New Heinlein Novel 460
book_reader writes "It's hard to believe but the grand master of sci-fi is back - 15 years or so after his death. His first novel that he wrote in the mid 30's and long since thought lost was rediscovered and will be coming out in November! The thought of a novel he wrote so early in his writing career boggles my mind but who will be able to resist - not I!"
My thoughts on this (Score:4, Insightful)
This sort of thing makes me puke (Score:3, Insightful)
Simply getting more of an artist's work is NOT necessarily a good thing. For instance, I got a hold of a bootleg of a bunch of old Pixies studio sessions. The stuff they released is good, but you know what?
The stuff they didn't release is crap. They wrote bad songs, recognized them as bad songs, and DIDN'T release them. There's a reason that stuff stays in the attic, and fans should be able to respect that, IMHO.
His last novels were ghosted anyway.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My thoughts on this (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything after "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" kind of sucked, IMHO. Once he got so into the whole sex/polyamory thing as a constant focus, I just lost interest. He actually managed to make sex boring to me, which is really saying something. Yeah, OK, Lazarus Long has slept with everyone and their mother... yeah, wonderful, free love is awesome, whatever.
I actually heard Heinlein was kind of pissed about how his works inspired the poly crowd, but I don't see what *else* he was intending to say in all these books. I mean, just off the top of my head -- Friday, The Number of the Beast, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Time Enough For Love -- all of these books were soured for me by what seemed like constant, totally unerotic sex. In "Friday", it was almost mechanical... boring.
(Yes, I know someone will post a page-count vs. sex acts ratio to try to convince me otherwise, but I don't care).
[ ObSenselessRant: Oh yeah, and Piers Anthony is a dirty old man. "Bio of A Space Tyrant" sucked once he got into the hero having consensual sex with a 12 year old. That coupled with Xanth novels titled "The Color of Her Panties" makes me want to have authorities monitoring his shack in Florida... ]
Add the "Dune Lite" books to that list... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I hate this kind of stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
As to the Tolkein stuff, some was well worth posthumous publication (Silmarillion, Book of Lost Tales, etc.), but they did end up going waaaay overboard.
Maybe this will be good (Score:4, Insightful)
What editor? If you read the top, it was published with only minor spelling corrections. This is similar to the tack that was taken with 2 other works after his death. They were re-published the way HE wrote them, not the way they were first published.
Spider Robinson was a friend of his, and if he has some say in the matter (he did one of the forwards for this book), then it ought to maintain some integrity.
Mark me down as optimistic until I get a chance to review it. Most of his "so-called" hack work is better then 90% of today's writers anyway.
Re:Who? (Score:3, Insightful)
-B
Re:they're back! (Score:3, Insightful)
The grandmaster? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's hard to believe but the grand master of sci-fi is back
The only person deserving to be be called that is Isaac Asimov [wikipedia.org], publishing over 500 volumes of the best science fiction to date. Not to say that other writers (Heinlein, Lem, Strugatsky) didn't write good stuff in the same "league", but not with the same consistent quality in those amounts.
Re:Who? (Score:5, Insightful)
But for those of you who don't know, Heinlein was a master Science Fiction writer, who wrote many famous books, such as "Starship Troopers", "Stranger in a strange land", "The moon is a harsh mistress", etc. I think he wrote over a hundred works. IMHO one of the top 5 science fiction authors of all time
Here is a listing of all his published materials [nitrosyncretic.com], for those who are interested.
And for those who only saw "Starship Troopers" and never read the book, PLEASE don't judge the author by the movie, because that movie was truly horrendous.
Proceeds go to space exploration? (Score:2, Insightful)
"The other bonus is another gift to us. The money earned by this novel will be going to directly and substantially support Heinlein's dream, and the dream we, Heinlein's Children, share. Earnings will be going to the advancement of human exploration of space. When you purchase "For Us, the Living" you are also contributing, in a real and meaningful way, the furtherment of this dream. Yet again, Heinlein 'pays it forward.'"
Imho is particularly cool. As cool as a new book by RAH. How often do the proceeds of any artists work go back to a cause that the author would have approved of, instead of thier bloodsucking relatives?
Think of it as a DVD extra (Score:2, Insightful)
If you take it in context, I think it adds a lot to appreciation of a subject. But its like an audio commentary, if you don't want it, ignore it. I personally to see the development of a writer in a full arc.
I'm not sure were the limit would be- like bad studio sessions or jazz album remasters, there's probably a limit to what you learn from extra releases. I don't think you should just shut the door on it though.
Well thats me. I'm going to sit here puzzling about "heinlein blood drives".
Re:This sort of thing makes me puke (Score:2, Insightful)
oh, and btw, if the pixies chose to release bailey's walk, i'd be really scared to hear the stuff that they didn't want to release... : p
Re:This sort of thing makes me puke (Score:3, Insightful)
An artist's own opinion is not always the best one to decide whether something is worth publishing.
Re:Who? (Score:1, Insightful)
I wish there was a "-1, Pompous Ass" moderator rating!
Or a "-1, Cookie Cutter Geek" moderation!
Or maybe even a "-1, Humorless Git" rating!
I'd sure have trouble deciding between the three for you, though.
Re:I'll be buying. (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that you're a fan overall, I can't be too hard on you. ;-)
However, I'd suggest that Heinlein wasn't "chauvinistic", just that he celebrated the differences between men and women (which any sane individual recognizes, no?).
Heinlein's women piloted starships, fought alongside the men in battle, and generally bested the males involved in most situations. Given that a lot of those writings appeared in the 50's, I think he should be recognized as one of the most progressive proponents of women's equality (superiority?) of the 20th Century.
I realize some of his writings may lead in other directions ;-) but hey you have have to look at the overall picture... :-)
What makes a fan a fan... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course it isn't going to be any good.
Of course I'm going to read it.
People who say "his earlier stuff is better than his later stuff" are thinking of the forties and fifties,when he really hit his stride. His earliest stuff reads all too much like "Doc" Smith, to my way of thinking.
I don't expect very much from this, but it will be nice to have it.
Re:This sort of thing makes me puke (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact he was addressing this very issue. His point was that 90% of everything was crap, specifically the output of good writers.
The primary difference between a good writer and hack being that the good writer only publishes the 10% worth publishing.
KFG
Vive la difference! (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Certainly most of Heinlein's female characters are as competent as the male ones, but the air of "don't you worry your pretty little head" that so many of his mouthpiece characters have, especially in his earlier works, drives me batty. "Sure, she can pilot a starship and shoot the center out of the ace of spades at 50 paces, and isn't it cute? She'll meet the right man one day and settle down, and then she won't have to because he'll take care of her."
2) There's also Heinlein's assumption that gender roles are as they should be--this was his opinion, and I strongly disagree with it, but overall it didn't detract much from his writing.
3) Finally, a lot of his female characters break under the slightest pressure and start crying. His male characters never do. Especially in the Future History, where sexuality and gender identity is supposed to be androgynous, this bothers me. Even Galahad in Time Enough for Love, (the most sympathetic portrayal an effeminate man ever got in Heinlein) never cries.
I can ignore sexism in most of the authors of Heinlein's generation and earlier (*coughAsimovcough*), but Heinlein himself was just so progressive in everything else that a lot of his gender politics show up as glaring flaws, when they would just fade into the background in works by other writers. Writers shouldn't have to be politically correct, and Heinlein was perfectly justified in coloring his stories with his opinion, but I find that it tempers my enjoyment of his works.
-Carolyn
Prior Art (Score:2, Insightful)
Which cannot be patented [wikipedia.org] because of Heinlein's prior art.
Not only a great novelist, but a pioneer in IP law.
(I just remembered while reading your post that the MST3k movie Delta Knights ripped off Citizen of the Galaxy so badly it hurts. I'm going to go be simultaneously annoyed and depressed that I actually remembered that now.)
-Carolyn
And that would be bad how? (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope and pray Heinlen doesn't turn into the 'Tu-Pac' of geeks (i.e. ends up having 30 or more works 'discovered').
I'd prefer to hope and pray that he does.
Without any familiarity whatsoever with the work of "Tu-Pac", I'll state for the record that if someone were to find a box of unpublished Heinlein stuff (say, 20 or 30 shorts, or maybe a handful of novels), it would be a very wonderful thing for Science Fiction, certainly far better than the entire 2 seasons of ST:Enterprise has been.
You see what a fuss just one has caused.
Post-MiaHM Heinlein not so bad (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, that being said, a lot of post-MiaHM Heinlein is utter crap. The Number of the Beast is an excellent manual on how to do sci-fi wrong. The Cat who Walks Through Walls is great!
To any true fan of Heinlein, I would recommend Time Enough for Love without reservation. Try it again, maybe you'll get more out of it.
Re:Who? (Score:4, Insightful)
I though the movie conveyed the harsh irony of war and idealism very well. In fact, the movie was very painful to watch, because some of the scenes gutted much of what people believe in. Perhaps the movie was much better than the viewers percieved, because most viewers expect some typical hack-n-slach-hero-gets-the-bitch flick.
"Babe" (yes the pig) was another movie that comes to mind, where childhood is so accurately depicted that I (an adult, I hope) could barely watch it. Of course, I can't not be reminded of Ender Wiggins at this point...ah crap.
Moderators _still_ smoking crack, I see..... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd call that +1 Insightful
"I Will Fear No Evil" was written while he was dog sick, and completed by his wife and agent IIRC.
I also keep thinking of him in comparison to Hubbard;
L. Ron set out to design and build a religion, bent all his imagination and creativity to the purpose, and succeeded.
Well, for a value of "success" amounting to a pretty crappy excuse for a church [xenu.com].
RAH "merely" wrote stories, and accidentaly created at least 1 religion, and improved many peoples lives along the way.
I'd point out the Hubbard likely got the religion idea from one of RAH's offhand remarks.
_Overrated_!?! At +1?
Time to go metamoderate.