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Robert Heinlein's Pre-Internet Fan Mail FAQ
Hugh Pickens writes "Kevin Kelly has an interesting post about a letter he found amongst correspondence from his days editing the Whole Earth Catalog. The letter is Robert Heinlein's own nerdy solution to a problem common to famous authors: to deal with fan mail. In the days before the internet, Heinlein's solution was to create a list of frequently asked questions, answer them, and remove the questions. Then he, or rather his wife Ginny, checked off the appropriate answer(s) and mailed it back. Some of the entries in Heinlein's answer sheet are quite illuminating and amusing. Our personal favorite: 'You say that you have enjoyed my stories for years. Why did you wait until you disliked one story before writing to me?'"
Why did I wait?! Because I am Lazarus Long and I do things my own way, Bob.
is this idiot ? and why cvant he use a computer ?
TFA makes it quite clear that it's talking about days before home computing, not the days before the internet.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
is this person who reads the TFA ? and why cant he act like other /.ers ?
Anyone know off hand what the papers and articles he cites are all about? I'm curious to know what questions The Saturday Evening Post, Mark Twain and Who's Who's in America might answer, especially since they were common enough to be included in the FAQ.
Some of the answers were amusing. Good to know that fannish entitlement and the false sense of intimacy are not merely a product of the internet.
http://transformativeworks.org/
(with fewer reasons). Please post {descriptions of /links to} the articles, etc. which he lists in his FAQ (Frequently Answered Questions)
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Before, they had to write the thing, buy a stamp and send it.
Now I can send britney my lesbian star trek fan fiction at the click of a mouse. It's got to be wayyyy worse to go through your mail now. (Assuming you have the intention of attempting to appease your fans by answering). Way easier to delete of course.. :)
I record my sleeptalking
What question in a fan's mail will receive the answer: "Please do not write to me again" ?
"You say that you have enjoyed my stories for years. Why did you wait until you disliked one story before writing to me?'"
Because if you're a good writer, you might have pleased millions.
And if millions of people write to you, it could make the postman unhappy (and other people too).
There's already a good way to show appreciation - via the writer's bank account.
That said, do write an appreciation letter if it's for something exceptional (or your letter is going to be something worth reading).
But millions of letters just saying "I liked your latest book" might get a bit tiresome (or worse think star trek fan vs Shatner ala SNL ).
(X)The article
( )The intervieuw
( )The ramblings
was
( )intresting
(X)informative
(X)funny
( )bullshit
and thank you for
(X)sharing this with us
( )informing us of such a very important item.
( )wasting our time
Clearly. In the days of the internet, we tend to write the FAQ first.
I'm not sure that is an excuse; I'm fairly confident that Robert & Virginia Heinlein were fully capable of producing a computer from parts from a TV, washing machine, and whatever was laying around in the basement, anytime from about 1946 on.
I bet it was the printer that was the sticking point.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Stephen Goldin's 23 rules how to act when you meet a pro at an Sci-Fi convention. Not as amusing as Heinlein's, but an interesting read.
via
There's a copy here: http://mackereth.net/images/SotW_Thank_You_Card.jpg
One of the big-name televanglists (Billy Graham?) had an early computerized system for answering his fan mail. A staff of people read the mail, and used highlighter to mark phrases that contained relevant keywords. Data entry operators keyed in the address and the highlighted phrases. A program used the phrases to select an appropriate canned reply, filled in keywords, added bible citations, and printed out a letter.
I'm not sure that is an excuse; I'm fairly confident that Robert & Virginia Heinlein were fully capable of producing a computer from parts from a TV, washing machine, and whatever was laying around in the basement, anytime from about 1946 on.
And it would be a right dinkum thinkum when they were done, too!
" Your letter was most welcome! - loaded with friendliness and with no requests or demands. You suggested that no answer was expected but I must tell you how _much_ it pleased me. I wish you calm seas, following winds, and a happy voyage through life. "
I know that your post is tongue-in-cheek, but the reality is that Heinlein didn't foresee electronic computing and in all of his early works which I am familiar with (e.g., the "Future History") he has human mathematical savants being used for navigation calculations.
I'm not sure that is an excuse; I'm fairly confident that Robert & Virginia Heinlein were fully capable of producing a computer from parts from a TV, washing machine, and whatever was laying around in the basement, anytime from about 1946 on. I bet it was the printer that was the sticking point.
If he had a beautiful daughter he would have had a time machine in his basement as well.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
"Grumbles from the Grave" is a (now out-of-print) posthumous collection of letters from Heinlein, mostly between himself, publishers, and other SF Authors. It contains many letters on dealing with Fan Mail, Fans themselves, critics, publishers, etc. Quite an interesting little book.
SirWired
...that RAH is a lot more polite in that letter than I would have expected from his books. A letter bomb wouldn't have surprised me but maybe I am confusing Jubal Harshaw with the Author.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Even in real life he was way ahead of his time. Look, the letter has underlined links!
That was interesting and amusing, and it made my morning. Thanks slashdot!
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
I'm not sure. It does seem similar, the radical political statements and not suffering fools gladly. Maybe it's just that what he stood for didn't look as nice in reality as it did in his books. But I don't see him being hypocritical about it, or deceiving himself.
( ) CowboyNeal
No no... You are confusing him with McGyver.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
And yes, some of it was unintentionally very funny. (I think he was planning to donate it eventually to the Abnormal Psychology people.)
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Read The Door Into Summer: the guy practically designed AutoCAD in 1956, but with the computer interfacing directly with a plotter. The missing piece was the idea of using video rather than the paper itself to visualize intermediate results.
'You say that you have enjoyed my stories for years. Why did you wait until you disliked one story before writing to me?'
Because, if I sent you a fan letter after every story I liked you would probably have me arrested for stalking.
It would appear that Kevin Kelly has erased whichever checks were checked on his copy. No desire to tell the Internet how you pissed off a well-loved legend?
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I know you're desperate for a date dude, but seriously you should try looking for one in your own decade.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Some people will do anything for karma.
I am very fortunate to live in Butler Missouri, Robert Heinlein's hometown. Once upon a time Butler was known as 'The Electric City" because it was the first City west of the Mississippi to be fully wired for Electricity. Sadly this little town has lost its technical edge, but Heinlein is still hailed as a local hero.
I wonder how much of an effect growing up in 'The Electric City" had on him and his writting and what affect he himself had on the community and its total aversion to technology (it's very much 1980 here in Butler).
In fact when I moved here I felt like a stranger in a strange land...
ed duval the very last person
Our personal favorite: 'You say that you have enjoyed my stories for years. Why did you wait until you disliked one story before writing to me?'"
Isn't it obvious? Do you want to flood him with just "good job" letters everyday, eventually wasting all his time? Constructive criticism and empathy (hence the reason they mention they were a "long time reader") can go a longer way to show that you are doing a good job, but have 1 tiny problem with the work.
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
I can't remember which mathematician told this story, but apparently he received so many attempted proofs of Fermat's last theorem that he got his graduate students to answer with a stock letter: Dear ...
Thank you for your proof of Fermat's last theorem. The first mistake appears on page ...
The full story is in Marcus du Sautoy's excellent book The Music of the Primes.
xterm -n 8
#2 FTW. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to say this, or have said it. I almost feel better that this event has been happening for so long, and it isn't just a personal attack!
This poster is allowed to dislike something and say so. Plus it was a clever phrase he used, and I appreciate it. Give him a +1 Funny at least, please.
Funny considering Heinlein actually kinda predicted the Internet in the early 1950's.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Dear Sir, I am sorry my last story disappointed you. I will try much harder in the future to accomodate your...***DELETED!!!***
We recently cycled to his home shaws corner and on display are the colour coded "FAQ" letters that his secretary would send back to questions about vegetarianism etc.
She's fictional but you can't have everything.
(I know, crossing the streams there, sorry about that).
http://michaelsmith.id.au
is this idiot ? and why cvant he use a computer ?
He's a hell of a lot smarter than you'll ever be.
and why cvant you use a spellchecker ?
I cannot say that I was "taught" any such technique. But I did play around with flash-recognition on my own once I heard what was being taught as speed reading.
I too can use the page-down key to rapidly scan through documents and a befuddling-to-others rate looking for the section of code, or indeed documentation, that "feels about right" to be the correct section. And it is the correct section, or a relevant passage, a good 98 percent of the time.
I have found, also, that the other people who have developed this skill all have claimed to be, to some degree, dyslexic.
I have never before heard someone claim to have been taught a contributing skill (besides reading etc 8-) that lead to that behavior.
ASIDE: sometimes it is very frustrating for me to help people with their coding problems because they take _forever_ to decide that the page they are looking at is _not_ the page they mean to be looking at. I also have to slow down when I'm driving the keyboard and someone else is trying to follow.
It's just life I guess.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Good Lord, Mathinker: have you never read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"??? In case you haven't, it is the story of a libertarian revolt on the Moon, aided and abetted by a self-aware computer named Mycroft (aka "Mike") --- waaay before HAL, Harlie and that nasty one in Ellison's "I have no mouth and I must scream!"
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
teenage mating? On /.? You must be new here.
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.