Heinlein Archives Put Online 242
RaymondRuptime writes "Good news for fans of the late SF master Robert Heinlein, 2 months after his 100th birthday celebration. Per the San Jose Mercury News, 'The entire contents of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Archive — housed in the UC-Santa Cruz Library's Special Collections since 1968 — have been scanned in an effort to preserve the contents digitally while making the collection easily available to both academics and the general public... The first collection released includes 106,000 pages, consisting of Heinlein's complete manuscripts — including files of all his published works, notes, research, early drafts and edits of manuscripts.' You can skip the brief article and go straight to the archives."
TANSTAAFL (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This links to a *STORE*, people... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:For real? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just read the Lazarus rant in "Time Enough for Love" when he understands for the first time that his pearls of wisdom are being recorded.
So I think he is more likely laughing than grumbling. After all he said (though Lazarus): "Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil."
hrmph. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have all his books, even the one finished by Spider Robinson.
But when I can buy an copy off the 'net for less then a scanned, no doubt DRM'd, electronic copy - I have to wonder who the target of this website is.
Bottom line - If you want to impress people donate the collected works to the Gutenberg archive.
But of course that is not a money spinner. Hardcore fans only indeed - though I am not knocking this as a source for historical research for the academics.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This links to a *STORE*, people... (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole 'everything should be free' movement is weird.
D
Re:Umm??? I thought Heinlein... (Score:1, Insightful)
If you haven't read his best works, you're really missing out. I urge you to give him a try, you won't regret it. Maybe you read one of his "bad" books and got a bad impression. Read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, it is my favorite book of all time, out of any genre.
Re:Umm??? I thought Heinlein... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a tragic shame that Heinlein lived long enough to write his later rubbish, which he apparently typed one-handed, with his trousers off. But his early stuff made good light reading. Fun and full of ideas.
Re:This links to a *STORE*, people... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This links to a *STORE*, people... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does it have to be free?
By putting a price of even a buck on it you cut out the majority of the world's population.
If you want to read Stanger in a Strange Land for free, whats stopping you from going to the library? If the $21 price tag on the Starship Troopers opus is too much, then head over to Amazon and get the novel for $5.
You're being parochial. The US is less than 5% of the world's population. The european population is more than double that but the entire western world is still less than 25%. Not to mention children and other members of western society who can't afford even $5. Why should they go without because of broken IP law?
This whole 'everything should be free' movement is weird.
Actually, this whole 'everything should be paid for again and again' movement is the weird one.
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It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.
Re:Increase the income... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, this benefits only those who accidentally happen to have objectives similar to those of the trust.
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Like software, intellectual property law is a product of the mind, and can be anything we want it to be. Let's get it right.
Re:This links to a *STORE*, people... (Score:2, Insightful)
When someone describes the works of a dead author going online in some archival form, "in an effort to preserve the contents digitally while making the collection easily available to both academics and the general public", the idea of "for free" implicitly tags along for the ride.
If you want to "preserve" an intangible and/or make it "easily available" to everyone, you don't charge for it. You give it away to anyone who will take it.
Furthermore, while I have no problem with rewarding an artist for their work, I do have a problem with continuing to pay them after they've died. I will never understand how the aristocracy managed to get the plebes to buy into the idea of leaving one's heirs a "legacy". For most of us, that means getting nothing, or worse than nothing - Thanks to modern medicine keeping people alive long after they should have died, more people today pass on massive debt than any sort of estate.
Re:hrmph. (Score:3, Insightful)
While I love to read, I have very little interest in HOW a book is written. I mean, I kind of care, but not enough to sift through tons of notes and try to recreate his thought process on a book that took him months or years to write. I simply don't have enough time to care.
On the other hand, if I were looking at writing my first book, I'd be sorely tempted to take a look at the process a master used, and see what could help me along.
And if I lived and breathed his books, I'd cherish the ability to get deeper into his thinking.
I just like a good story, though, not the author or anything else involved.
Re:A practice that could save us from rereleases. (Score:3, Insightful)
I certainly don't disagree with you, but in all fairness there aren't all that many 'primary' authors that have done a good job carrying on a series. The obsession with never-ending series of books in scifi & fantasy almost guarantees that you will lose interest and/or be disappointed by the quality long before the series is finished. A standard trilogy may not be enough, but if there are more than 6 or so books, my advice to the author is to stop trying to milk it, give it a rest, and move on to something fresh.
There are exceptions to this, but frankly I can't think of any offhand.
Re:This links to a *STORE*, people... (Score:5, Insightful)
Such weak BS.
If an artist wants to take care of their heirs, they need to do like the rest of us and take care of their heirs with the money they earn while they are still alive.
Untimely accident? TFB, death sucks for all of us.
I just don't see what gives artists the right to continue to profit from their works after they die. No one else has that "right".
Re:TANSTAAFL (Score:3, Insightful)
But if the Estate (or descendants) "invested" in the scanning, and then released the manuscripts a little at a time, via torrents or free / cheap hosting services, it's possible that they would re-energize the market for his books.
I have never bought a Heinlein book, and don't intend to pay to download stuff. But if I were exposed to it via a free website, it might just pique my interest enough to buy a book (which has happened NUMEROUS times to me with technical books).
Then again, they might be executing the iPhone "skim the market" strategy. First, you pick up the early adopters at a premium price. Then you open it up for free / cheap, and try to use it to drive other business (like book sales).
Re:This links to a *STORE*, people... (Score:4, Insightful)
My grandfather is dead, but I am his heir. He did some good work 70 years ago but I am quite poor. Everyone must send me $10.
it would be nice to think that one's work could benefit one's children for some time
I would like that too. But my employer has told me that my pay will be stopped when I die. Evidently I am in the wrong industry.
Re:Umm??? I thought Heinlein... (Score:4, Insightful)
Heinlein knew he was writing in the style of Kipling - and Twain - the two best writers in the English language since Shakespeare and Milton. Heinlein knew their work intimately. Since Heinlein was describing outward-looking people and societies, people of the frontiers such as Kipling and Twain had written of, they were perfect models for him. Joyce, by contrast, is an example of European culture turned inward, during a period of great failures and retreat. And that's the problem with most of what passes for "literature" today - it deals in neurosis and failure rather than hope and success. Our scope should be wide enough to encompass both. And of the latter, Heinlein was the greatest author of the 20th Century. His sentences are deliciously-well crafted, too. His care in the details was as fine as Joyce's. It's just a different style. But he was perfect at it, especially in his first couple of decades.
Re:This links to a *STORE*, people... (Score:2, Insightful)
okay, so what industry are you in? should your heirs be paid for your enduring work at the Walmart checkout? at the Ford assembly plant? well, probably not. at Microsoft? hmm, maybe not. in your studio creating a new genre of painting / literature / music? yep, that's how we've been doing it for a while
what if you author an enduring work that continues to benefit society and parenthetically continues to sell. you are going to insist you stop being paid after some time limit? and what is that limit? two years? at your death? say you die the day after your first sale. so then is your wife screwed, your children screwed?
not like we're talking about 20 lines of Java code tossed off just after lunch, we're talking about a large personal effort creating an enduring work of art
you take a year off, create a work at the same level as Stranger In A Strange Land, then give it to me. for free. thanks! and when SciFi creates the mini series, tell them to take their filthy money and piss off, you don't want it. good for you! God forbid you spend your advance on a round the world trip (i assume you'd take an advance from a publisher, if not a cut of the sales) and then you snuff it on a beach in Thailand (sorry, killed you off in a tsunami). your year old child who was too young for the trip is screwed. thanks papa!
Re:This links to a *STORE*, people... (Score:2, Insightful)
you can't see it because you're myopic. consult an optometrist
also, consider the life gamble someone like Heinlein makes. part of why he concludes he can make that gamble is the payoff, for him and his heirs, has high potential. you're talking about restricting and/or eliminating that potential
i know i like to keep my artists down. keeps 'em from getting uppity and acting like they deserve something for their effort
Re:smokin something (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll stick my two cents in here. Heinlein's juveniles and many other works (up until the period when the transition in quality coming from his cerebral artery problem deeply hurt his work) all celebrated the human condition, and the ability of man to rise to noble heights. They also were cracking good stories, too. Heinlein does not deserve the denigration coming these days from academic hacks and people unable to understand what he was really getting at. He wrote of man's responsibility to society, over and over again, and I find it offensive when some dimwitted, unimaginative 'publish or perish' academic arrogantly demeans him.
In his time - a span of decades overlapping WWII - Heinlein was a giant and an inspiration to many engineers and scientists; any current critic dismissing him as a totalitarian Nazi is getting it completely wrong. His goal was to make money entertaining, true, but he aimed to inspire, he aimed at noble mores. He was not a literary cheat or a fraud and tried to give good value for the money. He was human and he made some mistakes in later years. But overall he saluted the best in man, championed the competent man in his stories. He was in favor of can-do, and held whiny slackers in disdain. If someone finds fault in that, the problem is with them, not him. His Starship Troopers was about genuine duty to man, unlike many of today's shallow military porn 'Sci-Fi" novels. (The movie adaptation was not his fault.) His Door Into Summer inspired me as a budding engineer. Today's lightweight bookstore rack-space fillers, by contrast, are shallow and disposable. I don't see many of them lighting the right sparks in growing minds like Heinlein did.
Re:TANSTAAFL (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:TANSTAAFL (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is, most of the wonders of modern science were predicted in the writings of people like Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Wells, and Clarke.
Re:For real? (Score:1, Insightful)
Browse or search through the indexes of available Archives' documents. Select those documents you wish to buy and add them to the Cart.
This is just a disgusting move by his heirs to make money from a dead man. If you hear a rumble from his grave, it's him spinning in it.
Again, I'm just disgusted. If my family uses me like that after I'm dead (and I use the word "use" in the harshes sense; as in "I've been used and abused") I'm going to haunt them!
mcgrew [kuro5hin.org]
PS- Did I mention my disgust? We seriously need to reform copyright; most of Heinlein's works date back to before I was born, and I'm over the half century mark. none of Heinlein's works should still be under copyright.
I'me even more disgusted with "my" congress (AKA "corporate lapdogs).