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!"

Comments

We discussed this at TorCon...

[Jack William Bell]

We discussed this at TorCon last weekend. The general consensus was:

1. Everyone would be more confortable about this if Ginnie (Virginia Heinlein) was still alive and vetting this.
2. There is probably good reason why RAH didn't want it published.
3. We will all buy it and read it anyway.

Burn Your Trunk!

[PeterPiper]

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.

I'll be buying.

[Unknown Kadath]

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

Re:"Heinleins . . . detroyed all the copies . . ."

[Glock27]

That is, does it undermine the straight-on patriarchial onanism of Stranger in a Strange Land or the more shame-riddled tone of "Job."

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. :-)

Re:My thoughts on this

[kasparov]

Perhaps the response that you had was the one that he was trying to elicit. Makes since if he was "kind of pissed" about it inspiring the poly crowd... By exaggerating a topic and carrying the exaggeration through to its "logical" (by the author's standards) conclusion, authors typically condemn things in their books that they show as commonplace. Just my $0.02.

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.).