Heinlein

[VanceG]

Time enough for love would not be my first of fifth choice I guess. That said it is a very good story but he spun an awful lot of good yarns in his self stated determination to "never do honest work again!" He described honest work as an idiot on one end of a stick and some tool on the other being manipulated. The only Science Fiction book on the Commandant of the U.S Naval Academy is Starship troopers and that is in my top five if not the top. The next to come to mind is probably The moon is a harsh mistress. Not for the socialists in the audience. Glory Road is a great read that happened when someone challenged him to write a sword and sorcery and admirably fills that niche. He invented waterbeds in Stranger in a strange land which you had to "grok" when I was in college. So many choices for the fifth in my list and it might as well be your first. I have most of his titles buried in my thousands of paperbacks. Books are sacred and can't be thrown away sadly. I am now giving away boxes to homebound old folks. Let them throw them away but I can't! Heinlein was deficient in only mentioning bees and beekeeping in one of his books, that being Farmer in the sky where people were keeping bees on a terraformed Ganymede, one of the moons of Saturn I believe. Wow! I can't remember my obligations for the oncoming week but this totally useless information just spools out!

It was 57 F today here and the wind velocity the same. Hope my wraps stayed put.

[Allen Dick]

My memory of Heinlein's books is quite dim. I have not read one for over forty years. I remember this one for his predictions of sex changes becoming routine and for other such insights. I'm wondering, though, about his character development and wonder if I will find his writing two-dimensional like so much narrative fiction after all these years.

I spent the afternoon in the shop cutting up smoker fuel and listening to how the Greeks stole all their ideas from the Egyptians. http://www.audible.com/pd/Nonfiction/Th ... B00LXFDDDW

There is nothing like studying ancient history to make a person wonder...

(Biting my tongue)

[VanceG]

It wasn't so much a sex change as a male brain in a dying body was transplanted into the body of a freshly murdered woman. It was a sex change in that regards. I imagine it has only been thirty years since reading for me and I have no idea how it would hold up to scrutiny currently in our more jaded era. Why can't I remember useful things? The Greeks got it from the Minoans who got it from the Egyptians in my studies. but I just wasn't there!

[Allen Dick]

I couldn't recall. What i did recall is that he did not think that men and women are sufficiently different in mind that there would be a crisis. I thought that he or someone went back and forth or predicted it would happen. Seemed curious to me at the time.

I have 23+ hours to reacquaint myself with the book. We'll see how I do. Will I make it through? Cheer for me.

[Charlie]

I think I would have to rank "Citizen of the Galaxy" near the top. I think I can safely say ROBERT A. HEINLEIN's books never made a person think very much but he spun a very good story for passing the time. I think I can also add his earlier books were much better reading than his later books. "The cat who walks through walls" left me wondering what was going through his head.

I may have to go find his books and find some time to read a couple.

[VanceG]

A friend and I had a theory that after he was in his dotage, the cleaning lady would come in at night and set down at his typewriter and the results were a dozen or so of his later books. I have always called them the cleaning lady books. One of his best works was entitled Spinoffs. It was basically his testimony before the congress on how the space program had concrete benefits for the country. Some time before he did this work he had his carotid arteries reamed out by cutting edge new technology and returned more normal blood flow to his brain! But there is a reason most authors do their best work before there sixties. I disagree with his best stories being mere entertainment. He had a clarion clear message and it was pretty prophetic. He just had the phase we are in now dated as in the nineties when he thought society we would be deteriorated to where it is now.

[Charlie]

by VanceG » Sat Nov 14, 2015 4:43 pm
I disagree with his best stories being mere entertainment. He had a clarion clear message and it was pretty prophetic.

I did read most of his works in my late teens and very early 20s and I will admit I was very limited in how much of the world I wanted to see. After all most people in the 70s didn't see much past the next party. But your comments do give me pause to go read his works again, after all winter is coming and I can't play with bees.

Just maybe I'm old enough and hopefully wise enough to be able to see what he was getting at.

[Allen Dick]

Well, I am now two hours in to Time Enough for Love and I'm not disappointed. The book, so far at least is mostly just dialogue. Maybe the whole thing is.

I don't recall, but I find it interesting that he is saying things I often say like, "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity".

In the first two hours, I noted at least three or four such aphorisms I use myself, and I wonder if that is where I developed some of my thoughts about humanity and the universe -- a fictitious interview with a fictitious Lazarus Long!

[VanceG]

Heinlein was big into Occams razor and I thought by your earlier reference to it, that you were pretty well versed in his mythology.

One story he related stuck with me. His wife was a brilliant mathematician and he was no slouch. When he tossed off in his books the math required for a trip to Jupiter, the math worked. A young smart ass once said to him, Big deal and pulled out his pocket calculator and waved it in his face. Heinlein pointed out to him that in the fifties when he had made that story there were no computers a medically retired naval officer writing juvenile science fiction for a living had access to. the calculations apparently were made on rolls of butcherpaper rolled out across the floor.