The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

I was surprised to find we don't have a topic for Robert A. Heinlein, so here it is.

I just finished reading Farnham's Freehold, a book which had dropped considerably in my memory. I'm glad I read it again since it was better than I remembered. It's heavy-handed, but he did some things very well. It's also one of his 2 part novels like Glory Road where it's almost 2 books with the second half completely changing tone & texture. Still, I gave it 4 stars in my review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I might have to try this. I used to enjoy Heinlein's 'interesting' ideas and fun adventures, but any that I've tried to reread since joining goodreads and becoming a more thoughtful reader have at least left me cold, sometimes even disgusted me.

I haven't tried Heinlein yet, but I have a copy of Stranger in a Strange Land for when I have the time for a long book.

I read somewhere that there are two different versions of the novel. I hope I got the "right" one.

Susan wrote: "I haven't tried Heinlein yet, but I have a copy of Stranger in a Strange Land for when I have the time for a long book.

I read somewhere that there are two different versions of the novel. I hope..."

Heinlein is an old favorite of mine. Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress are a couple of besties. A lot of his earlier works are referred to as his Juveniles and would be classified today as YA. I've read most of them and do enjoy them. In some of his later works he explores some out-of-the-mainstream social ideas and these are not his best work, IMHO.

Susan wrote: "I haven't tried Heinlein yet, but I have a copy of Stranger in a Strange Land for when I have the time for a long book.
I read somewhere that there are two different versions of the novel. "

I read both versions. I read the first version (160, 000 words) as a teen, say maybe in 1982. The second time I read it (the 220,000 word version) I was a college grad with a degree in English, maybe in 2000. I didn't remember well the details of my first reading during my second reading. However, my impressions were largely the same with both versions. Wonderful premise, great beginning, bogged down in the middle, and not that memorable an ending.

But that's my take on every Heinlein book I have ever read, including his juveniles.

Farnham's Freehold is an even more extreme version of that pattern. What an amazing start! We have the premise of nuclear war and only a few surviving. Shades of the Jericho TV series that was such a blast (no pun intended). But then rather than spend time on the survivors and how they organize the society that remained, Heinlein turns the novel into some weird kind of quest story with someone getting kidnapped and having to be freed or something. It's been many years since I that read it, so details elude me. My takeaway impression was that I had read the first half of one book I loved, and then there was pasted on the second half of a book with different characters I didn't care for at all. So, it fits the pattern: great start--bogged down middle--ending that doesn't work.

If you want to read a more detailed review that compares the two versions so that if you have the wrong one (the 160,000 word one in my opinion), you can decide if it's worth the trouble to get Heinlein's preferred one, here you go: http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/wo...

Editors were the best friends RAH ever had even though he hated them. His first novel For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Customs reads just like his last ones. Very long, preachy, & terrible. He couldn't get it published so it was resurrected by Spider Robinson & Virginia Heinlein. Should have stayed buried, IMO.

He started writing short stories & they might be his very best work. You can find almost all of them in The Past Through Tomorrow & they're well worth the read even if the tech isn't up to today's standards. He still has some great points & twists.

I haven't read the 220K word version & don't intend to. I'm sure it's not worth it. 'Stranger' hasn't aged all that well & didn't have nearly the impact the last time I read it with a group here 5 or 10 years ago. Once he could write what he wanted, he got very wordy & weird - started pushing incest & trying to tie all his stories into one over arching universe. Awful.

I really liked his juveniles & still do. The 'Boy Scout' (honor, responsibility, urge to learn, etc.) theme that runs through them for the main characters is still very good & they inspired me as a kid. They're also a lot of fun. I'm especially partial to The Star Beast, Farmer in the Sky, Tunnel in the Sky, & Have Space Suit—Will Travel.

Thanks Dan. That's really helpful. Apparently the paperback I have is the cut version.

My choice is now to read the one everyone read in the 60s and to have the same experience they had, or to read it as the author intended. While there's a good argument for the former, I'll have to go with the latter.

(Though I admit it is a bit daunting to read an additional 60,000 words in a book that gets "bogged down middle" since there will be so much more middle.)

That review I posted the link from indicates RAH trimmed the 60,000 words from everywhere without changing the plot of his book at all. I think he really managed it too. I have edited some authors' works and trimmed over 20% of their words without really changing anything. Inexperienced authors use way too many words, but even when being overly wordy I think RAH is one of those exceptions who is still worth the read at his wordiest.

I adored RAH as a teen. It was in the last years of the USSR when his books started to appear. It was mindblowing because of the ideas, from generation ships Orphans of the Sky to human sexuality I Will Fear No Evil to anti-statist libertarian ideas The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - these themes haven't been published or discussed. His juveniles were great as well, especially The Star Beast and Podkayne of Mars and Citizen of the Galaxy
I liked RAH so much that despite having most of his books in translation, when ebay started working I bought the whole bunch of his original paperbacks

I just finished listening to The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein. It's a collection of 8 of his short stories. A few are definitely fantasies, but I've always read the rest as SF. Very enjoyable, though. I gave it a 4 star review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Jim wrote: "I just finished listening to The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein...."

Based on the sexual content in some of his stories, that title would be a non-starter for me.

LOL! Well, these are early stories prior to 1970 when he got so weird. I found Waldo & the wireless power really intriguing since it, like half of the stories, were written in the early 40s. 70 years later the same concerns were a focus of the public. He wrote some great stuff.

Citizen of the Galaxy is one of RAH's juveniles published in 1957; one of the best of an excellent batch. I gave it a 4 star review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

RAH's short stories are still great, even when Mars has water in its canals & Venus is steamy. A lot of his stories take common terrestrial human problems & put them out in space. He has a knack for making it seem so real, even pedestrian. I gave The Green Hills of Earth 4 stars in my review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The Menace from Earth, and Other Stories doesn't have as many good stories as The Green Hills of Earth, but a few make the rest worth it. I particularly like the title story. Still, I only gave it a 3 star review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The Star Beast is one of my favorite Heinlein juveniles. In 1954, women had their place, we were adding 'God' to our national sayings, blacks were relegated to minor characters, there was a fierce nationalistic movement, & male WASPs were the perfect heroes. This book was intended for the youth of the time & I grew up reading many of them which pounded these points home. Heinlein manages to spit on them all & more in such an entertaining way. He doesn't confront them, so much as make them too ludicrous to even contemplate & he nicely turns the tables on many assumptions the reader was sure to make.

It's not high art, but very readable & enjoyable even today. Highly recommended. I gave it a 4 star review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Jim wrote: "The Star Beast is one of my favorite Heinlein juveniles."

I fully agree that it is one of his best. I have to re-read it one day

There's a 'new' Heinlein book coming out. Apparently it is a newly discovered, alternate version of The Number of the Beast which diverges at about the 1/3 mark & is 185K words long.
https://www.arcmanormagazines.com/six...

Jim wrote: "There's a 'new' Heinlein book coming out. Apparently it is a newly discovered, alternate version of The Number of the Beast which diverges at about the 1/3 mark & is 185K words long. "

Quite interesting... alas, I'm afraid it is unedited late RAH, and also if the author decided not to publish, it can end-up as fans only book

Eh, The Number of the Beast is probably my least favorite Heinlein book, so I'm not sure I'm going to seek this new version out. I loved Heinlein's books when I was younger. I discovered his "juveniles" when I was 12 or 13. I first started reading his more adult fiction when I was in high school and college and at that time his ideas of the importance of the individual, personal responsibility, education, and mistrust of big government resonated with me. I regularly reread his books over the years and continued to enjoy them, but as time passed much of the impact they had on my younger self faded as I and times changed.

I agree with both of you. I still enjoy rereading his juveniles & a couple of others occasionally, but not anything from 1970 on. I found "Number of the Beast" particularly odious since it confirmed the direction of his writing. It showed how desperate he was to tie all his books together even at the expense of a decent story plus I find the incest scene even worse than those in "Time Enough For Love". After reading it, my wife refused to read any more of his books even though she was a real fan.

I've read "Starship Troopers," The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag," "All You Zombies --" (a collection of short stories), and am maybe a third of the way through "Stranger In A Strange Land."

Having trouble staying engaged to the latter. As much as I admire Heinlein's writing ability, it's a slow pace and I'm not really getting with the premise. I go through a couple pages and then set aside. May end up shelving it, unfortunately.

But he's got a lot more, so maybe the moon / mistress one will be next.

'Stranger' hasn't aged very well & they're now selling a version that has a lot more words in it than the original. Neither helps. I really like his juveniles & short stories. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is also one of my favorites. I'd avoid anything published from 1970 on with a few exceptions.

Jim wrote: "'Stranger' hasn't aged very well & they're now selling a version that has a lot more words in it than the original. Neither helps. I really like his juveniles & short stories. [book:The Moon is a H..."

Interesting. Maybe I bought that long version. It was only a couple months back and via Apple for the phone. I normally kindle them, but this was an exception.

Think I'll switch to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress after a bit, if I can't get more involved in it. Time is short, the older I get.

John, you might find this article interesting.
http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/wo...

RAH complained that they cut 60K words from his original 220K version. Personally, I prefer slimmer versions of his stories. He tends to preach too much.

I think Heinlein is my most-read author, along with Le Guin and Steinbeck, but Goodreads seems to have stopped providing that statistic, so I can't be sure.

I've read most but not all of the Juveniles. Most are enjoyable, good reads. Stranger and Harsh Mistress are perhaps my favorites. He definitely has written some dogs. If I had read some of his later stuff first, I might not have read his good stuff.

The first Heinlein I remember reading was Stranger in a Strange Land. It appealed to me way back then, in my college hippie days. I reread it again not so long ago. My take on it was quite different the second time around, in my dotage.

I think the times have changed so much since then too, Buck. It was bright & shiny back then with a lot of new ideas that are now old hat. Think about the way he portrayed the religion & the ideas of free love. They really crashed against the 50s sensibilities then. Now, we've surpassed them by a long shot.

I looked into Heinlein's earliest work and see that he published two stories in 1939 and eight more works in 1940. The following is what I know about them.

1) "Lifeline" published in the August 1939 edition of Astounding.

2) "Misfit" published in the November 1939 issue of Astounding and available here: https://archive.org/details/Astoundin...

3) "Requiem" published in the January 1940 issue of Astounding and available here: https://archive.org/details/Astoundin...

4) "If This Goes On...," published in the February 1940 issue of Astounding and available here: https://archive.org/details/Astoundin... In 2016, the story won the 1941 Retro-Hugo Award for Best Novella of 1940 at the WorldCon.

5) "Let There Be Light" published in the May 1940 issue of Super Science Stories, using pseudonym Lyle Monroe and available here: https://archive.org/details/Super_Sci...

6) "Heil" published in Arthur C. Clarke's fanzine Futuria Fantasia in the Spring 1940 issue, using pseudonym Lyle Monroe and available here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41651 This story is really short, but still great.

7) "The Roads Must Roll" published in the June 1940 issue of Astounding, available here: https://archive.org/details/Astoundin...
Selected for The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964 anthology in 1970, edited by Silverberg.

8) "Coventry" published in the June 1940 issue of Astounding, available here: https://archive.org/details/Astoundin...

9) "Blowups Happen" published in the September 1940 issue of Astounding.

10) "The Devil Makes the Law" published in the September 1940 issue of Unknown Fantasy Fiction and available here: http://www.unz.com/print/Unknown-1940sep This one is actually called a "novel" by the magazine publishing it. It's slightly longer than #4 above, which is called a novella, and #7, a really long short story.

This last website, listed in #10, actually offers 110 Items / 51 Books, 56 Articles, and 2 Reviews by or about Heinlein. Amazing!

If anyone finds an online copy of #1 or #9 above, can you please let me know?

Excellent, Dan. I think all of these are in The Past Through Tomorrow. I have the original paperback & it's a brick. Newer editions were split into 2 volumes.

You can find "Lifeline" here:
https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0743471...

"Blowups Happen" here:
https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0743471...

If you click on the Contents at the top right side of the page, you'll find a few other stories.

Really appreciate all the insights and reference material here.

Thanks, Jim. I am so glad you knew a way to obtain the other two stories. Now Heinlein's first ten stories are all available for the reading.

I just read and was very impressed with the first story, "Lifeline." It's hard to believe Heinlein wrote it in just four days as he claims. I knew of Heinlein's time in the Navy and his electrical engineering training. What surprised me about the story was how accurately realistic the legal-ese dialogue was. It makes me wonder if Heinlein spent some time in law school.

Not many people bother, since reviews can't be written, but ISFDB.org allows for voting on individual stories. You just have to have signed up to be a member at the site (no charge) to be able to vote. I am one of the two readers who gave Heinlein an 8 (on a 10-point scale) for this particular story.

Dan wrote: "I looked into Heinlein's earliest work..."

Thanks. I read the one in #6. It is a neat idea, especially for the time, and pretty good. Still, it was very short and totally non-subtle. I wonder what a good editor could have done to improve it.

I went ahead and read everything else in that little fanzine. Really cool to see Asimov, Kuttner and Heinlein at such an early stage and without any influence from editors.

Still going forward with Stranger In a Strange land. The writing mechanics are fine and interesting, but I find the plot does not grab.

And not sure what he means by: “His Brother Mahmoud underwent a spiritual agony five times daily and not only did not die but had urged the agony on him as a needful thing.”

Excerpt From
Stranger in a Strange Land
Robert A. Heinlein
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/stra...
This material may be protected by copyright.

John wrote: "And not sure what he means by: “His Brother Mahmoud underwent a spiritual agony five times daily and not only did not die but had urged the agony on him as a needful thing.”"

From what I recall (I may err!) this means that Mahmoud, who is a Muslim has confessed his 'sins' (chiefly drinking alcohol at that point of the book) in each prayer and has a spiritual shame during each salat time

That's the way I recall it, Oleksandr. RAH made fun of religion throughout the book.

Ah, makes sense now, thanks.

I got this in my email today from Arc Manor / Phoenix Pick.

As many of you are aware we are publishing a previously unpublished novel by Robert A. Heinlein now titled The Pursuit of the Pankera. This is the manuscript he wrote in 1977 which he then shelved and wrote The Number of the Beast.

We keep getting asked if this is just an earlier draft of The Number of the Beast and if so, why are we calling it a new novel.

Here is why. It is a different book. Of the 187,000 words in the new book, it shares the first 28,000. But then is totally different. The separation occurs in chapter XVIII and here is a side by side comparison of the chapters in the two books with the point of divergence clearly marked.
http://www.arcmanor.com/as/Comparison...

An FB friend alerted me of two Heinlein novels that were converted to graphic novel format: Have Space Suit Will Travel Graphic Novel and Robert Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy.

Those are both great books. "Number of the Beast" was the one that made me really question RAH's sanity.

Jim wrote: " "Number of the Beast" was the one that made me really question RAH's sanity."

It sounds very interesting to me. But I'll wait to find out what people think of "The Pursuit of the Pankera" before deciding which one to put on my to-read list.

"Crazy" wasn't the right word. "Lost it" would be a better description of my feelings on reading The Number of the Beast. The signs of his obsession & perversions were there & obvious in retrospect, but no one I knew took I Will Fear No Evil too seriously. It was bad, but we considered it a blip since the man had almost died & was in a hurry to publish.

Time Enough for Love had a lot of good adventure, so the long preaching & Lazarus sleeping with his mother could be ignored, ditto with his clone children/sisters. But The Number of the Beast was a decade after his brush with death & it was even worse than I Will Fear No Evil. The incest scene stands out like a sore thumb. It's completely needless & it was obvious he was going to try to tie his 'future history' together. Yuck to both, a common reaction among every one else I talked to at the time.

I had some hope that he was coming back on track with Friday, but then he wrote Job: A Comedy of Justice & followed it with The Cat Who Walks Through Walls which I, a huge fan, could barely skim my way through. My wife didn't even try nor did most of my friends.

I guess some people like it since he's still fairly popular, but I didn't even care for Stranger in a Strange Land much the last time I read it. I never liked the second half of Glory Road & even The Door Into Summer got spoiled by his later books. Dan's love interest with Ricky went from weird, but kind of sweet to plain creepy. Even my favorite book of his, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, has suffered. Ludmilla & Mimi both became creepy as Manny's wives. Before reading his later works, I could fool myself into thinking he was just stretching custom for the purposes of the story.