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

Cafe Society
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[QUOTE=Some stoopid studio exec]
…Ricardo didn’t want the U.S. President to be in the film. “Films with Presidents don’t work,” he informed us…
[/QUOTE]

Somebody should’ve shown him Advise & Consent, The American President, Fail-Safe, The Missiles of October, Seven Days in May…

In the Virginia Edition, when the Earth warships leave for Titan, is it specified that there’s a new world government, or just that the Cold War allies are willing to work together to face a common threat, a la Watchmen?

162

Oh, good, that’s my favorite of the juvies, but it never seems to get enough respect.

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I’m not sure whether it was made clear. The slugs were still endemic on Earth at the time of the attack on Titan as I recall, so the Soviets might have still had enough troubles on Earth to keep them off the Titan mission.

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Thanks. And I love Space Cadet!

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Yes, there were still scattered slugs. Sam says at one point, “why, just last month a bear was shot with one up in the Yukon.” So it’s reached the ‘vigilance’ stage. But, no, there’s no indication regarding the USSR after the radio call for help about two-thirds of the way in.

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Wait – aren’t these in chronological order? What happened to Rocket Ship Galileo?

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No, Cal. I’m skipping around. So far I’ve done

Creating a Genre
The Puppet Masters
Starship Troopers
Between Planets
Take Back Your Government
Citizen of the Galaxy

The Virginia Edition isn’t in chronological order so I didn’t limit myself. Though I do take suggestions for which book is next. I just didn’t want to do all short stories, the all juveniles and so forth.

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Space Cadet - Vol. 11 of The Virginia Edition

Or, “Hey, Starship Troopers was a rewrite!”

OK, that might be too much. But I think I can make a defensible thesis out of it.

Anyway, this is the second of the juveniles and Heinlein’s third novel overall. The preceding juvenile, Rocket Ship Galileo, was coming to press and Heinlein pitched a series to Scribners called, Young Atomic Engineers, only to have it rejected by his editor. In the notes for Space Cadet, it’s noted that Heinlein had real trouble with this book and even doubted he’d be able to get it out.

This was also the time where he went through a divorce from his second wife, Leslyn and this crisis was sufficient to place his career writing novels in question. While living with his (eventual) third wife, Ginny, in a trailer he wrote several stories and had none of them sell. The crisis, both creative and financial, was real.

He started on what would eventually become Space Cadet, originally entitled Hayworth Hall, during this trailer period. It was to be a book about a young man going through a space military academy. But halfway through he stopped, realizing that the second half of the book wasn’t working. From the notes he spent two weeks just ‘moaning on a couch’ about it before restarting with an altered outline and a new approach.

Still, it worked. And outsold Rocket Ship Galileo and truly put Heinlein on the juvenile-per-year plan that lasted through the fifties. I don’t think any of us can say that was a mistake.

I admit, as an 11-year-old reader about 1978 or 79 I found this to be one of my favorite books by Heinlein. I especially loved the first half where the cadets are going through the testing and training. I wanted to be in the Patrol so bad I could taste it. Even the second part, where the cadets are on their missions to the asteroid belt and Venus, I found interesting and fun.

Two things stand out, here, to me. First is the main character of Matt Dodson. While not written in first person Dodson is in every single scene. He’s a POV character without exception. Things others do, without his presence, are reported but not on camera.

The second is something subtle about the world in which the characters live. The cadets have all finished high school (at least it’s reported that Matt has). So he’s presumably 18 when he reports to Hayworth Hall as a candidate for the Patrol. It’s also reported that Patrol officers retire ‘in their mid-30s’ after 20 years. So presumably at age 38 they’re retired and pensioned. Well and good.

But that first patrol the cadets go on - to the belt and later to Venus - has to take several years. As reported in the text, they could have been out, on one mission and one pick up mission, for as much as 2 - 4 years. That’s 10-20% of their time in the service. Combine that with several years (though never explicitly stated) of schooling during their time in the orbital school of the Patrol and by the time the book ends the boys could be 30-40% of the way through their 20 years. That seems an odd way to run things, but space is vast (excellency).

Curiously, this has a sort of ‘coming of age’ realization towards the end. Not that the cadets go through any huge character arc, but there’s Dodson’s acceptance of the fact that he’s been changed through his experiences. This occurs both on his first leave (where he has the disagreement with his father over the role of the Patrol), and a further discussion later where he shares with an officer senior to him that he doesn’t fit in with civilians any more. Later, at the very end, he shares with Tex Jarman, another cadet, that he and the head of the Patrol’s school, Awkwright, are all ‘members of the same lodge’.

Now, to my thesis. The 10-years-later Starship Troopers is, essentially, a rewrite of this book. Both feature young men signing up for military/quasi-military service, both have them going through training, and both have them changed by that training. Yes, that could be seen as a stretch, and certainly not unique. But many of the same beats are seen in both books. Both show the virtue of military service and to some extent the sacrifice made by those who enter it. Fine, but the parallels are more than that. Both have scenes where the protagonist (Dodson in SC and Rico in ST) where they try to come to terms with how their own attitudes have changed relative to those they left behind. Both also have scenes where they deal with the lessons instructed by those senior to them are inculcated and dealt with. Hell, both have scenes where they want OUT of the service, make plans to do so, and then change their minds.

Unlike Space Cadet, though, Starship Troopers is meant for a different audience. Having read them both recently, and read the notes, it’s clear that while Heinlein was attempted to engage and capture imaginations for young boys in Space Cadet, he was actively trying to instruct and instill virtue in Starship Troopers.

One of the biggest differences in the books is the position of the organization into which they are inducted. In Starship Troopers the MI becomes pretty much everything to Rico. It’s him and he is it. In Space Cadet, however, the Patrol is there, and so are other members, but Dodson is presented in the text as less a part of it and more a part of his small band of other cadets. There are some nods to the patrol as a institution with traditions and bonds, but by and large Dodson isn’t seen participating in it, other than the muster of the dead in a few places. That’s nice, but it doesn’t add up to the Semper Fi that Rico ends up absorbing in Starship Troopers.

On a bad side, this is the first book of The Virginia Edition that I’ve read where the editing was downright terrible. The notes on the text, in the back of the book, say it was taken from the original Scribners text (other than the change of ‘right’ to ‘left’ in one spot as noted) but there are grammatical, punctuation and even naming errors (in one spot the ship Aes Triplex is referred to as the Complex) all through it. I don’t recall seeing those errors in the book I read as a kid or an adult. As a writer myself, I would not have approved this for print had I seen it in galley form.

Next up: Vol 26: Job: A Comedy of Justice

And get your votes in for the next one. Or should I be doing these in order? Your vote counts!

Read so far:
Vol 3: Starship Troopers
Vol 9: How to Be a Politician
Vol 11: Space Cadet
Vol 14: Between Planets
Vol 18: Tunnel in the Sky
Vol 20: Citizen of the Galaxy
Vol 32: Creating a Genre (short stories)
Vol 36: The Puppet Masters

Man, that’s more than I thought given that I’m only 2 months into this project.

169

I’m not sure I buy the parallels between Space Cadet and Starship Troopers. In the latter, it’s accepted that a significant fraction of society will want to join the service, and the service bends over backwards to find a job for anyone who wants in. In the former, though, the Patrol has very clear and very strict standards, and if you don’t meet those standards, you’re out, that’s it.

The Patrol also seems much more morally-justified than the MI. In Space Cadet, it’s really drilled in that the Patrol is necessary, and that it’s necessary that the young men in it be nothing but the best of the best. Their job really is what so many militaries claim, to keep the peace. In Starship Troopers, though, the service exists just because it has existed in the past, and bureaucracies at rest tend to remain at rest. There’s no attempt made to justify it, beyond the fact that it’s there, and it works.

170

The main characters in SC and ST are pretty much opposites, I thought - Matt has worked all his life towards being in the Patrol, with the support of his family. Johnny Rico takes the Infantry as his last choice; he has no particular ambitions, until he has been in the service for some time. The Patrol is a strategic force, with control of the atomic bomb, but not much weaponry other than that - officers are expected to solve problems without weapons (if they have to call in the Marines or use a bomb, they have failed); Johnny serves in a force that is expected to use a finely calibrated amount of force, from random mayhem to complete destruction, as directed. Matt’s trial by fire on Venus involves rejecting Stinky’s request for mass murder of the natives; Johnny’s trial by fire involves real battle.

I thought of ST as a followup to the incident in Space Cadet in which a Space Marine attempts to recruit Matt to his service.

171

I’m not sure about that one, though.

Both the Patrol and the MI (and by extension all federal service) are justified as necessary. Hell, in both books civilians treat the patrol as if they were sort-of either unneeded or just another group performing service. It’s clear in both texts that the civilian population is not truly aware of the role that both services play in their world.

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I haven’t read Space Cadet, but I have read Starship Troopers. In ST, part of the issue is that government service is required to earn citizenship. No mere birth and age, but you have to put your hide on the line for the good of the society as a whole. In that context, they have to accept everyone who wants to try, and find some way for them to contribute, in order to allow them the opportunity for citizenship. Otherwise, they are excluding people from the opportunity to earn the right to vote. I suspect Space Cadet doesn’t have that societal structure.

But within the options of ST for what service a person can do, there are lots of criteria that must be met for different service options. They don’t just take anyone in whatever they want, you have to meet entrance standards. Thus Rico ends up in a low rung for service (the mobile infantry) rather than other things he wanted.

I don’t agree. The Mobile Infantry is one part of a slew of options for military service. Military service is assumed necessary because it is. They face dealing with other races, like the Skinnies and the Bugs, etc. Their version of “keeping the peace” is much more in line with what infantry service has always been about - slogging through the mud and muck, dealing with the enemy face to face. If there’s no effort made to justify their existence, it’s because Heinlein sees their existence as inherently necessary, like there’s no effort made to justify a police force, there’s no effort made to justify a diplomatic corps.

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Space Cadet is virtually autobiographical with respect to Heinlein’s Academy days, down to minor points of slang and cadet behavior… and to RAH’s bafflement with civilians who had only the vaguest notion of what the Navy did in those days.

Heinlein had the misfortune to serve his few years in what was perhaps the worst climate for the military in US history. A large part of the population (and Congress) didn’t even believe we needed standing armed forces after WWI, and we came close to drastically reducing the military just before WWII. So a newly minted Naval officer was, in the late '20s, as much a figure of curiosity and gentle fun as admiration.

Even with that special case aside, few civilians really understand what any particular branch of the service actually does, day in and day out, especially in nominal peacetime.

I think that the only commonality between SC and ST is that Heinlein naturally wrote from his own experience - and in the latter case, wrote so hastily that he did not bother putting a fresh or rethought paint job on the material. The one thing you have to keep in mind at all times while reading and evaluating ST is that he wrote it rapidly, with a Message, in a red-hot fury, and cut every corner he could in putting the story together. Trying to analyze it too deeply leads only to folly - e.g. Disch’s drek.

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Well, I certainly can’t argue with your words about Disch. Ugh, the few things I’ve read by him have been absolutely painful. Or, to be fair, just not my thing.

Still, I think the fact that Heinlein was writing, as you say, from personal experience, indicates that there are parallels between the two novels. Even though they’re intended for a different audience, the net impact of the two can be seen to be nearly equal. Yes, for myself, reading Starship Troopers made me think about things during an impressionable time (mid-teens for me), but Space Cadet made me more interested in the service. While I ultimately didn’t join the service out of high school, I certainly considered it very carefully before I entered college. Even then, I found myself talking quite a bit to the ROTC captain at school (I found out the recruiter I’d been speaking with had set him up with my details before I left for my freshman year).

As for the status of the military during Heinlein’s tenure? I might argue that there’s a historical pattern there. The focus on a larger military force during the cold war (and in our current time) is the aberration. There’s a long history of America ramping up the military during times of tension and crisis and then quickly abandoning it one those tensions are over.

175

Job: A Comedy of Justice - Vol. 26 of The Virginia Edition

I just now finished this. Might be my first time reading it since the 80s sometime.

To start with, this has the best cover of any Heinlein novel ever.

An interesting book. Of Heinlein’s later works (say the mid-70s until his death) it’s one that stands apart. It is, frankly, not science fiction, it’s not even space opera. Job is a work of fantasy. These days it might even be hung with the ‘magical realism’ label, though I’m not sure I’d go that far.

On its face it is a novel about faith, and one in which faith does not come off well, frankly. The hero, one Rev. Alexander Hergensheimer, is persecuted as Job was…mercilessly and without pity. Through it all he maintains his faith, faith being that firm belief in something without evidence, or without sufficient evidence to make a rational judgement.

Then judgement day happens. Oy.

At this point I find it hilarious, given the last 20-odd years of my career, to find that Hell is interested in the publishing industry (quoth I, “figures”). But that’s a side blow, really.

In the end, the only thing Hergensheimer has that justifies his faith is his love of the “zaftig shiksa” who travels with him in his persecution. She’s another one of Heinlein’s overly perfect women. Not subservient but willing to go along to get along provided our hero keeps from doing stupid things. Still, even though she’s a somewhat typical Heinlein girl, she’s interesting in and of herself, even though she’s a sideshow to the big show (to steal a phrase).

In this end, this is about what the creator owes to his creation. Conversely, it’s also about what the created owes to his creator. The answer is both everything and nothing. The penultimate chapter centers on Lucifer, Yahweh, Loki, Odin and the boss of all of them Koschei (it gets complicated) discussing what to do with Hergensheimer, given that he’s been totally screwed for quite a while by beings against whom he could never meaningfully fight back.

I find the final chapter a bit disenheartening. It presents Hergensheimer, and his partner, Margrethe, living in an idyllic potemkin village living out their lives as best they can. They’re taken care of in their pursuits, able to live a happy, middle class life while the age and (presumably) die, never actually knowing what the biggest universe is like. Having been exposed to it in the prior chapters, that knowledge is erased for their ‘happy’ ending.

But how is that different from where they were at first, pawns of a greater power with no understanding of their actual situation? Doesn’t this imply that, no matter what, the powers that be (and the powers above them and so on) will always treat humans as things to be trifled with? Sure, the second world, with the idyll, might be nicer, more pleasant. But in the end it’s still just an artificial construct without real substance.

In the notes of this book it’s written that Heinlein put this one together in response to the rise of the evangelical movement in American politics. One quote from the notes:

I can’t honestly argue with that. According to the notes Heinlein was looking for a sacred cow to shoot at and selected religion this time.

Heinlein gives our protagonist, Hergensheimer, the full slate of religious intolerance, bigotry (he refers to nonsensical statements as ‘Irishisms’ a few times!), censorship (early pulp SF magazines were burned while Hergensheimer was a child, and sexual repression (kissing can get you thrown in the stocks). And so forth, and so own. But he’s still handled sympathetically, overall. And he needs to be.

Indeed, the entire books, or most of it, is devoted to the character arc of Hergensheimer’s changing from stick-in-the-mud to a less judgmental, less sure of himself person. A looser, more thoughtful mind is what comes out the other end of his trials.

This book does bring some real writer’s craft and history to it. Influences come as far afield as James Branch Cabell, Isaac Asimov (and his comment that God is the hero because he has better PR), Mark Twain, Faust, and even his own early work (the Glaroon of THEY are mentioned late in the text). Toss in some Milton and the King James bible (not always quoted accurately, I might note) and that’s one hell of a subtext to handle. Especially when I was 17 and reading this for the first time.

In the end, I find this is a profoundly adult book. I think I got more out of reading it now, at 45, that I did at 17 when it first came out. I think it’s one of his better, later works. And I’m not one of those who feels that the ‘World as Myth’ series is bad. As you’ll find out later I quite enjoy those books.

This is a book inspired by the desire for people to let other people alone! To allow them to live their lives in peace and on their own terms. That’s a punch thrown at the evangelical movement. It hasn’t seemed to have stopped them, at least from a political perspective. But that’s not really a point for discussion here, is it?

Next up: Vol. 22: The Future History of Robert Heinlein Vol. 1

Read so far:
Vol 3: Starship Troopers
Vol 9: How to Be a Politician
Vol 11: Space Cadet
Vol 14: Between Planets
Vol 18: Tunnel in the Sky
Vol 20: Citizen of the Galaxy
Vol 26: Job: A Comedy of Justice
Vol 32: Creating a Genre (short stories)
Vol 36: The Puppet Masters

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I found it very entertaining too (and I gave a copy to my college roommate who was legendarily irresponsible about cleaning his dishes (for a reason that will be obvious to anyone who has read the book))

177

I just got a little–well, large–surprise that I knew would interest readers of this thread.
I’ve been reading Jim Thompson lately, and just finished his first novel, Now and On Earth, a 1942 autobiographical ODTAA tale about a factory worker and his family. In Chapter 20, it references “Them,” crediting Heinlein by name, calling it “one of the finest pieces technically I’ve ever read.” He then goes on for two full pages summarizing the story. It picks up again with an offhand reference in Chapter 22, and sets the tone for the rest of the story.
It’s as worth looking up as the November 1952 School Library Association of California Bulletin. (That’s the one with the famous passage where he instructs librarians not to be put off by the unusual names of science-fiction characters; after all, “You would not expect a Martian to be named Smith. (Say – how about a story about a Martian named ‘Smith?’ Ought to make a good short. Hmmm–)”)

178

That’s great. Thanks.

P.S. In google books, there’s an annoying typo that made it hard to find the passage you mention (“Henlein”). Is that typo in the book too?

179

So… was it changed to Job in the second edition?

180

Go ahead, laugh. Get it out of your systems.

sigh