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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!"
Free as a Bird anyone?
How much material has Tupac released since he died?
And all that crap that Tolkien's son claimed he wrote to make some money
Why, why, why do this to Heinlein as well?
He was _a_ grandmaster, but not _the_ grandmaster.
h tm l
http://www.steampunk.com/sfch/awards/nebula-gm.
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
Considering how boiler-plated all of his work post-1945 was, I don't think I'll be buying it... but out of curiosity, I'll probably borrow a copy from the library. I want to say that Heinlein was a one-note song, but it's not true. He had several notes, always played in the same order: space exploration (which I applaud), sex, self-righteousness, anti-communism, eugenics, and more sex. I'm not eager to read more.
Allegedly real newspaper headline from 1998:
Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
I had read that Heinlein *hated* his Nehemiah Scudder character (who later went on to form a really pleasant theocracy in "If This Goes On...") so much that he was not able to write about him. This should be interesting. :-)
Opinions are free, they're just not easy.
Good advice given to new novelists is, of course, "keep writing'. While your first novel is making the rounds of getting rejected by the various publishers (a process that can take a couple of years), write your second and third novels. Start them on their rejection rounds and keep writing.
Most writers do not sell their first novel (or even their second and third). What they finally do sell is the novel that they have grown into by the practice of writing their previous works. Those previous novels are not up to par with what they finally do sell. Better advice then given to new novelists is "burn your trunk". 'Trunk' refers to all the writing you've done before you finally sell something. It is not up to the standards of what you are now able to produce and publishing it will lower the public's perception of your current talent.
I strongly suspect that this 'new' Heinlein novel is Heinlein's trunk. Likely he never had it published because he himself subscribed to the advice that one's trunk should be burned.
I will buy the book none the less, because Heinlein was by far the novelist who was the most influential on me in my youth. I will consciously remember while reading it though that this is his very first novel, something written in the thirties and not a book that he wanted published because he felt it to be inferior to what he was subsequently capable of.
Peter
Heinlein is one of those authors who made science fiction. His chauvinism occasionally sets my teeth on edge, and his later works are preachy, but these are small blemishes on the body of work of a man, who above everything else, knew how to tell a story. Unlike much SF, his stories are always character-driven. I've often gone back to Glory Road or The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress for a good read that never gets old. Finding out that there's an unpublished Heinlein a few days after hearing about a new Zelazny collection? My cup runneth over!
My hat's off to the cranky old Grand Master who still makes me all sniffly at the end of Stranger in a Strange Land, almost 10 years after I read it the first time. Where can I place a pre-order?
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
The number of cash grabs (posthumous releases) after the author passed away does not reflect the quality of his work.
I ran across this link a while back, and filed it away for future reference. Should have known that Slashdot would come through:
Heinlein Happens, by by Earl Kemp
It's a scathing expose of the "dark side" of Robert Heinlein, painting him as a Hugh Hefner wannabe with an ego the size of a god's, masking an inner insecurity the size of the Grand Canyon. It's hard to tell, though, how accurate Kemp's descriptions are, since he's writing from the POV of one of Heinlein's "disremembered" -- close friends who p***ed off the artist and were removed from his list of people worth acknowledging.
I'm curious how much is true, how much is exaggerated, and how much is just made up. I figure this is the place to ask!
As far as the literary side of the man... I've been a fan since I read "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" as a kid in the late '70s. The "Future History" stuff left me cold, but "Job" was a great return to form. The last Heinlein book I read (shamefully long ago) was the restored "Podkayne of Mars", with the original (downer) ending.
I haven't seen the "Puppet Masters" movie... and from what I've heard, I'm probably better off for it.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Er, "Stranger" and "Job" were both from the late phase of his career. The early phase consisted of "Have Spacesuit Will Travel", "Red Planet", "The Rolling Stones", "Starman Jones", "The Starbeast", "Citizen of the Galaxy", "Farnham's Freehold", "The Puppet Masters", "Tunnel in the Sky", "Starship Troopers" and so on. All of those novels were targeted at the "young adolescent" of the time, but were still entertaining, thought provoking stuff. They also included enough hard science to be dangerous.
His later phase, which began around the time of "Glory Road" and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" (now THAT should be made into a movie;), was more adult oriented and controversial - still with a stiff dose of plausibility and real science.
Say what you like about Heinlein and his social ideas, but fundamentally he was a freedom lover who wanted nothing so much as to see humanity grow up and move beyond the nest. He also had the ideas for several inventions including the waterbed and the "waldo" (remote manipulators used with hazardous materials). Very few of those who bash him have made a similar contribution to society.
I'm sure I'll read his "new" novel with quite a bit of enjoyment, whatever the quality of the work. :-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Of course, I am a semi-rabid Heinlein fan, so I have to say that... don't I? What can I say? I grew up reading his books and they had a profound impact on me. I never really took him as condoning polyamorism or incest, but merely showing that sexual "tastes" were culturally based patterns of behaviour. Asimov did the same thing with some of his Robot/Foundation books (societies where no one knew who their children were, so the concept of incest became unimportant, etc.).
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
Ayn Rand's first novel, "We the Living" was published in 1937, one year before the new Heinlein novel was completed.
I wonder if Heinlein had seen Rand's novel when he chose that title, "For Us, The Living".
"Slapping people is fun." - Starla Grady
Amazon has it up for pre-order already, here's a link, complete with my referral code, for the lazy. :)
I'm excited as all get out about this, I've read everything else he ever published, and I think I have at least one copy of everything, even the hard-to-find Notebooks of Lazarus Long booklet. I'm really curious to see how this stacks up with his other early work, like "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", "Space Cadet", etc. Have Spacesuit was the first sci-fi book I ever read, and it got me hooked at an early age.
The fact that Spider Robinson is involved puts my mind at ease. He was good friends, and a great admirer of Heinlein, and I can't see him doing anything that would disgrace RAH.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
Letters Heinlein wrote to John Campbell in the late 30's make it clear that he was very unsatisfied with his earliest attempts at the short story, although he did not hesitate to sell them to lesser pulps than Astounding provided they were published psuedonymously. Therefore, I don't believe Heinlein would have approved this. I also think if Virginia Heinlein were still alive she would have put a stop to it immediately, even if she was the force behind the 'uncut' Stranger in a Strange Land.
However, none of this will stop me from devouring the novel once it comes out. He's dead, and he don't care.
It's in Robocop, but I think it's also in "The Roads Must Roll". I think Dick used it as well.
Any sci-fi scholars want to answer?
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Shouldn't that be "everyone and his own mother"?
Other than that, I agree with you. "Harsh Mistress" and "Starship Troopers" were good, but the obsession with sex in his others books got old quick.
Same with Anthony. I used to be a big fan, and then his obsession with sex and nakedness and pedophelia kept cropping up *everywhere*.
Releasing posthumous or 'early' material is a common enough practice in the arts that we should learn to look forward to it. If anything it gives diehard fans and scholars a chance to see beyond what the artist deemed acceptable or beyond what publishers at the time deemed acceptable.
That said, I've never read any Heinlein and want to know what a good book is of his to start with. I've just been getting into Asimov and George RR Martin lately and am looking forward to reading another great SciFi author. How does Heinlein compare to Asimov?
Every author has "trunk novels." They wrote them early in their career and tossed them in a steamer trunk, usually because the books stank. Book and magazine editors bounced them for a reason.
Sometimes these books get published when said authors are better known. Guess what? The books still stink once they're in print.
I'm not optimistic. Heinlein's early short fiction is good stuff. But it took him a while to build his writing chops up to longer works.
I can believe this was a coincidence however when I had my only personal encounter with Heinlein, it was disputing priority on the title "High Frontier" on a book by his associate General Danny Graham. Heinlein insisted that Danny Graham had every right to use that title even though Graham had a prior conversation with the author of the other "High Frontier" Gerard O'Neill in which O'Neill was invited, and refused, to join Graham's program of Reagan-era space militarization and development.
PS: The scene was rather amusing in some ways -- sad in some ways. I was the San Diego local support team leader for the Space Studies Institute in the early 1980s and as such was manning the booth for SSI at the annual space development conference in San Francisco. The table had the two "High Frontier" books laid out -- one labeled "The Real Thing" the other labeled "Cheap Immitation". I of course knew Heinlein had written the foreward to the "Cheap Immitation" and that a lot of folks were his fans around there. What I didn't know was that Heinlein would pompously show up and demand of me if I knew who he was -- as he shakily picked up Graham's book and pointed to his name in the foreward. I explained to him that Graham had had prior dealings with O'Neill and that Graham had to do better than to come out with a book by the same name. Heinlein said Graham was perfectly within his rights to use "High Frontier" as the title to his book even though he had previously met with O'Neill and was occupying much of the same intellectual turf within a few years of O'Neill's publication. I then pointed out to Heinlein that "High Frontier" was a registered service mark of the Space Studies Institute. This stopped him only for a moment and he said "I don't believe you." before walking off. Sad and amusing.
Seastead this.
I love the movie Starship Troopers. I love the book Starship Troopers. I find it an amazing coincidence that there was a movie with the name of a great book using similar character names yet none of the same plot! :)
You have the enjoy the movie for what it is, a silly sci-fi movie with really cool bugs.
I mean, how do you make a movie about a book and mock the ideals of the book?
I see them as two completely unrelated works that both stand on their own merits.
If you ever wanted to see a commentary on Vietnam set in space, you should see the movie.
Besides, it has Doogie Howser as a Nazi general!
Would you like to know more?
Alex
First, they say this novel was written before Heinlein's first published SF short story. It's been a while since I've read any Heinlein biographical material, but I thought the story (no pun intended) was that Heinlein read about a contest for amateur stories, wrote one, decided to submit it to a magazine instead, was accepted, and basically said "Whoa...how long has THIS easy way to make money been around?" and was off and running.
For him to have an unpublished novel from before this would mean that he was trying to be a writer before he did that first short. Furthermore, it would mean he was trying to start with novels, which is much harder. It was far better to break into the field with short stories in the magazines than to start with novels (especially since there really wasn't a market for SF outside the magazines). If Heinlein was actually planning on being a writer, I find it very hard to believe that he would not have researched the field.
Second, the novel being unpublishable in its day because of racy content does not strike me as very Heinlein-like. Sure, some people consider Heinlein's later works to be overly concerned with sex, but that at least made sense, both in the context of the times, and in the context of Heinlein's personal situation at the time. It would make no sense for him to be starting out with a racy novel--one so racy that it could not be published. (And, back to the first point, I have a hard time believing Heinlein would not know exactly what the limits were, and stay on the publishable side...he does not strike me as the kind of man who would go to the effort of writing an unpublishable novel)
What was that people are saying about the erosion of our rights today?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
This is a very interesting observation here, and as I was a girl who read and enjoyed Heinlein and felt his books were a formative experience for her, and had acquaintances in college who felt likewise about Norman (whose only book I even started reading ended up in the trash can) - I can point to some serious irony going on here, as well as accurate observation.
;) not sure what, though...
Why is it, I wonder, that the girls who enjoyed the stories about women who were empowered by sex, enjoyed it, had it with the people they cared about whoever those were, and were happily married as equals to as many guys as they wanted, were less likely to want casual sex with buddies or to be sexually promiscuous, than the girls who liked stories about women who were uptight, overprotected virgins who were kidnapped, raped, and found they enjoyed being sex slaves?
Far be it from me to imply that the former are better adjusted and more sane, I think there's something going on beyond that...
But isn't it ironic?
Writing is the only socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. (E. L. Doctorow)
Yup.
I re-read just about everything, and I'm probably on about the 20th time through on most of Heinlein's stuff.
I admit to being kinda bummed out with everything after Friday for the first couple of reads; eventually I came to the realization that even his worst book (possibly I will fear no evil?) is well above the average; I was just spoiled by the incomparable ones like Starship Troopers, stranger, harsh mistress, have spacesuit: will travel, citizen of the Galaxy, Glory Road...
I also keep thinking of him in comparison to Hubbard; L. Ron set out to design and build a religion, bent all his imagination and creativity to the purpose, and succeeded.
RAH "merely" wrote stories, and accidentaly created at least 1 religion, and improved many peoples lives along the way.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Ah, another example of a situation that cuts to the quick of the copyright issue.
Just because an author "wished" a work would still be under his control after his death, does not mean he should really have a right to such and expectation.
An author is not living up to his end of the bargain, the bargain with the people that allowed writing to have possibilities of making an income for the author in the first place, and he is in fact violating the whole spirit of copyright when he tries to control his work in perpetuity.
If a creative work has value to society, it's up to society, not the artist, whether to destroy or preserve that work.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Heinlein must have spun in his grave at the whitebread, neo-Nazi gestalt of the human society in the movie. One real irony in the movie was that Rico, in the book, was from the Phillipines and spoke Tagalog as his native language (i.e. a WASP was really, really miscast in that part).
Heinlein pushed a quasi-anarchist view of society and politics that most modern conservatives and liberals hate. He argued that there is a broad gap between "what works" and what's right, or true. In SST he makes the point that the sole reason for enfranchising only people willing to do public service (not just the military either - civil servants too) was that "it worked." There was nothing sacred about the means, simply expediency.
To contrast SST with other Heinlein work you should read it simultaneously with Stranger In A Strange Land. He wrote them simultaneously. This gives you a very different view of a mind that many like to castigate as some form of "paternalistic" ultra-conservative.
In his later work, starting with The Number of the Beast, he tosses away most constraints and pillories the kinds of everday values and platitudes that the general population confuse with the good, the true and the beautiful. he makes fun of "ultimate" god, ultimate "reality" and ultimate "morality" repeatedly. Job is remarkable.