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New Heinlein Novel
book_reader writes "It's hard to believe but the grand master of sci-fi is back - 15 years or so after his death. His first novel that he wrote in the mid 30's and long since thought lost was rediscovered and will be coming out in November! The thought of a novel he wrote so early in his writing career boggles my mind but who will be able to resist - not I!"
Rich
While going through the Heinlein Society homepage, I found this review of The Number of the Beast. I've never read the book (but will now), but it seems to imply that Heinlein intentionally wrote the book bad to show how a SciFi book should not be written.
The review is pretty interesting, and I think I'd like to read it just to see what they are talking about. Morbid curiosity maybe?
IIIRC, the standard term is presently 70 years after the author's death, so more than 50 years to go. And thats assuming that the US govt (proudly sponsored by Disney) haven't pushed for further extensions to prevent Mickey Mouse entering the public domain.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Work it out yourself.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Heinlein only has three posthumous novels- the original length "Stranger in a Strange Land", an autobiography, and this one. Ron Hubbard published at least 13- including the ten volume Mission Earth series. Toklein published at least 15, including the Allakabeth, Simarillian, a book of poetry, and the 12 volume History of Middle Earth series. Asimov had a have dozen in press that came out after his death. Gene Roddenberry had Final Conflict and Anromedea TV series, plus two more rumored in production. Frank Herbert partially completed 7th Dune volume, and an early edition of his origional Dune are supposed to be published in due course by his son.
The above list doesn't include continuations of earlier novels authorized by these authors estates. There have been a dozen of those. Herbert is the most prolific with the 5th New Dune novel due out next week and eight more planned.
Yes, yes, yes ... I don't care if it's good, bad or ugly. He's a god and I look forward to reading anything he's written.
IMHO, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" is the ultimate Sci-Fi novel and he singlehandedly raised the bar so that Science Fiction wasn't simply regarded as pulp. Many people were inspired by his words and foresight. He contributed many revolutionary concepts and provided so many hours of entertainment that even the thought of anything new is interesting in the extreme.
Words to men, as air to birds.
Whoa, it took you that long to decide that Anthony is filthy? Nearly every series of his has some point where he tries to justifiy his lusting after young flesh. When ever he tries to discuss social issues (like prostitution, a frequent subject) he sounds like Kathy Lee or Connie Chung - someone with lots of opinions and no knowledge or brains.
And Emily Dickinson's complete works weren't published until after she'd snuffed it.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
70 years after death. Like I said.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
This came up at last night's LASFS (Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society) meeting, and Dr. Pournelle said that Heinlein most emphatically did not want this to see the light of day and thought that he had destroyed all the copies. If Ginny were still alive, I'm sure that we wouldn't be seeing this, and I think that it's telling that this didn't appear until shortly after she passed away.
The notebooks are illustrated. All the text is in Time enough for love.
Spent hours lookig for it before I found the story.
Oh please. He got his soon-to-be-wife pregnant so he could claim a sole-provider exemption from the draft during Vietnam. When you look up chickenhawk, Cheney is the example picture. He's quite willing to send someone else's son into battle, but when his ass was on the line he chickened out. Not to mention that we know how the SecDef puts his life on the line all of the time (cf Robert McNamara).
A partial list of Vietnam-eligible Bush advisers who were granted deferments:
In all fairness, I will point out that William Jefferson Clinton was also a draft dodger. Of course, it was a bad thing when he did it, but only understandable when a Republican did it.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
Now I would guess that they probably did register it, unless they were unaware of this little-known quirk in the copyright law. But I find it interesting this quirk exists, and probably a huge number of unpublished works became public domain at the beginning of this year.
Actually, the originator of the phrase is C.M. Kornbluth, in "Those Marching Morons". The premise is that in the far future, the average IQ is about room temperature, but everyone's happy with their "futuristic" speeders (which are cars that do 30 mph), their television is vapid, and there's a small elite running the world - they're the only ones with a real IQ.
Check the short story out... well worth it.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Most of his books are quite good, particularly the "Heinlein juveniles." The science is dated now in many cases, but they're great reads. Personal favorites include The Door into Summer, Citizen of the Galaxy, Starman Jones and The Past Through Tomorrow.
Many feel that Heinlein's later books, after 1966, aren't nearly as good. They certainly get more self-indulgent and cheezy. To start out with, I would avoid the following books, because they're not really indicative of most of his work: I Will Fear No Evil, Time Enough For Love, The Number of the Beast, Friday, Job: A Comedy of Justice, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls and To Sail Beyond the Sunset.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I wouldn't say he'd started to ramble; I'd say he turned into a blathering nutcase.
My broad rule for Heinlein: If it's bigger than - or written after - I Will Fear No Evil - it's unreadable in ways only someone struggling through Hubbard's dekalogy would understand. If it's written before that, then if it's a kids' book it's good, if it's a short story it's probably great, and if it's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, it's one of the finest science fiction novels around.
Must do up a flowchart.