# Heinlein question -- "Gulf" & "Friday" (open spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 19, 2010, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715 "2010-10-19T23:30:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/21 "2015-03-18T17:24:16Z")
> [@MIchelleRose](#): > > I stumbled onto this thread via reading critiques of Heinlein’s work. This Google listing looked interesting, I clicked on it and here I am, a “guest” and probationary member. Howdy, everyone. Howdy. There are a few very knowledgeable Heinlein aficionados here, amid the more generally interested. > [@](#): > > There is my analysis. \*Friday \*is really a very good book, although certainly not Heinlein’s best. Another interesting thread would be to discuss what might be Heinlein’s best work, either long or short form and _why_. \*Friday \*is one of Heinlein’s best half-books, IMHO. The first half is old-school, ass-kicking, mind-bending, assumption-smashing stuff. Everything after… about the point she leaves Georges and gets on the riverboat is more… “now what did I come in here for?” ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/22 "2015-03-18T17:56:17Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I am curious about the “other four sentient species” on the planet, since my number is zero. Oooh, let me try! OK…dolphins, obviously, but of course that’s a dozen or more species. Then elephants, although again that’s actually two species. Then African Gray Parrots. Then [New Caledonia Crows](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Caledonian_crow). But heck, can’t we just throw in chimps, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans, as long as we’re counting parrots and elephants? And what about humpback whales? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/23 "2015-03-18T18:08:25Z")
I’d bet he meant dolphins, whales, great apes and elephants. Unless he was ‘making strange’ and we’ve all missed a reference to _khauga_ let loose on earth. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/24 "2015-03-18T19:13:42Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Exactly. Science fiction writers are _writers_, not scientists. Their job isn’t to invent - it’s to tell a good story. Science fiction writers are inventors in the same way that a guy spraying the wall of a rifle range with machine gun fire is a sharpshooter. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/25 "2015-03-18T19:16:51Z")
BTW, “Gulf” is a part of the famous Nov. 1949 [prophecy issue of Astounding](http://www.andrew-may.com/asf/prophecy.htm) - so Heinlein was not responsible for the title. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/26 "2015-03-18T20:11:14Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Science fiction writers are inventors in the same way that a guy spraying the wall of a rifle range with machine gun fire is a sharpshooter. Machine guns have their uses, same as sniper rifles. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/27 "2015-03-18T20:20:39Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > BTW, “Gulf” is a part of the famous Nov. 1949 [prophecy issue of Astounding](http://www.andrew-may.com/asf/prophecy.htm) - so Heinlein was not responsible for the title. The title “Gulf,” however, is the big bang that led to _Stranger_. Eeeee…vennnnn…chooooo…alllllyyyy. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/28 "2015-03-18T22:03:41Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Exapno Mapcase** : > > The mass driver is derived from the railgun, invented in 1918. Nitpick: Mass drivers are usually described as coilguns, not railguns. Both are forms of electromagnetic propulsion, but they’re very different beyond that. A coilgun accelerates a ferromagnetic projectile by turning separate electromagnets on and off in sequence. A railgun accelerates a conductive projectile which completes a circuit between two long conductive rails with a high voltage maintained between them. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/29 "2015-03-18T22:07:55Z")
> [@MIchelleRose](#): > > There is my analysis. \*Friday \*is really a very good book, although certainly not Heinlein’s best. Another interesting thread would be to discuss what might be Heinlein’s best work, either long or short form and _why_. > > I believe the Grandmaster would be pleased. Nice post and welcome to the Dope. I suspect that _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ would be the pick for his best work but that it would not be by a majority. It would make a good thread. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/30 "2015-03-18T22:16:00Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > I believe that’s one of those stories that causes nerdrage in linguists, but if you’re ready to overlook that, people who’ve read it seem to like it. He goes into quite a few long talky passages about stuff, which slow it down quite a bit. At it’s heart it’s a great story, but poorly edited. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/31 "2015-03-19T00:11:07Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Nitpick: Mass drivers are usually described as coilguns, not railguns. Both are forms of electromagnetic propulsion, but they’re very different beyond that. A coilgun accelerates a ferromagnetic projectile by turning separate electromagnets on and off in sequence. A railgun accelerates a conductive projectile which completes a circuit between two long conductive rails with a high voltage maintained between them. OK. I don’t remember the set-up in TMIAHM to know if the difference between them is meaningful to the story. I’ll accept whatever you experts say. Note that the cite about the Northrup book uses the words coil guns. But coilguns were also around even before Northrup, let alone Heinlein. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/32 "2015-03-19T00:12:59Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Machine guns have their uses, same as sniper rifles. And so does science fiction. (Or I wouldn’t have so damned many books.) It’s just that there is a small probability that any particular bullet is going to hit the target. ---
**Author:** ![MIchelleRose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19b73/32.png) [@MIchelleRose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MIchelleRose)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/33 "2015-03-19T00:14:26Z")
> [@Fenris](#): > > He was beaten by about 40 years for this one by Murry Leinster’s “A Logic Named Joe”, which not only predicts that, but had detailed descriptions of the internet including spam and porn filters, age restricted areas, etc. Interesting. I’m a fan of Leinster, too. \*The Wailing Asteroid \*is a pretty spooky novel and “First Contact” is one of the first and best First Contact short stories. He also did a ton of novelizations of various SF shows as I recall. (_Land of the Giants_). But I’ve never read that one. Thanks for pointing it out to me. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/34 "2015-03-19T00:15:47Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > Nice post and welcome to the Dope. > > I suspect that _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ would be the pick for his best work but that it would not be by a majority. It would make a good thread. [It did.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=630497&highlight=Heinlein+favorite) ---
**Author:** ![MIchelleRose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19b73/32.png) [@MIchelleRose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MIchelleRose)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/35 "2015-03-19T00:32:29Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Article on [Korzybski and science fiction writers](http://io9.com/the-eccentric-polish-count-who-influenced-classic-sfs-g-1631001935). The first paragraph is not just “probably wrong” but complete nonsense, but it’s irrelevant. What’s true is that SF writers of the Golden Age had minds so open that people could pour large amounts of garbage into them. > > Heinlein himself wrote that he took the concept of waldoes from an article in Popular Mechanics, so he could hardly have invented them. Patents for water beds existed decades before Heinlein’s description of them, although his more closely resemble modern ones. > > The mass driver is derived from the railgun, invented in 1918. Heinlein was probably influenced by a work written in 1937. > > I find claims that science fiction writers invented everything ever to be embarrassing. SF writers of the past got their ideas exactly like SF writers today: they read articles, books, magazines, newspapers, conference proceedings, and every other form of communication and gleaned ideas out of the chaff. That’s interesting and valuable, and placing them in scenarios not only spark imaginations but offer possibilities not obvious in technical works. But they invent little to nothing. The only reason people think so is that they never go back and look for the originals. > > This is a general peeve of mine, MIchelleRose, and you’re just stepping in front of the blast. Nothing personal. I am curious about the “other four sentient species” on the planet, since my number is zero. Well, no need to apologize for a rant. It’s like a sneeze or vomiting: you just \*have \*to do it and damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. As for my claiming that science-fiction writers are responsible for inventing _everything_, that’s a bit of a sweeping generalization. I made no such claim, only that Heinlein had invented those items I cited. Yes, like most well-trained engineers, Heinlein incorporated much of existing tech into his own ideas. It might be said that no inventor is solely responsible for any invention (Hmm, Tesla might be an exception) because all inventors necessarily build upon existing tech in some fashion. I will point out–and I find it interesting that no one else has mentioned this–that Heinlein was hired by the War Department (now the DoD), along with L. Sprague De Camp and others, to develop new technology related to the field of ballistics during WWII. (one of Heinlein’s specialties) The project was never declassified, for reasons never specified and Heinlein refused to discuss the details. We may never know what the project was, but we do know that the United States government felt that he was competent enough to be part of an engineering design team. We might conclude, therefore, that he was much more than a “mere” storyteller. I apologize for my apparent hero-worship of the man. I did indeed admire him greatly, even though I loathed his politics and his reinforcement of the “Competent Man” myth. I would like to point out that he was quite an advanced thinker and that his ideas and stories still hold up very well today. But, as I said, he was just a man and certainly not a super-genius, only a very talented novelist and highly competent mathematician and engineer. ---
**Author:** ![MIchelleRose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19b73/32.png) [@MIchelleRose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MIchelleRose)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/36 "2015-03-19T00:55:24Z")
> [@MIchelleRose](#): > > Interesting. I’m a fan of Leinster, too. \*The Wailing Asteroid \*is a pretty spooky novel and “First Contact” is one of the first and best First Contact short stories. He also did a ton of novelizations of various SF shows as I recall. (_Land of the Giants_). > > But I’ve never read that one. Thanks for pointing it out to me. … ---
**Author:** ![MIchelleRose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19b73/32.png) [@MIchelleRose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MIchelleRose)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/37 "2015-03-19T01:06:20Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > Nice post and welcome to the Dope. > > I suspect that _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ would be the pick for his best work but that it would not be by a majority. It would make a good thread. I tend to agree. _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ might be considered one of his top three novels, along with _Glory Road_ and _Citizen of the Galaxy_, a book which is sometimes considered one of his juvenile novels, when in fact there is absolutely nothing juvenile about it; neither the subject matter, the plot nor the social implications woven into it. _Stranger in a Strange Land_ is often cited as his “best.” I disagree. Even when he performed the cuts and necessary editing demanded by the publisher for the first edition, it’s still too long by half and lacks much of the interplay of dialogue for which he was justifiably famous. It preaches, it has huge chunks of clunky exposition, it drags, it fails to establish place and setting in a comprehensible fashion and focuses far too much on sexual adventures when it could have told us more with much less. It’s also weirdly anachronistic: the social milieu is oddly Fifties and the tech rather clumsy and not well-considered in terms of the economic structure. Poverty is all but ignored and that’s unusual for a Heinlein novel. I read somewhere that someone had purchased the movie rights option on _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_. I’d pay good money to see it if a competent writing team did the screenplay and it was actually produced. But I know for a fact that Tom Hanks currently owns the option on \*Stranger \*and I would avoid that particular flick like the Ebola virus. I once fantasized about filming _Glory Road_. Harrison Ford as Oscar, Dyan Cannon as Star and Richard Dreyfuss as Rufo. (sigh) T’would have been a grand romp… ---
**Author:** ![MIchelleRose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19b73/32.png) [@MIchelleRose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MIchelleRose)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/38 "2015-03-19T01:38:14Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I’d bet he meant dolphins, whales, great apes and elephants. Unless he was ‘making strange’ and we’ve all missed a reference to _khauga_ let loose on earth. You are correct, sir, although rather off-target regarding my gender. Dolphins, whales, great apes and elephants can all recognize themselves in a mirror. So can octopi. Chimps too, although they are so closely related to us, their sentience is unsurprising. Sentience is a function of self-awareness and awareness of other species. With the exception of the great apes–and any other primate species–all the creatures I cited have brains larger than humans. I might also point out that, in all the many years mankind has interacted with dolphins (porpoises, actually), there has never been even \*one \*verified attack on a human by a porpoise. That alone should tell us something. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/39 "2015-03-19T02:23:24Z")
I find it odd that the SF community seems to totally ignore Paul Malmont’s novel [The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown](http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/07/stranger-in-a-strange-blog). And yet it’s about Heinlein, Asimov, and De Camp (and L. Ron Hubbard and Cleve Cartmill and John W. Campbell and a few others) at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard’s Naval Air Experimental Station during WWII. Like pretty much everybody else, I think the book isn’t as good as Malmont’s earlier _The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril_, starring a bunch of top pulp writers (and L. Ron Hubbard), but what has that to do with reality? The book is about Heinlein and Asimov and the Philadelphia Experiment. It should have been catnip. But it was published outside the field, meaning outside the community, and that covers it with mainstream cooties (worse than the infamous [girl cooties](http://www.teleread.com/chris-meadows/sf-writer-paul-cook-warns-of-science-fictions-infection-by-girl-cooties/)). Malmont’s name is mentioned exactly four times on the SDMB, not one of which was in an sf-related thread. So this is the first such. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715/40 "2015-03-19T02:29:14Z")
> [@MIchelleRose](#): > > I might also point out that, in all the many years mankind has interacted with dolphins (porpoises, actually), there has never been even \*one \*verified attack on a human by a porpoise. That alone should tell us something. [That is not true.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin#Attacks_on_humans) At least, not WRT dolphins, don’t know about porpoises. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heinlein-question-gulf-friday-open-spoilers/557715.md?page=3)