# Just Read My First Heinlein! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 22, 2011, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-read-my-first-heinlein/568532 "2011-01-22T02:40:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-read-my-first-heinlein/568532/21 "2011-01-23T02:26:39Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > Asimov is best in his short stories, to my thinking. I find his novels to be a little tiresome. _Foundation_ is the big exception, of course, but it almost reads as a collection of related shorts. That’s because that’s how it was written. [Foundation (novel series) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_series#Publication_history) > [@](#): > > _Foundation_ was originally a series of eight short stories published in Astounding Magazine between May 1942 and January 1950. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-read-my-first-heinlein/568532/22 "2011-01-23T04:43:23Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > I just started dabbling in some Asimov as well. I picked up a collection of his short stories and while I like most of them, some of them are _really_ short…like two pages! I’m not a huge fan of Asimov’s fiction even though I’ve read bushel’s of his non-fiction. I would suggest _The Caves of Steel_ though. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-read-my-first-heinlein/568532/23 "2011-01-23T05:38:07Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’ve heard it suggested that _Number of the Beast_ was written deliberately bad, as an object lesson in all the things not to do when writing a story. Frighteningly, this is actually plausible. I read it when it was first published. I just kinda assumed that the old coot’s crackers had finally snapped. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-read-my-first-heinlein/568532/24 "2011-01-23T09:16:51Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > I read it when it was first published. I just kinda assumed that the old coot’s crackers had finally snapped. When I read it my first thought was that there was a book contract he was trying to get out of (well, actually, my first thought was “This is crap”, but you know what I mean), but I’ve heard the “Deliberately written badly as a joke or exercise in how not to write a novel” thing and and I still have to say I’m unconvinced. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-read-my-first-heinlein/568532/25 "2011-01-23T15:24:21Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > When I read it my first thought was that there was a book contract he was trying to get out of (well, actually, my first thought was “This is crap”, but you know what I mean), but I’ve heard the “Deliberately written badly as a joke or exercise in how not to write a novel” thing and and I still have to say I’m unconvinced. My second thought (after the obligatory “this is crap”) was similar: that he hated the publisher and decided to gather every bad space opera / pulp fiction cliché he could think of, toss them in a blender, and hit “mangle.” I later learned that he was suffering from reduced flow to his brain, which seems a more likely explanation. Whatever the cause, it’s a desperately bad book. (David Gerrold did something similar in one of his books on the original _Star Trek_: he assembled every bad plot device that had been used and built an episode outline from them. As you might expect, the crisis was resolved by Spock driving an intelligent computer crazy with illogic.) ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-read-my-first-heinlein/568532/26 "2011-01-23T17:21:16Z")
No love for\* Farnham’s Freehold\*? I rank that one up there with his best stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-read-my-first-heinlein/568532/27 "2011-01-23T18:03:35Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > No love for\* Farnham’s Freehold\*? I rank that one up there with his best stuff. **FoieGrasIsEvil** is a _new_ Heinlein reader. If you give her that one she may drop the whole reading Heinlein idea for good. I found it to be a depressing work that tried to address too many societal issues in one story. I found it too dark and stack it in the very small pile of his works that I will not pick up again. It is complex and if you like it, well, tastes vary, but a new reader might be better off postponing that one until after some of the more optimistic works. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-read-my-first-heinlein/568532/28 "2011-01-23T23:40:11Z")
Sorry, **Oak**. _Farnham’s Freehold_ is third-rate at best. Right down there with \*Sixth Column. \*Not quite as bad as _I Will Fear No Evil_, but close. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-read-my-first-heinlein/568532/29 "2011-01-24T16:42:25Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > I’m an avid reader, I just never happened to read Heinlein until recently. I checked out\* A Heinlein Trio\* and just finished it…and it was awesome! > > The stories in that book are _The Puppet Masters, Double Star_ and _The Door Into Summer._ What a coincidence for this to be the first Heinlein you’ve read, because it was my first Heinlein that I ever read as well–nearly 30 years ago, when I was just 13 years old. I was given a gift subscription to the “Science Fiction Book Club” and this book with its collection of three stories was in the initial order I received. Interestingly enough, I was just thinking about this collection this morning, and wondering if it were too dated for my teenaged son to enjoy, especially _The Door Into Summer_, which, though it’s one of my favorite stories, was very dated even in 1981. I would think it would be even more dated today following the advances in PCs over the last few decades. What did you think, **FoieGrasIsEvil**? For my son’s birthday a few weeks ago, I instead picked him up a copy of _Starship Troopers_, but he hasn’t started it yet. I’d recommend that you as well, along with _Stranger in a Strange Land_ and _Glory Road_. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-read-my-first-heinlein/568532/30 "2011-01-24T17:34:43Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Thanks guys! I have a lot of work to do, it seems! > > And for the poster that mentioned the potential stumbling block with some of the science being dated in some of the stories, eh, it doesn’t bother me. I’m just over 40 years old now so I can suspend my disbelief pretty well. In fact, like Martini Enfield suggests, I do tend to place it in some hokey other-verse in my mind as I read it. Check out S M Stirling’s alternate solar system. Only two books so far: _The Sky People_ is set on steamy Venus, where cosmonauts & astronauts found humans, pre-humans, pterodactyls & sabre tooth cats. Followed by _In The Courts of the Crimson King_: Mars, of course. From the acknowledgements in the first book, found [here](http://www.smstirling.com/) (along with sample chapters): > [@](#): > > Thanks to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leigh Brackett, Otis Adelbert Kline, Leinster, Heinlein, and to all the other great pulpsters for gracing my childhood with John Carter, Northwest Smith, “Wrong-Way” Carson of Venus, and all the heroes gifted with a better solar system than the one we turned out to inhabit. From the jungles of Venus and the Grand Canal of Marsopolis, I salute you! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-read-my-first-heinlein/568532.md?page=1)