a warning from Dr Pinero? In a potential multiverse - who knows? Of course, it could have been that the U.S. Navy document in 1934 telling him he probably only had a few years to live was beginning to look a bit more accurate) - but it is the sign of a great author that he tries to leave as little dangling as possible.
judging from his characters, his themes, his essays, and just everything i've read of him, heinlein was a very interesting mix of liberatarian and cynic. Laws and rules of a nanny state shouldn't apply to someone who's got a functional brain. for such a person, those laws and rules shouldn't even exist. however, the majority of people are braindead and, especially when taken as collective groups, probably need to have that nany state holding their hand the whole way through life. Heinlein gave us 'TANSTAAFL', an acronym for 'There aint no such thing as a free lunch.' in one book, we see characters have a falling out over whether or not air should be freely available or 'rented' on the moon. Remember, even though its essential for life, it's not actually found on the moon and would be costly to import or produce. So, does the 'government' owe life giving necessities for people who choose to live on a barren lump of dead rock? Or should those people pay for their chit... 'have you earned your air today?' was a joke slogan in a dilbert strip but it could only be a joke if air's a natural resource. now, me, i'm a softie at heart. I'd say let's find a way to produce the needed oxygen that wouldn't require such a heavy demand on the market for essential materials for life. in sci-fi, cold fusion can give us nearly limitless clean water. surely even in the present day, a sufficient greenhouse system could produce oxygen and heat to 'terraform' a moon bubble... of course, who pays the upfront cost of importing the plants and the carbon dioxide AND oxygen they need to get the whole cycle started? so, is it fair to have to keep paying a breathing tax or not? interesting stuff.
I've read a few of his books, Friday - I really enjoyed strangely Starship Troopers - Excellent, I like the film too, but there isn't that much in common between the two The Past through Tomorrow - Absolutely brilliant, but almost worn out now Star Beast - almost a kids SciFi intro, but fun with it! I haven't read many more (I don't think) but I haven't read one that I didn't enjoy Some thoughts to think of in many of them!
I wonder if anyone, anywhere has ever done a thesis on Heinlein's various takes on cannibalism! So far, I've seen it in three books - are there more? ORPHANS OF THE SKY: resorting to predatory cannibalism out of desperation, or as one of the characters put it "What are we supposed to live on, air?" FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD: slave owners eating fattened slaves as an ultimate show of class difference gone bad STRANGER IN THE STRANGE LAND: eating the dead as a loving and respectful burial rite Sounds like he had it on his mind for a long time
Heinlein's Red Planet was the first sci-fi I ever read, I re- read it a while back and I hardly recognized it but I have enjoyed Heinlein immensely even after I read his autobiography and realized he probably would have despised me. Farnam's Freehold pissed of the feminist side of me even as I was intrigued by the parts of the story that weren't totally chauvinistic. I always have to remind myself that he was from another time even if he really lived in the future. Stranger in a Strange Land is amazing and I reccomend it, but my favorites are Glory Road and the various stories featuring Lazarus Long.
[quote:f8f664faa8="TamyraMcG"]Heinlein's Red Planet was the first sci-fi I ever read, I re- read it a while back and I hardly recognized it but I have enjoyed Heinlein immensely even after I read his autobiography and realized he probably would have despised me. Farnam's Freehold pissed of the feminist side of me even as I was intrigued by the parts of the story that weren't totally chauvinistic. I always have to remind myself that he was from another time even if he really lived in the future. Stranger in a Strange Land is amazing and I reccomend it, but my favorites are Glory Road and the various stories featuring Lazarus Long.[/quote:f8f664faa8] Tamy, you have probably come up with the best summation of Heinlein - look at the variety of his books that you like/have (albeit sometimes reluctantly) praised - in general terms (i.e. the Starship Troopers/Stranger in a Strange Land contrast is probably the most extreme example) and your own choices, he had such a wide range - he could come up with something to practically everybody's taste! I'm not sure I understand why you have a feminist problem with Farnham's Freehold - given that Hugh Farnham was under the impression that his little group were possibly the last surviving people on Earth, he was naturally protective of the female members of his party - it is a biological fact that there are certain conditions - such as being pregnant - where a woman needs extra consideration (Belgian law actually makes it [i:f8f664faa8]compulsory[/i:f8f664faa8] to give up one's seat on public transport to a pregnant woman - can sometimes get embarrassing if she's just fat, not pregnant, and the need for it to be a law also says something about Belgian manners - or maybe feminists would rather let pregnant women stand?) - if one has to ignore the problems of inbreeding, then in that sort of situation women deserve more protection. Anyway - look at Heinlein's other women - Deety, Star, Podkayne, Hilda, Ricky, Maureen, Wyoming, Hazel - to name but a few - even Belle Darkin - the villainess in Door Into Summer - even a villainess was a strong character! Heinlein could write women!
I recently read [i:cc3c59588e]The Moon is a Harsh Mistress[/i:cc3c59588e] and thourougly enjoyed it. I especially liked the ending (spoilers ahead)[quote:cc3c59588e][color=white:cc3c59588e]in which the narrator hinted that all of the freedoms that he and his freinds fought for were slowly eroded by the government which they themsleves set up. I found this reminicent of some of pTerry's works, especially [i:cc3c59588e]Night Watch[/i:cc3c59588e][/color:cc3c59588e].[/i][/quote:cc3c59588e]
[quote:ad8bf87644="Garner"]...............Heinlein gave us 'TANSTAAFL', an acronym for 'There aint no such thing as a free lunch.' in one book, we see characters have a falling out over whether or not air should be freely available or 'rented' on the moon. Remember, even though its essential for life, it's not actually found on the moon and would be costly to import or produce. So, does the 'government' owe life giving necessities for people who choose to live on a barren lump of dead rock? Or should those people pay for their chit... 'have you earned your air today?' was a joke slogan in a dilbert strip but it could only be a joke if air's a natural resource. ...............[/quote:ad8bf87644] I'm surprised I didn't spot this before, but on re-reading the thread - because someone has just posted to it - in the case you mention, these were not people who had chosen to live on a barren rock - they were transportees - even the Warden was clearly a political exile - so the situation is not the same - it is more like the concept that if you put criminals/terrorrists (careful Pixel - getting a bit political here!) in prison on Earth, are you not obliged to supply them with food and water? Even transportees to Australia, as an example, had an ecosystem that would support them.
