On Re-reading all of Robert Heinlein via The Virginia Edition

Cafe Society
81

I’m not sure that’s true, NitroPress. The note in the book says that it was submitted to A&C with the studio’s condition that it couldn’t be shopped to any other comedy duo. That at least implies that the studio accepted it for consideration.

And Poly? I’m not prepared to make that judgement yes based on the readings of this project. Once I get a little further into the reading I’ll make that call. But at the moment I’ve read one early juvenile, Between Planets, one later juvenile, Citizen of the Galaxy, and one adult novel, Starship Troopers…along with some short stories and a political screed. Give it time.

Good to hear from you, by the way.

82

Following this with great interest. Keep it up, Jonathan!

83

I stand by what I said. Just because it was logged in by a production company doesn’t mean anything more than that it was mailed over. Certainly nothing more ever came of it… just like the other 500 treatments they likely got that week. :slight_smile:

84

Interstitial Aside for Lost Legacy

Just to mention this before I forget:

Lost Legacy is an early Heinlein story and one of the ‘Stinkeroos’ he had trouble selling. And it shows.
But it features a character who mentions, repeatedly, his ‘Grandfather Stonebender’ and various tall tales. This is later reflected (20 years later) by Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land. The is also a mention of a person with ESP who is a lightning calculator AND has a perfect clock in his head. THIS is a foremention of Dejah Thoris Burroughs-Carter from (40! years down the line) The Number of the Beast.

Old ideas never die, apparently. They just bide their time.

85

I don’t remember Deety being a lightning calculator. Are you thinking of A. J. Libby?

86

No, I’m pretty certain she mentions it in a sentence where she reveals that she has the clock in her head. Might be wrong, though. I do know that there’s a mention of lightning calculators in the book.

87

She and Libby basically broke the ice with each other by swapping lightning calculation stunts, and Deety had the built-in clock in her head (no mention of whether her “twin” Libby-as-female shared that). What she didn’t have was ESP.

88

Over half of that book is talky-talky, and there is surprisingly little combat. There is a bit more in suit work, from training. But yes, definitely not a typical war book.

A part of me would love to curl up with these. A part of me can’t imagine finding the time. I’ve read a good deal of the books. I might reread a few sometime, but it’s a balance between that and reading new/other books I’ve never read.

89

Starship Trooper was the first science fiction book I read, circa 7th grade and thank you to my teacher Mr. Harry Rablin. Opened up a whole new world. I had been a big war book reader, and ST just grabbed me. Loved it and read hundreds if not thousands of science fiction books after that.

90

You mention in the intro to this that they are
> written by Heinlein between 1939 and 1942 and published under his pen names.

Does this edition specify what pen names were used for each “stinkeroo”?

91

It does. Here they are for the ones I’ve discussed so far.

Elsewhen - Caleb Saunders
My Object All Sublime - Lyle Monroe
Pied Piper - Lyle Monroe

I should note that the notes in this book mention that ‘Lyle Monroe’ was a pen name used when Heinlein didn’t have much faith in the story and was just trying to get it in the marketplace for any return.

I’ll continue doing this as I continue.

92

In other words, he knew it was crap, but needed to make a buck or two.

93

Just for completeness, he also used:

Anson MacDonald - major ASF stories, to avoid duplication/overload on the RAH byline. This is the only pseudonym used more than once.
Simon York - one detective story
John Riverside - one fantasy story

And, of course, he carefully hid his girls’ stories under ‘R.A. Heinlein.’ snicker

94

One of Heinlein’s basic rules is that if he’d written a story, it would stay on the market until SOMEone paid him for it. To give up on trying to sell it would be to say the time spent was a sunk cost and not recoverable.

95

Lost Legacy from Creating a Genre

Under the pen name, Lyle Monroe.

This one’s a mixed bag. First off, it’s the longest story so far, at over 80 pages in the book. It’s also, to me, trite. We begin with a standard Heinlein collection of two men, slightly sarcastic but educated, and a woman, who is treated…um…a bit disparagingly be the men but in a friendly way. The end up discovering that all humans have latest ESP that they don’t use.

The Loki, Mercury, Jove and such show up for a scene. The Atlantis and Mu, the anti-Atlantic. Then, for heaven’s sake, Ambrose Bierce.

That’s right. Ambrose Bierce.

Following that our heroes discover that there is a society of the enlightened who know how to use their ESP. Then there’s a group of evil men opposed to them. Our heroes learn and go on the offensive and wrap up the whole thing in the last 10 pages. The confrontation is not a confrontation at all.

Not a great story but the end notes say that Heinlein thought this got more fan mail than anything he’d previously had published. So there’s that.

More interesting is who purchased the story. It was rejected by John W. Campbell and instead picked up after a while by a young Frederick Pohl. Brilliant.

Again, another one only for the those who simply must read everything Heinlein published. There are other, later, stories that are, frankly, by a more mature and skilled writer.

96

Lordy! I haven’t read that one for a while. Buried so far back in my brain if you’d just have given me the plot I probably would not have associated it with Heinlein.

97

That’s OK. The NEXT one ALSO features Atlantis and Mu.

Oy.

When I say, ‘reading ALL’, I mean reading ALL!

98

And I can’t think which one that is…

99

Probably it’s the third Stinkaroo and Heinlein’s only collaboration. Um…I can’t remember the title off hand* but the punch-line (such as it is) is that

the Easter Island statues are political advertisements

As an aside, I disagree with Jonathan Chance. I liked “Elsewhen” and loved “Lost Legacy”. The last line of “Lost Legacy” always gives me the chills in a good way.
*“Beyond Doubt”. I looked it up. IMO, the worst (by far) of the three Stinkeroos.

100

I just noticed this and want to correct NitroPress. It’s clearly not true that only the Anson MacDonald pseudonym was used more than once. Just in the information I’ve posted in this thread, and confirmed online, the Lyle Monroe name was for several stories, and the R.A. Heinlein you mentioned was used twice.