# Identify this Heinlein(?) story **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 21, 2014, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-heinlein-story/691289 "2014-06-21T13:58:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [June 21, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-heinlein-story/691289/21 "2014-06-21T21:30:43Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > According to the isfdb link, “Clancy O’Brien” is a pseudonym for George H. Smith, not to be confused with George O. Smith, or other George Smiths. I haven’t read anything by him, but I see that he wrote a nonfiction work in 1968: “Who is Ronald Reagan?” > > I can’t help but reflect on that title and a story about how awful hippies are being written by the same guy. Holy Mother of Pearl! The guy also wrote [Sexodus](http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/8/83/SXDSVBWWMB1963.jpg)! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-heinlein-story/691289/22 "2014-06-21T21:43:10Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > Well, there was that wacky series of movies in the sixties about the house pets taking over the planet… > > It doesn’t even sound like science fiction. IMHO, fiction isn’t\* science fiction\* simply because the storyline is set in a time period future to the one it was written in. My mom was heavily into Lawrence Sanders about 30 years ago; I read some of his books when she was done with them. He wrote mostly crime stories, but my favorite one was one that was set only slightly in the future, about a bunch of feminazis who form a domestic terrorist group. But it wasn’t science fiction, even though it was set a decade or so after it was written. Of course it is – it’s a prediction of the future, it’s political-social SF. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-heinlein-story/691289/23 "2014-06-21T22:56:52Z")
Err…OK—sorta agree. But where does the ‘science’ part come in? Are you saying it’s ‘social science’ fiction? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-heinlein-story/691289/24 "2014-06-22T00:20:32Z")
Science fiction has little to do with science – Asimov himself agreed that there was no science in science fiction. “Science fiction” describes a certain genre (sometimes literary, sometimes a marketing category) that deals with humans in fantastic situations (i.e., ones that don’t exist, and never existed). It may have a scientific background, or it may get the science all wrong, or the scientific reality may have nothing at all to do with the story. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-heinlein-story/691289/25 "2015-05-25T20:47:46Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > This is “Generation Gaps” by Clancy O’Brien [Title: Generation Gaps](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1030412) (published in 1972) As of this weekend’s convention, I am now the proud owner of a copy of the issue of Analog that contains this story. ---
**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:** [May 26, 2015, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-heinlein-story/691289/26 "2015-05-26T00:51:51Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > For one thing, nobody knew about the Hippies in the “mid” 1960s. I’d think most adults were first introduced to them by \*Life \*magazine in the Summer of Love. Hippies and anarchy wouldn’t have been connected by anybody until maybe alter Altamont in late 1969. I think Chicago in 1968 would be a good place where this association was made. Yippies not hippies I know, but people didn’t really get the difference. Woodstock was anarchy in a good way. And I’ve never heard Altamont particularly associated with hippies - the Hells Angels were the bad guys there. The story though sounds like something Campbell bought. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-heinlein-story/691289.md?page=1)