For Us, The Living, by Robert A. Heinlein

Sethb writes "For Us, The Living, Robert A. Heinlein's first novel, written in 1938, is not a lost masterpiece. It is, however, a fascinating piece of writing for the Heinlein fan to ingest. It's not a book you should give to a friend to introduce them to Heinlein, in fact, it works best as what it is, the last piece of Heinlein's work to be published, and it should almost certainly be one of the last pieces someone starting to read Heinlein should attempt." Read on for Sethb's review. M : CBC also has a feature about the book.

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.

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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?

[cK-Gunslinger]

Are there still people who haven't heard of Google [google.com]? Or Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]?

The lesson here

[b-baggins]

Is to make totally sure you've destroyed EVERY copy of a manuscript you never want to see the light of day, because after you're dead, some self-serving snot will publish it for the world to see and who cares about your wishes in the matter.

Heinlein Published Just One Novel

[jIyajbe]

The first novel of Heinlein's I read was "Time Enough for Love", and it made a huge impression on the teenager I was. I loved it.

Then I read "Stranger in A Strange Land", and I thought it was very similar in important respects, but I still liked it.

I went on to read several more of his books and short stories, and eventually I came to feel that he simply took the same central ideas, wrapped them in a thin veneer of different characters, and re-published them as a "new" book.

MAN, did I quickly grow tired of him!

(It did NOT help that I think his politics suck.)

Asimov is the Grand Master, not Heinlein. (In my opinion.)

Thanks, but...

[meta-monkey]

Thanks for the review...I'll probably check it out, as I've read about 85% of Heinlein's work. However, you recommend people start with "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel?" I'm sorry, that was not one of his better works. It was actually rather...lame. The characters were weak, the story was extremely thin. Invaders from space? You don't say. Try "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress." That was far and away one of the finest books I have ever read.

Re:Who?

[ksoltys]

Robert Heinlein was probably the most influential science fiction writer of the 20th century, possibly the most influential American writer of the 20th century. He didn't create modern science fiction single-handedly, but he dominated the field from his first short story in 1940. It's impossible to estimate how many scientific and engineering careers were launched by his juvenile novels of the 1950s, but the number must be huge.

Go to www.heinleinsociety.org to find out more.

Re:Who?

[StefanJ]

Robert A. Heinlein. Very prolific and influential SF author, active from the 40s through the 80s. One of the grand old men of the genre.

I read great heaps of RAH in high school and my early college years. One of my "first loves" in SF. I'm less of a fan now, and see a lot of his stuff as dated and politically cranky . . . but his best stuff holds up well.

Have Spacesuit, Will Travel was already mentioned. A great YA novel.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Libertarian moon colony vs. heavy-handed Earth authorities.

Time for the Stars. Under-appreciated YA novel about telepathic twins used to communicate with starships.

Waldo. Actually a novella. Genius-nerd with atrophied muscles, not satisfied with bedrest, builds . . . waldos.

Starship Troopers is a wonderful, obnoxious polemic.

Stefan

Re:Contradiction

[ShadowBlasko]

No, it is correct. This was not even a trunk novel. It was quite simply, aborted. The world was not yet ready, and the writer was not yet accomplished enough to convey the ideals.

Now, it has come to see the light of day.

It was his first, I actually would assume he would not have wanted it published, but I will read it anyway.

About what I expected

[Unknown Kadath]

I was thinking this would either be a cruder version of his earlier work, or a polemic. The fact that he hung on to it suggests it was important to him, so I'd suspected it involved his prevailing themes (sexual freedom, personal responsibility, etc.)

Heinlein hated the direction he foresaw the world taking, and it came out more and more in his later works, when he could write pretty much anything and his publisher would print it. I confess to liking Number of the Beast, but lord Bob almighty, it certainly can't compare to Stranger or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I'm glad Heinlein took the time to refine his craft.

That said, I'm kinda looking forward to reading what sounds like a Mary Sue story that neither he nor Ginny would ever have let see the light of day during their lives.

-Carolyn

Re:The lesson here

[PinkStainlessTail]

If not for one of those snots [pitt.edu] we wouldn't have much Kafka to read. Sometimes going against an author's wishes is the right thing to do. Sometimes.

Re:Heinlein Published Just One Novel

[CodeWanker]

I read my first Heinlein book (Red Planet) when I was 8, and I've read and re-read most if not all of his writing a LOT since then (I'm 34 now and still grab a bit of Heinlein now and then.)

IMHO, everything he wrote before Stranger in a Strange Land is awesome science fiction... And everything there and since is pretty Frakking awful. Except Friday. And now, not only do we have the Friday exception, we have the For Us, The Living exception.

From what I can tell from reading, For Us, The Living as a title is in part an homage to Ayn Rand (We The Living.) Heinlein was so much better when his characters practiced their philosophy instead of preaching it.

If you want to enjoy a great science fiction author, read Heinlein pre-Stranger. Especially The Puppet Masters and Double Star. I've read them both a dozen times and I still tear up like the fanboy I am at the last page of each one.

In fact, I can quote the last line of The Puppet Masters by heart: The free men of Earth are coming to kill you. Death and destruction!

See? Fanboy goosebumps and a tear in the eye. Lazarus Long and Valentine Michael Smith ain't gonna do that for anybody... Frakking hippies.

Decent Review

[Jack9]

This sounds exactly like the kind of book I would like to buy.

Re:Heinlein Published Just One Novel

[sTalking_Goat]

In my experience this seems to happen a lot, especially with teenage boys. My first Heinlein was Starship Troopers and I still thinks its was of the best books ever written. But the more you read of Heinlein, especially his later stuff like I will Fear no Evil the more you begin to either really hate or really love him, becuase he really does go all Ayn Rand at the end there.

But in a way thats good I suppose. If people either love you or hate you then you must really be saying something.

Re:Who?

[Erik_Kahl]

When you're reading a Heinlein book and there is a scene where one of the characters drops a name and you GET the reference to a different Heinlein story...you're no longer starting to read Heinlein. At that point you're prepared for his best, worst and strangest works.

Heinlein is not for everyone. He was an intelligent, strong and opinionated writer. His characters reflect this with an "I'm doing it my way and unless you plan to TRY kill me thats the way its going to be." kind of attitude. Often people are intimidated or offended by that attitude. I'm a huge fan of it. While I don't agree with all of Heinlein's views, I have imense respect for the fact that he took the time to develop an opinion and effort to express it as he did.

Re:i don't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing about Heinlein is that the guy could *write*.

He primarily wrote about adolescent fantasy worlds with few or no real humans in them, but the prose itself is fantasic.

It's a problem for a lot of his fans -- we read him along with Ayn Rand in high school and thought "Wow, this is what life is really about!". Now we're all embarrassed to have him on our shelves ... but the writing is so damn good....

It's no solution

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

<i>Probably the single stupidist vision of how things should work ever proposed.</i>

It's the do-nothing vision of how things should work. No planning, not even any recognition of a problem. In other words, pretty much the perfect human solution to such a problem.

I strongly suspect that's about how it's going to work out, too.

Re:Who?

[twiddlingbits]

Some modern day sci-fi authors are at least as good as RAH (and even as radical). Greg Bear, David Brin, Larry Niven, C.J. Cheryh come to mind. Others who are not golden age but not modern, but were great writers would be Ursula LeGuin, Harlan Ellison, Fredick Pohl, and Robinson. As far as sci-fi goes it really all started with Jules Verne, then the golden age authors of the 30's-50's took it to another level.

Re:Heinlein Published Just One Novel

[kimgh]

I pretty much like Heinlein's works, in spite of the admitted deficiencies mentioned here. But I Will Fear No Evil has got to be one of the most execrable pieces of writing I've ever had the misfortune to read. That's sad, because I remember being so excited when I first saw the book in a bookstore in Boise; I thought up till then that Heinlein was done writing, and I'd already read everything he was going to produce.

I've read IWFNE three times. The first time, I thought it was disappointing. Years later, I thought that I'd read it again, because I had come to think that, just possibly it couldn't be as bad as I remembered, and of course my experience has been that many books I had trouble with as a teenager became more comprehensible and enjoyable later into my adult years. So I tried it again, and, if anything, it was worse than I remembered.

Being a slow learner, I tried it again a few years later. And lo, and behold! It had not gotten any better in the intervening years. So I've finally learned that it blows chunks, and I won't ever read it again.

Next worst (in my opinion) is The Number of the Beast. But that one is at least possible for me to read without gagging.

My all-time favorite is Citizen of the Galaxy. The odyssey of Thorby is one of the most compelling stories I've ever read.

Re:Thanks, but...

[DaveAtFraud]

6. The Number of the Beast

It was the work in progress when he died, and it's not what his other work was. It did give me the line, "Did the universe just shift again?"

Err, ummm, no. The Number of the Beast was published quite a few years before RAH died. I read it in the mid-80s and it wasn't new then. The last two books by Heinlein were Job: A Comedy of Justice and The Cat Who walked Through Walls (in that order IIRC). You're probably thinking of "Job" since it involved the universe shifting without warning.

The Number of the Beast was decidedly not RAH at his best. "Job", on the other hand, was really quite funny and a decent read. The Door Into Summer is worth the read just for RAH's description of the cat looking for "the door into summer.

Re:Oh, really?

[steveha]

every single major character in every single novel the guy ever published is just a thinly veiled version of the author

Johnny Rico? Jubal Harsaw?
Valentine Michael Smith?
Friday? Mr. Kiku?
Waldo? The Great Lorenzo?
Thorby? Joe-Jim?
The Unmarried Mother?
Podkayne, and her obnoxious brother?

These were all thinly veiled versions of Heinlein?

Nope, not buying it.

P.S. I think what's going on here is that Heinlein was always story-driven, much more than character-driven. Some people like that, some people don't. Unless the story happens to be about character development, characters in a story-driven story don't get as much attention.

But to leap from that to saying that every character is RAH himself in disguise is, IMHO, less than insightful.

steveha

Re:The lesson here

[dvdeug]

You're dead. Furthermore, you died a great author author that someone actually published the book you had sitting in your closet half done. If you want to spin in your grave over it, that's fine, but you'll really be remembered for two or three works, and that won't be one of them.

In any case, again, you're dead. Really, who cares about your wishes in the matter? Why should they?

Heinlein for the beginning geek

[doom]

If you haven't read any Heinlein, try reading the quote juevnilles unquote that he wrote for Scribners. Red Planet, The Rolling Stones (no relation), Space Cadet, and so on are all great books. Most of the excesses (political and stylistic) that Heinlein-haters like to complain about are soft-peddled on these.

A personal favorite of mine is Have Spacesuit Will Travel, which is a mix of some gritty hard SF (e.g. survival situation on the moon involving solving problems with incompatible valve fittings) and crazed space opera (an amorphous alien blob named "The Mother Thing", representing the authority of the unified Three Galaxes).

The three books by Heinlein that may ultimately be the most interesting (and also the most controversial) are:

• The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Lunar colonists rebel against an oppressive earth government, in alliance with an accidentally developed AI.
• Stranger in a Strange Land - A boy raised by Martians is brought back to earth, where he displays some tremendous parapsychological powers, and more importantly an odd philosphical outlook.
• Starship Troopers - Space wars of the future (some interesting speculative hardware is featured) fought by an earth government ruled by a strange form of democracy where only military veterans [1] are allowed to vote. Some grim philosphy is presented about the inevitability of war.

Note: Mistress is beloved by libertarians; Stranger was worshipped by sixties hippies (it's literally a cult novel) and Troopers is beloved by conservatives. Be careful about making rash generalizations about what Heinlien was "really" about.

[1] Yes, I said "*military* veterans". Yes, I know what Heinlein said in "Expanded Universe". Try reading this (warning PDF): The Nature of "Federal Service" in Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers [nitrosyncretic.com]