But, that points up another of Heinlein’s moral blind spots. In real life, sometimes the spoiled brat wins. What’s more, in real life, sometimes the spoiled brat deserves to win, or at least thrive. And Heinlein was fundamentally incapable of seeing that. His moral sensibility has been described (I forget where) as “wolfish,” and that description holds true despite all the points at where his deep compassion bubbles (anomylously) to the surface.
Almost nothing in SF has ever struck me as more sour and waspish and ill-natured and disgusting than Heinlein’s treatment of Clyde Leamer, the self-important but impractical “educated” colonist on New Beginnings in Time Enough for Love --unless it was his treatment of the young man in The Cat Who Walks through Walls, who is described as having “the socialist disease in its worst form; he thinks the worlds owes him a living!” (when the young man’s worst sin in that regard is approval of universal health care); or the wife/passenger in Farmer In the Sky who kept demanding her husband Joseph talk to the captain to arrange things for her better comfort. (At the end of that scene, husband and wife have disembarked from the spaceship prior to takeoff, with the clear implication that both of them will die of starvation while the Ganymede colonists are surviving.) Heinlein had a certain kind of military man’s impatience with, even contempt for, civilians, and a shockingly callous acceptance that what Nietzsche called “the botched and the bungled” inevitably will and should be brutally culled from the gene pool. Consider this passage from Friday (Friday has been assigned by her Boss to evaluate the credibility of conspiracy theories WRT historical outbreaks of the bubonic plague, but only with a view to tilting her mind towards evaluating the timing and location of future outbreaks):
Almost as morally blind (but in the opposite direction) as that monstrous non-saint Mother Theresa.
Heinlein, as a literary figure, points up all that is very good and all that is utterly and unforgivably bad about libertarianism. (Unlike Ayn Rand and L. Neil Smith, who serve to point up only what is bad about it.)
But, that points up another of Heinlein’s moral blind spots. In real life, sometimes the spoiled brat wins. What’s more, in real life, sometimes the spoiled brat deserves to win, or at least thrive. And Heinlein was fundamentally incapable of seeing that. His moral sensibility has been described (I forget where) as “wolfish,” and that description holds true despite all the points at where his deep compassion bubbles (sometimes anomylously) to the surface.
Almost nothing in SF has ever struck me as more sour and waspish and ill-natured and disgusting than Heinlein’s treatment of Clyde Leamer, the self-important but impractical “educated” colonist on New Beginnings in Time Enough for Love --unless it was his treatment of the young man in The Cat Who Walks through Walls, who is described as having “the socialist disease in its worst form; he thinks the worlds owes him a living!” (when the young man’s very worst sin in that regard is approval of universal health care!); or the wife/passenger in Farmer In the Sky who kept demanding her husband Joseph talk to the captain to arrange things for her better comfort. (At the end of that scene, husband and wife have disembarked from the spaceship prior to takeoff, with the clear implication that both of them will die of starvation while the Ganymede colonists are surviving.) Heinlein had a certain kind of military man’s impatience with, even contempt for, civilians, and a shockingly callous acceptance that what Nietzsche called “the botched and the bungled” inevitably will and should be brutally culled from the gene pool. Consider this passage from Friday (Friday has been assigned by her Boss to evaluate the credibility of conspiracy theories WRT historical outbreaks of the bubonic plague, but only with a view to tilting her mind towards evaluating the timing and location of future outbreaks):
Almost as morally blind (but in the opposite direction) as that monstrous non-saint Mother Theresa.
Heinlein, as a literary figure, points up all that is very good and all that is utterly and unforgivably bad about libertarianism. (Unlike Ayn Rand and L. Neil Smith, who serve to point up only what is bad about it.)
In real life, perhaps, but I prefer my literature a bit more idealized. In the short term, the brats might get ahead, but in the long term, they oughtn’t. And I prefer literature where things happen as they ought to: If I wanted reality, I’d get a window, not a book.
My favorite Heinlein books: Starship Troopers, Time for the Stars, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Star Beast, Double Star, Space Cadet, Have Spacesuit - Will Travel, Double Star, The Puppet Masters. I’m soon going to introduce my son, age 9, to Heinlein - probably start out with Have Spacesuit - Will Travel. I have a feeling he’s gonna like it.
I have to admit, I actually liked Sixth Column - a guilty pleasure, despite its underlying racism and Cold War paranoia.
Eh, I don’t think *Sixth Column * is racist, although the original maunuscript Campbell gave to Heinlein certainly was. Sure, some of the characters express racist attitudes, but Heinlein doesn’t endorse them, he carefully included an asian good guy, and so forth. And paranoia maybe, but it wasn’t Cold War paranoia, because the novel was originally serialized in 1941, before the US even entered WWII. Sixth Column has the US staying out of WWII, Europe destroying itself, and PanAsia taking over everything else.
As they used to say in Alberta: “Is nothing SoCred any more?”
Heinlein had a number of crackpot obsessions, including Social Credit (the very early Heinlein), General Semantics, and the Bridey Murphy reincarnation case.
You sort of have to roll your eyes, mutter “There he goes again”, and move on.
I agree that his later works - more or less from “Number of the Beast” on, were total messes from a plot point of view. You don’t read those for the story, you read them for the Heinlein flavor.
I seem to recall one of the characters in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress explaining the plural marriage thing by saying something like, “All our customs are Earth customs because that’s where we’re from, but Terra is so big that custom from, say, Micronesia might seem exotic to someone from North America.” (I’m paraphrasing.) In other words, they took an idea that’s rare most places because it’s unnecessary and made it work in a place where it IS necessary. (In another spot, Prof says something about plural marriage being an excellent method of conserving family capital and ensuring the welfare of children in a society where there is NO official provision for either.)
But in Heinlein’s story, the outbound twin is not traveling at constant speed. They are traveling at constant acceleration. That is why the telepathic link is getting severed - it is not physical distance that is the problem.
To your way of thinking, the outbound twin does not have one reference frame or two reference frames, but an infinite number of reference frames that are slightly different, as he accelerates. Or you can say he is in a non-inertial reference frame, and that is why he is the preferred twin.
…and what’s makes it even more slimy is when one of Heinlein’s Sage Old Men are present spouting philosophy while the little girls swoon.
I don’t bother trying to keep his books after Moon Is A Harsh Mistress separate in my mind. The last one I slogged through had two barely pubescent twin girls who just loved flirting with a Sage Old Man, who I couldn;t help but view as a Heinlein stand in.
I think a lot of his later books were written mostly to keep himself sexually aroused. There’s not much there for the reader except to the extent he shares Bob’s obsessions.
IIRC, the barely-pubescent twin girls are the Sage Old Man’s daughters, as well. Ick.
I like the books anyway, I just can’t let myself think too deeply about them.
For several years, I searched libraries for a copy of Farnham’s Freehold. When I finally read it, it was awful, the absolute worst Heinlein I had read to date.
Yes, but I don’t think there has ever been any society that practiced plural marriage of the various sorts described in TMIAHM aside from polygyny and very rarely polyandry. If it was really a workable solution then we’d expect to see it crop up every now and then when conditions favored it. But it doesn’t.
Not precisely. They’re clones of his, with the Y chromosone removed and the X doubled. While they’re seducing him, they make the argument that because they’re his clones, sex with them is masturbation, not incest.
Please don’t ask me how I remember that… I’m wondering myself.
And what prompted the 2+ years resurrection of this thread, incidentally?
Well, kind of, Lemur. ‘TDIS’ has a main character with an unhealthy attachment to a young girl. More ebophilia than incest, but still, as a family friend and uncle figure… At the end he admits all his time travel hi-jinks are just so they can be together.
I’ve recently picked up Stranger in a Strange Land. This is my very first Heinlein novel and I’m about halfway or so through it. So far, I’m conflicted.
On one hand, I can clearly see that he was a groundbreaker in academic scifi. Yet, I find myself unimpressed with his…should I call it ‘writing style’ or ‘storytelling skills’? Both, I suppose. I find the book dry and two dimensional. For a story that is entirely about human interactions and cultural discovery, there seems to be a definite lack of feeling and depth. In my opinion, anyway.
So I’m conflicted about him as a writer. I’ll probably complete this and try one more of his works (…Recommendations, anyone?) before I really make up my mind.
In the meantime, I’m curious how you guys feel about him. I would appreciate different perspectives in this thread, not just about Stranger in a Strange Land, but about his general body of work.
Depends, many people would tell you to start with one of his juveniles - perhaps farmer in the sky, though my absolute personal favorite is Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Dont bother with Friday, Job … pretty much his last few books.
The problem with Heinlein is he was VERY much a product of WW2 and the Cold War, and its overall outlook. Some of his novels are very gloomy and nihilistic.