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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?'"
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.
"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 ).
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
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.
"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
Heinlein was very intolerant of anyone who challenged certain of his political views, even driving away life-long friends over very minor issues. He didn't suffer those he saw as fools gladly, and I'm sure he used that check-box often. You can read Spider Robinson's biography and literary reviews of Heinleins work for the sordid details, if you care about that sort of thing. Don't mistake the author for his protagonists.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
In space cadet (~1950) a character takes a call on his mobile while standing in a queue for something. He tells the caller he will call back later when he is not in a crowd. Heinlein got the technology of the cellphone absolutely right but it didn't occur to him that in the future people would just keep chatting away, annoying people around them.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
So what? So am I, and good riddance as far as I'm concerned. The less fools in my life the happier I am - and really, who are you to judge? If it bothers you, I'm more than willing to let you have my share idiots. Perhaps you can give them a good home.
For me, what's interesting in that is that one of the character says they put their phone in their suitcase so they didn't have to answer it. It's that very human interaction with technology that makes his writing so believable -- even when, as in this example, he didn't predict the exact form of the future (ie the need for a power button).
The early stories did have some computers; Heinlein just fell into the same trap as most writers then and thought they would always be huge. "Slipstick" Libby was a special case.
Don't forget Deija Thoris Carter. But by then he was making the point (repeated in Friday) that a computer, no matter how fast, may not be able to beat human intuition.
Then there is Lazarus's clone sisters Laz and Lor who IIRC had similar talent with numbers. I won't include Dora Long because she started as a computer in the first place.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
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.
Once when I was in the Air Force back in the stone age (some time between 1971 and 1973) I was incredibly drunk, drew a picture of a robotic hand ripped from its arm laying on top of a book titled "Handbook of Robotics" and sent it with a short note to my favorite author, Isaac Asimov.
Yes, I did a little drinking back then, too. Dover was the most boring place I've ever been.
He responed via a post card, a very nice reply. I used that post card as a bookmark for years; I lost it some time between then and now.
I was amazed decades later when I ran the Springfield Fragfest Quake site and had people send ME fan mail. It really boosts your ego! I was ashamed of my drunken self when I sobered up after sending the mail to Dr. Asimov, but after recieving my own fan mail I felt better about it. I wonder if he kept the drawing?
Sorry for posting this AC, slashdot logged me out yesterday and I have no idea what my password is, and it's been so long since I've used yahoo mail that I couldn't log in there either. I hope I don't have to creat another /. account.
-mcgrew (sm62704)
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