Slashdot Mirror
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?
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
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 Finding out that there's an unpublished Heinlein a few days after hearing about a new Zelazny collection?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.
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
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?
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