Slashdot Mirror
Heinlein's Last Novel Coming in September
Frightened_Turtle writes "Robert Heinlein's last novel, Variable Star , will be released in September. Completed by Spider Robinson at the behest of Heinlein's estate, the novel is based on the notes and outline created by Heinlein for the novel over 50 years ago. It was set aside and forgotten when Heinlein went to work on other projects. The story follows the life of Joel Johnston who — after having a fallout with his girlfriend and going on a bender — wakes up on a starship bound for the stars. Spider Robinson has done an excellent job maintaining Heinlein's style and flow throughout the novel. Want to check out the story for yourself? You can download the first eight chapters online from the 'Excerpts' link on the site as they are released over the next few weeks."
While I haven't had the chance (obviously) to go read the first eight chapters of the book, these always feel to me like I'm going to end up with something like the recent "Tom Clancy" books -- some sort of author-inspired but mostly-ghost-written things that, despite being written in the STYLE of the autor, will just fall short.
(Insert gratuitous joke about Tupac and Biggie albums here...)
I'm really looking forward to this.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Am I the only one who read Heinlein's later novels?
If Mr. Robinson stays "true to form", it's going to be all 12-year-olds trying to get into the grizzled old man's pants.
Look, nobody cares about Piers Anthony, he can get away with -- with -- with whatever he wants to, twice, chocolate-covered. It always amazes me that Heinlein gets a pass on the latter end of his Future History.
Yahoo! Pipes are awesome. How awesome? http://pipes.yahoo.com/jesdynf/slashdot
I'm the biggest Heinlein fan ever, but "To Sail Beyond The Sunset" left a pretty bad taste in my mouth as his last novel. Maybe this one (even though he wasn't really involved) will help me remember him more fondly. (although there's always Lazarus...)
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
So I am really sceptical this would reach the quality of other Heinlein's books.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Heinlein was a right wing libertarian type. Spider is a lefty hippy anarchist type. Both are great writers, but if you can't stand reading political views that don't agree with your own, I suggest staying away from one or the other.
Just guessing, but you're a libertarian type, aren't you?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
...or does this sound a lot like the premise behind the TV show Red Dwarf ?
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Probably because his editor and/or publisher objected to them. Overtly sexual passages in fiction were frowned upon in the increasingly puritanical morality of the 1950s. Even subtle hints of sexuality were banished. This was done in the name of saving our innocent virgin minds from such filthiness.
But, then the swinging 1960s rolled around and it wasn't such a concern, anymore. That attitude prevailed until the 1980s, when Heinlein really began to cut loose. As an example, "Friday" is probably the best-known Heinlein novel from the 1980s, and it's not because it was an outstanding literary work.
In no particular order (except that #1 is the one thing I hate the most):
1. Posthumous "collaborations." I make a very small exception for Chrisopher Tolkein's scholarly works. Otherwise, it's just crap they think they can sell. Sadly, there are enough idiots buying the crap that they continue to make it.
2. "collaborations" with elderly authors. Yah, maybe Andre Norton or Marrion Zimmer Bradley wrote part of that book. Maybe all she did was nod off during plot discussions. Honestly, it's hard to tell. Seems there are a few authors who are so crappy that they can't come up with ideas on their own.
3. Trade paperbacks. I'd mind less if they would get together and decide on a single standard size! As an owner of thousands of books, I have a real need to keep size to a minimum. If I have to adjust my shelves to buy your book, I'm not buying your book. My "oversize" storage has gone from four or five shelves to a whole stack, and it's really pissing me off.
4. Cover blurbs comparing every fantasy novel to Lord of the Rings. If I wanted to read another Lord of the Rings, I'd read Lord of the Rings again. Ditto for every Harry-Potter wannabe ripoff with cover blurbs claiming it's just like Harry Potter. Frankly, if I saw a book with a cover blurb that went "nothing like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Interview with the Vampire or any other commercially viable work," I'd have that thing at the register in ten seconds.
5. Cover blurbs from authors who are too old to wipe their own asses. Maybe that drooling nod meant "Most promising young author since Harry Potter!" Or maybe it just meant "I've soiled myself and you have to take care of it." Either way, it's a crappy recommendation.
6. Listing authors "other works" but leaving out works done with another publisher and/or distributor.
7. Massive series based on popular movies. Just because you can hire 10,000 monkeys to write Star Wars "novels" (and I use the term with much more generosity than they are due) doesn't mean it's right to do so. When an entire 1/3 of the book store's sci-fi shelving is wasted on this kind of crap, it makes me wonder how many good new authors could have their works on that 300 linear feet of retail space.
8. Collections of short stories, in which one is set in a universe from one of the author's popular series, marketed as a part of that series. If you're such a great author, your short stories won't need the prop. If you're not, don't bother writing them. Moron.
9. Collections of short stories, in which one is written by the author and set in a universe from one of the author's popular series, and in which the rest are written by other (sometimes wannabe) authors. If you can't find the time to write your own stories, don't make some talentless schlob do it for you.
10. Direct-from-publisher "signed" editions. Do they really think we're that stupid? Those signatures are about as original as a painting from the Thomas Kinkaid "gallery" next to Sears. I'm not going to pay you $10 extra so that Skippy the Intern and his sidekick Amazing Pantograph Bob can crank out ten of these at a time. Especially when you sell it in size-of-the-month-club trade paperback form.
Here's a challenge that no sensible, literate adult can accomplish: * Read "The Number of the Beast" * No, no cheating. Finish it. Every last word. * Look me in the eye and say "Robert Heinlein is a good writer" without giggling.
Few female characters were introduced with a description of their breasts, for example, although you might learn about their cup size by and by, somewhat incidentally.
The first two chapters of "Number of the Beast" are entirely about Deety Carter's breasts, with some references to intradimensional travel thrown in to move the plot along.
The illustrated version of that book is 100% surrealist eroitca.
Richard Ames being black really threw me because on the cover of my paperback of "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls" he's drawn as an old white guy looking a little like Mark Twain with an eyepach.
In the Future History timeline, there was one unwritten novel, "The Sound of His Wings", the story of the rise of southern backwoods preacher Neremiah Scudder to the Presidency of the United States, whereupon he suspended the Constitution, declared himself dictator under God's Law and declared himself the First Prophet.
Heinlein decided not to write the novel because he detested the bastard. But the fall of the U.S. into religious dicatorship (written in 1941!) as chronicled in "If This Goes On --" and subsequent FH stories needs to be completed, I've thought, since I first read it in 1976. Hell, it let me recognize Jerry Falwell and Robertson in 1977 in their march on Washington for what they were. Heinlein grew up in Missouri and knew what the people he came from were capable of. The story is being written every day, as preachers get special White House briefings and all personnel in the WH are expected to attend Bible class every day. Bush's core 30 percent truly believe he was selected by God (as Bush himself has stated, although more guardedly that his supporters) to convert the US to a Christian nation and prepare the way to the end of days as described by St. John of Patmos in the Book of Revelations. The US as always been primed for a religious dictatorship, and will be so even after this bunch of clowns are voted out. This tendency needs a good thrashing out in a novel.
Speaking of Strange in a Strange Land, the original published version was some 60,000 words shorter than the manuscript. I wouldn't say that either version is dominated by sex, but sex does play a central role in the entire story.
Sex, group sex, homosexuality, cannibalism; not to mention satirical interpretation of every major and minor religion - this book was hardly the turning point you speak of. And that's what makes it one of the best sci-fi works in literature. If there was a turning point in Heinlein's work, it must have happened before Strange in a Strange Land.
It's difficult to call this book science-fiction. Put aside the obligatory Martians, teleportation, and hovercraft, and there is really no "science" left in Strange in a Strange Land. So what is left is the bare minimum of fiction and good two thirds of the book is taken up by Jubal Harshaw's lectures on religion, art, history, and psychology.
Strange in a Strange Land is Heinlein's version of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus transposed to modern time and masterfully wrapped in the shiny "sci-fi" cover. It's a brilliant philosophical and literary work in every aspect.
Toward the end, RAH was so famous that nobody would edit his copy, not even correct the spelling.
There were some good novellas lurking in his final few door-stoppers.
And yes, I have read RAH serials in Astounding, and all the sad long stuff that came toward the end.