Books:
Heinlein was an engineer in the U.S. Navy in the '30s but was invalided out due to health. (I think it was a Chlorine exposure that hurt his lungs.) He turned his engineering "no nonsense" approach to sci-fi and the world gained at the Navy's loss.
--BobLee July, 2002
While some of his early work was excellent, he went on to write a number of books in later years which were disappointments. These include (for me)
This last book had one of the best first chapters I have ever read, but winds up playing a joke on the reader instead of actually telling a story.
--DerekWoolverton?
On the other hand, I read TimeEnoughForLove? when I was twelve years old, and I've loved Heinlein ever since. I've read nearly everything he's written and I still enjoy the stories, including Friday and TheCatWhoWalkedThroughWalls?.
Unlike Heinlein, I do not believe that polyamory is workable.
I do think that extended families can take better care of children, but I do not think that implies that group marriages are beneficial.
I do like Heinlein's focus on the social aspects of sci-fi rather than the technology. In my opinion, that's what writing is about.
Heinlein was one of the early practitioners of writing many books and stories that while not obviously part of the same story, like Tolkein, or the Xanth or Adept series by PiersAnthony?, are in fact set in a coherent overall universe. The difference is that between UrsulaKLeGuin's Earthsea series, and her Hainish series. Earthsea is recognizably one story and venue. Her Hainish stories (TheLeftHandOfDarkness, TheDispossessed, the novella TheWordForWorldIsForest) are in the same universe, but not otherwise connected. Heinlein's "future history" is pehaps the most extensive example of that kind.
Another way to view Heinlein's output is in terms of three phases:
Or put another way, in the early stuff, you can understand how everything works, and the issues are trite. In the middle stuff, you can understand how it might work (e.g., "Mike" the sentient computer in TheMoonIsAHarshMistress), and the issues are substantive. In the later works, how it migh work isn't an issue, and the issues are as sweeping as can be - the nature of reality, morality, experience, and so on.
Fans of Heinlein tend to much prefer the work from one phase or another. I like the middle stuff best. Big questions interest me, but playing with them at random isn't intriguing. Actually answering, or perphaps exploring how one choice or another might actually be, is much more interesting to me. -- JamesBullock
Either way, it certainly sold some books. I thought it was interesting that in TheMoonIsAHarshMistress the earthside reporter thought it was unusual (quaint almost) that Manny was in a chain marriage. It wasn't until Manny revealed that it was multi-racial that the reporter had a cow.
Economically, the chain marriage is a definite benefit. It gives the family the same effective duration as a Corporation. Dynasties (like the Kennedy, Bush, or economically, the Ford and Rockerfeller families) depend to a large extent on the success of the next generation. Since you can't choose your children, it's often a genetic crapshoot. Sometimes the next generation is a winner (John F. Kennedy), sometimes you lose (Edsel Ford). Also, having lots of children (which improves the chances of having a winner) tends to break up the accumulated capital. A dynasty almost never goes past four generations (Quick, name Nelson Rockerfeller's children) because they either run out of talent (argueably, the Kennedy's problem) or their accumulated capital gets spread too thin (too many Roosevelts).
Conversely, a chain marriage would accumulate capital. Grown children would get set up on their own, or they would join their own marriage. If you remove sex from the equation, it's quite similar to DanielQuinn's tribes that he describes in Ishmael and MyIshmael: A small group of like-minded adults (and their dependent children) all working for a common existence. -- SeanO'Leary
Some of Heinleins thoughts on this, that or the other, speaking for himself vs. a character can be found in the posthumous collection GrumblesFromTheGrave? - a project supported by his (one that I know of) wife of many years. -- JamesBullock
I laughed out loud at this. I'd say that Doc Nebula is bang on the money, regarding his criticisms (and plaudits) of RAH and most especially his comments on those fans for whom there is no god but RAH, consider Lazarus Long a fine role-model, etc. etc. --KB
I checked out the article. it's good. Buy I don't own a rifle. Smith and Wesson .357. -- RichPaul?
The following Heinlein novels contain a character whom I call "the dirty old man": StrangerInAStrangeLand, TimeEnoughForLove?, IWillFearNoEvil?, and JobAComedyOfJustice. He's an older fellow--sometimes extremely old--who has younger characters working for him, living at his house, hanging out at his swimming pool, whatever, and sometimes traipsing about naked. There might be other Heinlein novels with this pattern, but I'm not sure because I gave up on him almost 20 years ago. -- ElizabethWiethoff
Yeah, he crops up in a couple of other places. Somtimes multiple times at once, in the pan-whatsit solipsithingy books. One of Doc Nebula's more cutting observations is "when you have trouble as a writer keeping your various different crusty but lovable alpha male characters distinct because they all have essentially the same personality and voice… here’s a hint… don’t write a book where they all end up in the same room talking to each other." I supect that you might take issue with the "loveable" nature of this guy.
Jubal Harshaw would seem to be the exemplar, I'm not sure I understand what's "dirty" about him. --KB
"Same personality and voice" is right! He can be pretty easy to identify within a few sentences. I don't find him lovable. On the other hand, I don't hate him. I just plain get tired of him novel after novel.
I guess I call him "dirty" because I can't think of another word, and "dirty old man" is already an expression (at least in the U.S.). Jubal's the one in Stranger, right? (right) I guess I call him "dirty" also because he's not shown getting any, um, jollies in the usual ways. Rather, he has to get mental jollies at the thought of the younger characters getting theirs physically or by watching them traipse about naked. Or when the old coot does get his physical jollies, it's under very unusual circumstances. Lazarus eventually gets his with his mother via time travel, and the old coot in IWillFearNoEvil? gets his by inhabiting a young female body.
-- Eliz
Oo-er, I feel myself teetering on the precipice of a bottomless chasm of (inter-gender? cross-cultural?) confusion regarding sexual mores. Although, those three in that order (Jubal, Lazarus, the old coot) do seem to represent points in a range of tackiness, and exponentially increasing tackiness, too. Jubal I can pretty much get along with, I think.
Meanwhile, something else strikes me about the setup in Stranger. I'm also thinking of the senator in LucifersHammer, and wondering why it is that SF writers who tend to carp on about individual freedoms and so forth also have such a liking for writing about medieaval social structures, because Jubal is recognisably a baron. He has his manor and his lands, and he has retainers who are more than employees and less than family members, and he is plugged into a framework of political influence even though he is not an elected representative.
Lazarus, there again is a full-bore aristocrat. Modulo the time-travel thing are the incestuous antics of the Long family much different from those of the Egyptian dynasties? -- KB
I finished ThePuppetMasters and I notice its Old Man character is the "dirty old man." Although he's not "dirty," he definitely strikes me as baronial. Being published in 1951, I suppose ThePuppetMasters is in what JamesBullock considers RAH's middle phase. Maybe the old man characters don't get dirty until the late phase. -- ElizabethWiethoff
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