For Us, The Living, by Robert A. Heinlein

Sethb writes "For Us, The Living, Robert A. Heinlein's first novel, written in 1938, is not a lost masterpiece. It is, however, a fascinating piece of writing for the Heinlein fan to ingest. It's not a book you should give to a friend to introduce them to Heinlein, in fact, it works best as what it is, the last piece of Heinlein's work to be published, and it should almost certainly be one of the last pieces someone starting to read Heinlein should attempt." Read on for Sethb's review. M : CBC also has a feature about the book. For Us, The LIving author Robert A. Heinlein pages 288 pages publisher Scribner rating 3 reviewer Seth Bokelman ISBN 074325998X summary Great piece for die-hard Heinlein fans, not for newbies.

The book starts with an excellent foreword from Spider Robinson, a friend of Heinlein's as well as a fan, and an excellent Sci-Fi writer in his own right. Spider lays it all out for you in the foreword: this book isn't strong on stories, it's strong on ideas. People who found Heinlein's later works too preachy should steer clear, as this book is probably his preachiest. Robinson speculates that Heinlein really wanted to convey his radical ideas, having just lost a political race, and spent too much of the book standing on the proverbial soapbox, and not enough telling a good story. He says that Heinlein learned from this, and went on to become a master storyteller, learning that people are much more likely to sit still for the lecture if it's embedded in a gripping story.

And that leads me to exactly what's wrong with For Us, The Living. There's very little story in it. There is a plot, and it goes like this. Perry, our hero, (n reality a thinly veiled version of Heinlein himself), is involved in a car accident in 1939, and wakes up in the year 2086 in the body of someone who looks very much like himself, but the original inhabitant of the body chose to end his life (shades of Stranger in a Strange Land here). Our Hero was discovered in the snowy Nevada mountains by a woman named Diana, who is a professional dancer and lives in the mountains. She takes him back to her place to recover, and they're lounging around her house naked by the second page of the book.

From then on, the rest of the book is primarily spent following our hero as he is lectured (literally at times) on the ways of the future, covering topics such as polygamy/polyamory, nudism, the stupidity of jealousy, economics, religion, and the treatment of criminals as patients who need to be cured, rather than miscreants who need to be punished. Many of the ideas that turn up later in Heinlein's books, especially his later books, appear here for the first time. The book is very much, as Spider calls it in the foreword, Heinlein's literary DNA. This is the primordial ooze from which the later books, (Time Enough For Love, Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and dozens more) are formed.

I found Heinlein's predictions of the future very interesting. Since the book was written in 1938-1939, the world hadn't witnessed World War II yet, though Heinlein predicts it. In his version, the U.S. stays out of the War, and Europe eventually self-destructs. Heinlein gets quite a bit of the future right, and quite a bit of it wrong. For instance, in 2086, they still haven't landed a man on the moon, though they're working on it. And, while in the future everyone has terminals (seen in later Heinlein novels) from which they can access live video and audio, information is still printed on paper and transported physically via pneumatic (and magnetic) tubes. But, given that it was written before the atomic age, those things are forgiven, and they're part of what makes the book interesting to read.

It's very obvious why this book wasn't published in 1939 -- it's not very good. Also, much of the subject matter is so controversial and sexual to this day that no major publisher would have dared print it then. The book is a bit rough, and a bit "off" in places. For instance, Heinlein uses a two-page footnote(!) to give us Diana's life story, rather than weave it into the story or the dialogue, something he'd never do in his later work, and the story only starts to get compelling in the last 50 pages or so, once the bulk of the lectures are past us.

So do I recommend this book? Yes and no. If you're a Heinlein fan, and you've read most, if not all, of his other work, then you'll love this book, and you should get a copy right now. It's a great snapshot of Heinlein's writing while he was still struggling to define it himself. If you've never read a Heinlein book, don't start here, pick up Starship Troopers, or Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. If you've read a few Heinlein books, read a few more before you try this one, especially Time Enough For Love, and his later works. I've read everything he ever published, and was sad when I finished off The Menace From Earth, as I'd run out of Heinlein to read. This book provided me with one more thrill, and it made me appreciate how strongly Heinlein held his convictions, and how far he came as a writer, from this, his first attempt.

Now that Bob & Ginny Heinlein have passed on, however, this is almost certainly the last significant piece of Heinlein's writing left unpublished, and for us, the living, it's fun to have something new from the Grand Master to curl up with on a cold winter night.

You can purchase For Us, The Living from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to submit a review for consideration, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Re:Who?

[tds67]

Would somebody care to explain who Henlein is...

1. Heinlein invented a maneuver that can save a person from choking.

...and why his book is on the front-page of slashdot.org?

2. There is no new SCO news today.

Ouch

[gowen]

Heinlein's *preachiest* book?

Thats right there on my TODO list with:
i) Jim Carrey's wackiest movie,
ii) Todd Rundgren's most experimental synthesiser sounds,
iii) Elvis Presley's most sugary ballads
and
iV) JRR Tolkein's most esoteric back-of-an-envelope scribbling, lovingly -- and profitably -- edited by his hack son.

Re:Who?

[mr_mischief]

Probably one of the best writers of science fiction.

Ever heard of Red Plant or Starship Troopers? Stranger in a Strange Land?

He won Hugo awards in 1956, 1959, 1961, and 1966. He's had other works nominated for the award. He was published for over 50 years.

He also has written quite a bit of nonfiction.

Heinlein Published Just One Novel

[jIyajbe]

The first novel of Heinlein's I read was "Time Enough for Love", and it made a huge impression on the teenager I was. I loved it.

Then I read "Stranger in A Strange Land", and I thought it was very similar in important respects, but I still liked it.

I went on to read several more of his books and short stories, and eventually I came to feel that he simply took the same central ideas, wrapped them in a thin veneer of different characters, and re-published them as a "new" book.

MAN, did I quickly grow tired of him!

(It did NOT help that I think his politics suck.)

Asimov is the Grand Master, not Heinlein. (In my opinion.)

Re:Heinlein Published Just One Novel

[sTalking_Goat]

In my experience this seems to happen a lot, especially with teenage boys. My first Heinlein was Starship Troopers and I still thinks its was of the best books ever written. But the more you read of Heinlein, especially his later stuff like I will Fear no Evil the more you begin to either really hate or really love him, becuase he really does go all Ayn Rand at the end there.

But in a way thats good I suppose. If people either love you or hate you then you must really be saying something.

Raging paranoia necessary

[Dogtanian]

Is to make totally sure you've destroyed EVERY copy of a manuscript you never want to see the light of day, because after you're dead, some self-serving snot will publish it for the world to see and who cares about your wishes in the matter.

Hey, we're already at the stage where Douglas Adams had an unfinished book recovered from his hard drive and published.

If you want to be safe, use a word processor on a computer that never connects to a network (could recover data on the network), restrict your copies to removable disk to those you would be happy being published or are able to destroy, and at some stage physically destroy the hard drive beyond any possible recovery.

In fact, do the same to *any* part of the computer that might (even temporarily) have held your data, including the monitor.

Paranoid? Well, I'm trying to second-guess information recovery in 20-30 years time, and I defy anyone to say that this will never happen.

Of course, the radiation from your monitor probably induced microscopic interference in the TV signal your VCR is recording nearby, and with advanced signal-processing and pattern-recognition, your great lost tome is recovered from an episode of Dawson's Creek you taped back in 2003.

Yuk.

I want to be a paperback writer

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

Goddamn Heinlein,

Give it up! Yer supposed to be dead for chrissakes! STOP WRITING!!!

Give us unknown nobodies a chance huh?

Thanks.

Part of a series

[CommieLib]

The second, following We, the Living. It will be followed by Stephen King's We, the Dead. Then the series continues with Jerry Garcia's unpublished autobiography, For Us, the Dead. Finally it will be concluded with a Michael Crichton book, We, the terminally ill, but feeling better today. Perhaps there's still hope for a transplant.