For Us, The Living, by Robert A. Heinlein 348
| For Us, The LIving | |
| author | Robert A. Heinlein |
| pages | 288 pages |
| publisher | Scribner |
| rating | 3 |
| reviewer | Seth Bokelman |
| ISBN | 074325998X |
| summary | Great piece for die-hard Heinlein fans, not for newbies. |
The book starts with an excellent foreword from Spider Robinson, a friend of Heinlein's as well as a fan, and an excellent Sci-Fi writer in his own right. Spider lays it all out for you in the foreword: this book isn't strong on stories, it's strong on ideas. People who found Heinlein's later works too preachy should steer clear, as this book is probably his preachiest. Robinson speculates that Heinlein really wanted to convey his radical ideas, having just lost a political race, and spent too much of the book standing on the proverbial soapbox, and not enough telling a good story. He says that Heinlein learned from this, and went on to become a master storyteller, learning that people are much more likely to sit still for the lecture if it's embedded in a gripping story.
And that leads me to exactly what's wrong with For Us, The Living. There's very little story in it. There is a plot, and it goes like this. Perry, our hero, (n reality a thinly veiled version of Heinlein himself), is involved in a car accident in 1939, and wakes up in the year 2086 in the body of someone who looks very much like himself, but the original inhabitant of the body chose to end his life (shades of Stranger in a Strange Land here). Our Hero was discovered in the snowy Nevada mountains by a woman named Diana, who is a professional dancer and lives in the mountains. She takes him back to her place to recover, and they're lounging around her house naked by the second page of the book.
From then on, the rest of the book is primarily spent following our hero as he is lectured (literally at times) on the ways of the future, covering topics such as polygamy/polyamory, nudism, the stupidity of jealousy, economics, religion, and the treatment of criminals as patients who need to be cured, rather than miscreants who need to be punished. Many of the ideas that turn up later in Heinlein's books, especially his later books, appear here for the first time. The book is very much, as Spider calls it in the foreword, Heinlein's literary DNA. This is the primordial ooze from which the later books, (Time Enough For Love, Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and dozens more) are formed.
I found Heinlein's predictions of the future very interesting. Since the book was written in 1938-1939, the world hadn't witnessed World War II yet, though Heinlein predicts it. In his version, the U.S. stays out of the War, and Europe eventually self-destructs. Heinlein gets quite a bit of the future right, and quite a bit of it wrong. For instance, in 2086, they still haven't landed a man on the moon, though they're working on it. And, while in the future everyone has terminals (seen in later Heinlein novels) from which they can access live video and audio, information is still printed on paper and transported physically via pneumatic (and magnetic) tubes. But, given that it was written before the atomic age, those things are forgiven, and they're part of what makes the book interesting to read.
It's very obvious why this book wasn't published in 1939 -- it's not very good. Also, much of the subject matter is so controversial and sexual to this day that no major publisher would have dared print it then. The book is a bit rough, and a bit "off" in places. For instance, Heinlein uses a two-page footnote(!) to give us Diana's life story, rather than weave it into the story or the dialogue, something he'd never do in his later work, and the story only starts to get compelling in the last 50 pages or so, once the bulk of the lectures are past us.
So do I recommend this book? Yes and no. If you're a Heinlein fan, and you've read most, if not all, of his other work, then you'll love this book, and you should get a copy right now. It's a great snapshot of Heinlein's writing while he was still struggling to define it himself. If you've never read a Heinlein book, don't start here, pick up Starship Troopers, or Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. If you've read a few Heinlein books, read a few more before you try this one, especially Time Enough For Love, and his later works. I've read everything he ever published, and was sad when I finished off The Menace From Earth, as I'd run out of Heinlein to read. This book provided me with one more thrill, and it made me appreciate how strongly Heinlein held his convictions, and how far he came as a writer, from this, his first attempt.
Now that Bob & Ginny Heinlein have passed on, however, this is almost certainly the last significant piece of Heinlein's writing left unpublished, and for us, the living, it's fun to have something new from the Grand Master to curl up with on a cold winter night.
You can purchase For Us, The Living from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to submit a review for consideration, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Re:Who? (Score:5, Funny)
1. Heinlein invented a maneuver that can save a person from choking.
2. There is no new SCO news today.
Ouch (Score:5, Funny)
Thats right there on my TODO list with:
i) Jim Carrey's wackiest movie,
ii) Todd Rundgren's most experimental synthesiser sounds,
iii) Elvis Presley's most sugary ballads
and
iV) JRR Tolkein's most esoteric back-of-an-envelope scribbling, lovingly -- and profitably -- edited by his hack son.
Realism (Score:5, Funny)
Perry, our hero, (in reality a thinly veiled version of Heinlein himself), is involved in a car accident in 1939, and wakes up in the year 2086 in the body of someone who looks very much like himself, but the original inhabitant of the body chose to end his life (shades of Stranger in a Strange Land here). Our Hero was discovered in the snowy Nevada mountains by a woman named Diana, who is a professional dancer and lives in the mountains. She takes him back to her place to recover, and they're lounging around her house naked by the second page of the book.
Well, come on. The poor guy hasn't had an erection in 147 years. I'm surprised he waited until the second page to start getting it on.
You call yourself geeks?!!! Sheesh... (Score:2, Funny)
Hubbard went out and did it.
I want to be a paperback writer (Score:5, Funny)
Give it up! Yer supposed to be dead for chrissakes! STOP WRITING!!!
Give us unknown nobodies a chance huh?
Thanks.
Part of a series (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Funny)
Ooo! Ooo! How about Frank Herbert's most esoteric back-of-an-envelope scribbling, lovingly -- and profitably -- edited by his hack son? [penny-arcade.com]
Re:Realism (Score:4, Funny)
That's a different book.
(see "I Will Fear No Evil")
A.
Re:The lesson here (Score:2, Funny)
Tens of thousands are already using this method, with great success!
Re:i don't see it (Score:3, Funny)
And yes, I have read his stuff. I love his stuff. But I don't sit up at night wondering if I'm real or the world around me is.
I know that I'm a process running in a giant multiuser system with multiple layers of virtualization. Where I draw the line is in believing that knowing this somehow causes $#%@#$^@!%!#$%!@^H%BV No Carrier
Re:Orphans of the Sky (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wrong lesson (Score:2, Funny)