Robert Heinlein, Dean of Sci-Fi, Citizen of the Galaxy

Robert Anselm Heinlein, d. 1988, is consistently voted one of the most popular writers of the last century. In my list he ranks third, just below Rand and Tolkien and just above Frank Herbert form whom he differs greatly in style. Heinlein is a Romantic and in most cases a Realist, although some of his works suffer from plot flaws that can be described as the primacy of consciousness. This criticism is best taken up in the reviews of those works where it occurs.

Heinlein is a master of suspense. His best books draw you in one page one, where the hero simultaneously meets a beautiful woman and dodges an assassination attempt; or disposes of the body of her would-be assassin on page two. He writes on such plot-themes as the American Revolution replayed on a Lunar colony; a time machine that doesn't work - until its inventor notices that the letter "j" is now missing from the alphabet; a family who rides out a nuclear attack in a bomb shelter to awaken millennia in the future in an isl*mic world-state where fattened Christian children are on the menu; a summer-camp field trip stranded on an alien planet where the transition from anarchy to self=rule is played out in brutal realism; the second coming in the form of an orphan from mars; an elderly man who makes arrangements to have his brain transplanted, only to find that he awakens in the body of his doting and buxom young secretary, and her soul is still in residence; interplanetary war with space-bugs in attack, and pacifists at home who are the real enemy; alien mind parasites who are defeated by the adoption of nudism; and much more.

Heinlein is consistently pro-egoist, pro-capitalist, pro-self defense, pro-American, and pro-human. In a secret meeting with Ronald Reagan and other writers such as Larry Niven, the "Star Wars" plan was hatched which KGB archives have shown was the lynch-pin in bringing down the Soviet Union. Heinlein is a consistent libertarian in the social realm, exploring homosexuality, group marriages, incest and transsexuality, as well as exploring the use of soft-drugs such as marijuana and the pitfalls of hard-drugs such as opium. Heinlein is also credited with the invention of the water bed and the waldo – mechanical arms used to manipulate dangerous substances remotely.

Heinlein is the only fiction writer I have ever read who mentions Rand, and it is in a positive light. Among Objectivists he is very popular. I have read almost all of his books, excepting just a few of his early juvenile works. Members are invited to post their reviews and comments. Those who have not read Heinlein are encouraged to do so.

Ted Keer, 10 December, 2006, NYC

The image is from self-gov.org

(Edited by Ted Keer
on 12/11, 12:35am)

Post 1

Sunday, December 10, 2006 - 1:42pm

CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY

While usually considered one of his "juvenile" books, this title is one of his best. A boy sold into slavery is purchased by a legless mendicant who teaches him what amounts to rational egoism. The beggar is more than he seems, and so is the boy. Leaving the slave planet, which amounts to a planet of Levantine decadence, the hero becomes a passenger on a family-owned trading spaceship where the crew speak Finnish and live according to a phratry system where there are essentially two clans.

The social rules are very complex, one may not fraternize with the other clan, but when it comes time to take a wife, one may not marry within one's own clan. Heinlein does not make the fact that the ship members are Finns living according to ancient folk custom explicit, and I only figured this out after I had studied archeology and anthropology and then re-read the book after about a decade.

Having lived under a Middle Eastern-style despotry and aboard a clannish trading vessel with a gypsy-like attitude toward strangers, the hero then makes a transition into an British style navy where again he must learn a totally new way of life. The book is quite an broadening experience, and Heinlein's research and fidelity to the systems he describes is impressive. Except for the space element, the story might have been set on 16th to 18th century Earth.

One of the best aspects of Heinlein "science-fiction" is that it is not alien or technology driven, but plot and character driven. Some of Heinlein's books have the flaw that they lack endings. Yet this story is fully integrated and does not disappoint. Do not be put of by the fact that the main character is an adolescent. The book is fully suitable for adults and I have read it three times.

Here is the listing on amazon.com from which the image is taken.

Ted Keer, 10 December, 2006, NYC

Post 2

Sunday, December 10, 2006 - 1:36pm

My two favorite science fiction novels; Orson Scott Card's 'Ender's Game' and Heinlein's 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress'.

Post 3

Sunday, December 10, 2006 - 3:53pm

The whole Ender's cycle is of interest.... many ideas play out and are raised....

As for Heinlein, have all his works, and find his 'future history' collection - The Past Thru Tomorrow - as well as Time Enough For Love to be among his best and most explorative of ideas... his tale - "Requeim" still brings tears, all the moreso when coupled with The Man Who Sold the Moon, one of the most stirling tales of entrepeneurship ever written..... indeed, it's hard to find a work of his which is NOT worth reading - they all have that positive, forthrightful sense of life - that 'stirring sense of tomorrow' so needed more than ever these days.....

(Edited by robert malcom on 12/10, 4:01pm)

Post 4

Sunday, December 10, 2006 - 11:54pm

I read all of Heinlein's books when I was young and think that to quite an extent he paved the way with his libertarianism and individualism for my later love of Rand.

I've recently been reading some books by E.E. Doc Smith which are hard to find since they're all out of print. They are earlier than Heinlein, but there are strong themes of reason as being the highest virtue that are very enjoyable.

Post 5

Monday, December 11, 2006 - 4:16am

Eric Frank Russell is another worth reading....

Post 6

Monday, December 11, 2006 - 8:45am

It's in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress that he invokes the name of John Galt to signify the mysterious power behind a revolution.

Post 7

Monday, December 11, 2006 - 10:15am

Ed, are you sure about this? I know that at some point they are discussing political systems and proposed constitutions. The professor suggests they consider Rand's system and he suggests having houses of legislature that can only veto or remove laws. Then the computer Mike does adopt a pseudonym as the unseen man behind the revolution, but I don't remember them using the name John Galt explicitly.

Ted

Having read this work recently, and then overhearing some old men arguing about what a waste it would be to go to the moon, my boyfriend lectured them for half an hour and then they were "ready to sign up."
(Edited by Ted Keer
on 12/11, 10:19am)

Post 8

Monday, December 11, 2006 - 7:56pm

In Chapter 9, speaking to Mike the computer:

"No, no! You're our Scarlet Pimpernel, our John Galt, our Swamp Fox, our man of mystery."

Post 9

Monday, December 11, 2006 - 9:02pm

Ah, yes...

Monday, December 11, 2006 - 11:59pm

I need to pick up a Heinlein novel. I've mostly read William Gibson's works since I've always loved the cyberpunk genre. :) Although the Moon is a harsh mistress novel there really interests me from the Wiki-article covering it.

-- Bridget

Post 11

Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - 10:11am

I'm just operating from memory here, but, didn't he also write a 'short' story included within Harlan Ellison's Fantastic Visions series?

LLAP
J:D

Post 12

Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - 1:04pm

Heinlein Plot Synopses

Here are my recommendations of good starter works for would-be Heinlein readers. These works are from his mature period and stand on their own. Other titles such as The Red Planet may be too juvenile for some people's tastes (they are still good adventure stories) and some of his works such as any featuring the character Lazarus Long are parts of series that should not be read out of order. The books below can each be read without preparation. I have listed them my favorite first, with a very brief synopsis.

FRIDAY: A genetically enhanced secret agent of the near future discovers who her real friends and her real enemies are. An incredibly fast paced page-turner, the book's social setting is eerily prescient of some of today's headlines. Self-discovery and the nature of happiness in an irrational society.

THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS: A computer repairman living in a lunar penal-colony befriends a network that has become self aware. Sent to correct a glitch, he discovers that the artificial mind is trying to understand what "humor" is. A libertarian friend suggests that a good joke for the computer to play might be overthrowing the penal warden's rule. The nature of mind and the cost of freedom.

FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD: An unhappily married man saves his son, wife, and neighbor from a nuclear attack in his bomb shelter. When they emerge it is not to a holocaust, but rather is in the pleasure Garden of a m*slim nobleman who eats Christians for lunch. Racism and self-discovery.

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND: A cult favorite, this book rivaled Tolkien and Rand in popularity on college campuses during the 60's. An Orphaned survivor of a doomed Martian Colony returns to Earth with the body of a man and the mind and powers of a demigod. An exploration of politics, sex, and love in a libertarian perspective.

I WILL FEAR NO EVIL: The worlds richest and oldest curmudgeon is loved only by his secretary. Having arranged to have his brain transplanted at death, he awakens in a very unexpected place. Sexuality, identity, and the nature of soul.

NUMBER OF THE BEAST: Friends discuss theoretical time travel at a cocktail party. One of the guests invites the hero to have a look at a prototype. Sexuality and politics among intimate friends. Features the "Society for Aesthetic Deletion"

STARSHIP TROOPERS: After world anarchy, order is restored by an autocratic military government along the lines of the Roman Republic. Those who serve in the military can vote. The rest are free to bitch all they like. Then alien contact is made, and the aliens aren't all that warm and fuzzy. Politics, war, ESP, personal growth and responsibility. The movie version was okay but left much out.

THE PUPPETMASTERS: A spaceship lands in the corn belt, but those who go to investigate report that it's just a hoax, and set up a sideshow to which one-and all are invited for a look-see. But there is no possibility of this being a hoax. Drug use, sex, secret agents and how nudism saves the world. The movie adaptation failed miserably.

Ted Keer, 12 December, 2006, NYC

Post 13

Thursday, December 14, 2006 - 7:25pm

Heinlein in particular and science fiction of that time generally wrote about ideas.

No other genre was so self-conscious about it.

What is a good man? That's fine. It was dealt with many times. What is a "man"? That's a tougher question.

The characters in golden age and silver age science fiction could be "complicated" and morally ambivalent, but never muddy, foggy, or ill-defined.

Not James Fennimore Cooper or Mark Twain nor Sinclair Lewis came to grips with the basic process of industrialism. It changed the world they lived in. We might say that they were too close to the trees to see the forest, but it was the same world in which Edgar Allen Poe, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and Aldous Huxley -- and Hugo Gernsback -- lived. Huck Finn might have tangentially dealt with the problem of whether and to what extent Jim was "just as good" i.e., morally worthy as any other man, but what if Jim had been genetically bred and prenatally conditioned to be a Gamma? Babbitt brought nothing new to the world. That defines the failure of so-called "mainstream" fiction. In fact, science fiction is the mainstream fiction of our time.

Post 14

Sunday, July 15, 2007 - 1:42am

Here is an interesting link that I just ran across which is Robert Heinlein's 1952 entry to Edward R. Murrow's "This I Believe" program. I thought others might enjoy it.

Regards,
--
Jeff

This I Believe: by Robert A. Heinlein

Post 15

Monday, July 16, 2007 - 6:01pm

RH's concerns certainly seemed to change with and after STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. His FRIDAY was supposedly answering a challenge that he was mysoginistic, (couldn't present a bona-fide female pov), and, to me, he failed there; the female struck me as a 'girl' rather than a 'woman.' The only times a 'real' woman seemed presented (earlier), they were mysterious and near 'off-stage.' His FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD was critiqued as a bit racist (rather than religionist [!?]) I thought it was merely a well-done TT story, but I could see the germs of a good argument on that. He seemed to have acquired a tendency to polemicize as a whole story-style (starting with SIASL) culminating with J.O.B. (whose ending I thought fascinating.) --- Maybe literarily influenced by Rand?

LLAP
J:D

(Edited by John Dailey on 7/16, 6:03pm)

Post 16

Monday, July 16, 2007 - 6:28pm

As an aside, it's worthwhile here to appreciate that Heinlein DID coin the term 'Randite' (I forget which book.) I always liked that; better than (apropos that it may seem to some) others' term of 'Objectivish.'

A while back, some publishing company had a slew of book/writer literary analysts 'analyzing' (deconstructing?) the writings of varied American writers. I forget the author, but he did a few 'booklets' on several SF authors, Heinlein taking up a whole booklet. I believe Heinlein was asked in an interview what he thought of his. He refused to comment (as on SIASL in other interviews.) I have the series, but, they're stored away. Anyone familiar with this?

LLAP
J:D

Post 17

Monday, July 16, 2007 - 7:38pm

I did my highschool honors English term paper on "the Heinlein Hero." (1966)

Yes, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is probably Heinlein's best work. It was shortly thereafter that he had an aneurism that required some major brain surgery, as I recall, and his writing really took a dive after that, altho he continued to crank them out, just not of very good quality.

Heinlein had some significant, if not always positive, effects on American society. His intentions were generally good...

For example, his first venture into subjectivism and solipsism was his famous "Stranger in a Strange Land." Heinlein intended the book to be a spoof, poking ridicule at the early "New Age" movement. But he did such a good job that the mystics thought it was a serious take and used it as a bible! Note the use of Grok on the internet in various places. A fair number of people actually made "Stranger.." a model for how they lived their lives, and some are still at it.

There was a group that called itself "Glory Road" which patterned itself after the social system envisioned in "Moon is a ..." They put together a plural marriage in Las Vegas in the '70's that reportedly had about 30 husbands and wives and maybe 40 kids and it still exists, albeit in vastly diminished form, last time I checked anyway, under the name of "Windward." When they moved up to Oregon, however, they failed to get their big project off the ground - running a couple of BIG houseboats as a floating oceanic community, and from there the group appears to have disipated to the winds. That they lasted for a couple of decades implies that such arrangements are at least workable.

If you like Heinlein's hard sf, e.g., "The Moon...", then you will probably like Vernor Vinge's stuff, excepting his first two novels - "The Witling" and "Tatya Grims (sp?) World", both of which were as awesomely terrible as his other stuff is really great. I recommend his recent "Rainbows End" as possibly the best near-future sf novel out there. And, for a long time, I considered his "Marooned in Real Time" to be the best sf novel ever. Read it in context in the "Accross Realtime" trilogy to get the most out of it.

Post 18

Monday, July 16, 2007 - 10:59pm

I spoke to a relative of his on Long Island, who, when I asked if there was a relation, said "yes, but you have to understand he had a brain operation and that's why he wrote all that stuff about drugs and homosexuality." I think the story is either apocryphal or a smokescreen. Friday is a perfectly constructed story and as a work of fiction is as good as Mistress. He explores sex in The Number of the Beast but the ending is not convincing. The idea that a writer has to prove himself able to write convincingly about the opposite sex is absurd.

Post 19

Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - 6:26pm