# Robert Heinlein



## Jonathan Randall (Jan 2, 2006)

"Have Spacesuit Will Travel" by Robert Heinlein introduced me to science fiction when I read it in eighth grade. After that, I scoured libraries and used bookstores for any Heinlein titles I could get. Favourites include "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", "Podkayne of Mars", "The Door into Summer" and "Stranger in a Strange Land". Any other members inspired by Heinlein's works? Thoughts?

BTW, I also read that Robert Heinlein was a martial artist (fencer and student of Fairbairn style combatives).

Also discussed here: (shameless plug as I'm a Moderator there, LOL).

http://www.rustaz.com/forum/showthread.php?p=16358#post16358post16358


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## Blindside (Jan 2, 2006)

I read Starship Troopers when I was a junior in high school, and that got me hooked.  

My favorite books were probably The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Glory Road, and Time Enough for Love.

Favorite short stories were the Green Hills of Earth and Requiem.

I recently read Requiem, a collection and tribute put together after his death, I found something he wrote in 1953 for Edward R. Murrow's "This I believe."  

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I am not going to talk about religious beliefs but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I believe in my neighbors.  I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults.

Take Father Michael down our road a piece. I'm not of his creed, but I know that goodness and charity and loving kindness shine in his daily actions.  I believe in Father Mike. If I'm in trouble, I'll go to him.

My next-door neighbor is a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stay cat. No fee--no prospect of a fee--I believe in Doc.

I believe in my townspeople. You can knock on any door in our town saying, 'I'm hungry,' and you will be fed. Our town is no exception. I've found the same ready charity everywhere. But for the one who says, 'To heck with you--I got mine,' there are a hundred, a thousand who will say, 'Sure, pal, sit down.'

I know that despite all warnings against hitchhikers I can step to the highway, thumb for a ride, and in a few minutes a car or a truck will stop and someone will say, 'Climb in, Mac--how far you going?'

I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime, yet for every criminal there are 10,000 honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day.  Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime. I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses and the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land.

I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There were never enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones.

I believe that almost all politicians are honest... there are hundreds of politicians, low paid or not paid at all, doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true we would never have gotten past the thirteen colonies.

I believe in Roger Young. You and I are free today because of endless unnamed heroes from Valley Forge to the Yalu River. I believe in--I am proud to belong to-- the United States. Despite shortcomings from lynchings to bad faith in high places, our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history.

And finally, I believe in my whole race. Yellow, white, black, red, brown. In the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability, and goodness of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far only by the skin of our teeth.  That we always make it just by the skin of our teeth, but that we will always make it. Survive. Endure. I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes, will endure longer than his home planet--will spread out to the stars and beyond, carrying with him his honesty and insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage and his noble essential decency.

This I believe with all my heart.

Robert A. Heinlein.
--------------------------

I like to think most people grok his writings. 

Lamont


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## DavidCC (Jan 3, 2006)

You forgot Stranger In A Strange Land.  also all of the Lazarus Long stuff too.


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## arnisador (Jan 4, 2006)

I enjoyed Starship Troopers. I've read a couple of other things by him, and Stranger in a Strange Land is on my to-read list.


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## Kacey (Jan 4, 2006)

I do like Robert Heinlein, although my favorite author is Anne McCaffrey (Pern has dragons - dragons you can ride!).  My favorite Heinlein story is probably "The Menace from Earth", and I've read Time Enough for Love and The Past Through Tomorrow so many times the covers fell off my copies.  From what I remember reading about his bio, he and his wife were nudists (which shows in some of the books).  He got a little strange in his later writings (which, from the same bio, showed his personal beliefs/preferences) and it got a little too, well, pornographic for my taste.  Also, his attempts to combine all of his various universes led to some strange results.  Overall, I enjoy anything he wrote in the first 1/2 to 3/4 of his career - it was the very latest stuff that was a little out there, at least in my opinion.


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## Jonathan Randall (Jan 4, 2006)

Kacey said:
			
		

> I do like Robert Heinlein, although my favorite author is Anne McCaffrey (Pern has dragons - dragons you can ride!). My favorite Heinlein story is probably "The Menace from Earth", and I've read Time Enough for Love and The Past Through Tomorrow so many times the covers fell off my copies. From what I remember reading about his bio, he and his wife were nudists (which shows in some of the books). He got a little strange in his later writings (which, from the same bio, showed his personal beliefs/preferences) and it got a little too, well, pornographic for my taste. Also, his attempts to combine all of his various universes led to some strange results. Overall, I enjoy anything he wrote in the first 1/2 to 3/4 of his career - it was the very latest stuff that was a little out there, at least in my opinion.


 
That's a good summation; his early and middle work was his best. "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" was particularly good, but after "Stranger in a Strange Land", it started falling apart; while yet retaining splatches of the old Heinlein. He certainly was a unique individual, but like you mentioned, in his later work he showed some interesting fetishes.

Taanstafl! ("There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch") was a favourite Heinlein expression and showed his Libertarian leanings.


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## OnlyAnEgg (Jan 5, 2006)

I've always loved Heinlein.  Stranger is, by far, one of my favorite books of all time.  I liked Friday, too; as well as almost all his juvy-fic.

Indeed, my nickname is Heinlein inspired.


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## Kacey (Jan 5, 2006)

OnlyAnEgg said:
			
		

> I've always loved Heinlein. Stranger is, by far, one of my favorite books of all time. I liked Friday, too; as well as almost all his juvy-fic.


 
I liked Friday, but I thought that the ending was a little too pat - something that shows up in several things he wrote.  Stranger was definitely good, and I reread it every few years... so many books, so little time... that silly job thing that keeps me from my reading



			
				OnlyAnEgg said:
			
		

> Indeed, my nickname is Heinlein inspired.



 I saw that - should we call you Mike?


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## Jonathan Randall (Jan 5, 2006)

Kacey said:
			
		

> I liked Friday, but I thought that the ending was a little too pat - something that shows up in several things he wrote. Stranger was definitely good, and I reread it every few years... so many books, so little time... that silly job thing that keeps me from my reading


 
If I weren't rereading "The Witching Hour", IMHO Anne Rice's best novel, I would grab "Friday" and read it again - it has been nearly 20 years! Your take on the ending is correct, IIRC. The first half of "The Number of the Beast" was intriguing; the second half was nearly unreadable.

I know that he wrote about martial arts in both "Tunnel in the Sky" (a main character studies Savate) and "Farnham's Freehold" (a main character studies an undisclosed style of Karate). I do know that in his youth, before his illnesses, he was a fencing champion and that after WW2, when he forsaw a possible collapse of civilization, he began studying military combatives (Fairbairn style, I believe). He was also a Marine trained (he was a Naval Officer) pistol expert and champion as well.


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## Kacey (Jan 6, 2006)

Jonathan Randall said:
			
		

> If I weren't rereading "The Witching Hour", IMHO Anne Rice's best novel, I would grab "Friday" and read it again - it has been nearly 20 years! Your take on the ending is correct, IIRC. The first half of "The Number of the Beast" was intriguing; the second half was nearly unreadable.
> 
> I know that he wrote about martial arts in both "Tunnel in the Sky" (a main character studies Savate) and "Farnham's Freehold" (a main character studies an undisclosed style of Karate). I do know that in his youth, before his illnesses, he was a fencing champion and that after WW2, when he forsaw a possible collapse of civilization, he began studying military combatives (Fairbairn style, I believe). He was also a Marine trained (he was a Naval Officer) pistol expert and champion as well.



It's been too long since I read Tunnel in the Sky for me to remember; now that you mention it, I do recall the Karate in Farnham's Freehold.  I'd reread Friday (and a few other things as well), except that one of my students loaned me a copy of Memoirs of a Geisha, and I've been reading that since then - one of the few non-SF, non-text books I've read in some time, and I'm enjoying it a lot; it's a very good novel, seems historically accurate (at least as far as I know), and very well written, with some lovely images.  Still, SF will always be my favorite!


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## Jonathan Randall (Jan 7, 2006)

Robert Heinlein Official Site Link: 
http://www.heinleinsociety.org/


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## FearlessFreep (Jan 7, 2006)

Only thing I've read by Heinlein was "Starship Troopers" and "Stanger In A Strange Land"

Also liked Pern, which someone mentioned, but only read the first five or so

Like Niven's "The Integral Trees" and of course the two "Ringworld" books as well.

Big Asimov fan (nobody commented on my Seldon Plan reference a few weeks back in a political thread)


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## crushing (Mar 10, 2007)

I used to read a lot of Asimov (especially short stories) and Clarke a while back, but never read Heinlein, until I picked up Stranger in a Strange Land at the library today.  It's pretty interesting so far.

Did the 'Only An Egg' inspiration from _Stranger_, or another Heinlein work?


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## exile (Mar 10, 2007)

FearlessFreep said:


> Only thing I've read by Heinlein was "Starship Troopers" and "Stanger In A Strange Land"
> 
> Also liked Pern, which someone mentioned, but only read the first five or so
> 
> ...



Asimov might well have had the best plotting skills of all time in the domain of Sci-Fi. He wrote some of the very greatest imaginative fiction ever. I think `The Last Question' has never been surpassed.

Am myself a big fan of Cordwainer Smith (`The game of Rat and Dragon' and the other Instrumentality stories), Alfred Bester&#8212;just about anything he wrote; and Brian Aldiss, whose best stories (like the title story of the collection _Galaxies like Grains of Sand_, the last one) are unbearably poignant. And Erik Frank Russell had the odd masterpiece&#8212;_Sentinels from Space_ and the novella `The Ultimate Invader'. There's something about those `golden age' writers at their best which is really hard to beat...

BTW, Jay, I'm sorry I missed the thread that had your Seldon reference&#8212;the original _Foundation_ trilogy took my breath away when I first read it lo these many, and still does every time I reread it. It would have been fun to have stumbled across a reference to the immortal Hari...

... did you ever recover from the final revelation in the last sentence of the third book in the trilogy? I'm not sure _I_ ever did! :wink1:


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## crushing (Mar 10, 2007)

crushing said:


> Did the 'Only An Egg' inspiration from _Stranger_, or another Heinlein work?


 
Got to it in Stranger.


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## Kreth (Mar 10, 2007)

This thread has got me wanting to re-read some classics. Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke. So many books, so little time.


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## Jonathan Randall (Mar 10, 2007)

Kreth said:


> This thread has got me wanting to re-read some classics. Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke. So many books, so little time.


 
Amen to that.

"Podkayne of Mars", anyone?


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## Don Roley (Mar 11, 2007)

Kreth said:


> This thread has got me wanting to re-read some classics. Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke. So many books, so little time.



Years ago they released the version of "Stranger in a Strange Land" that Heilein originally presented to the publishers. The version most of us first read was sent back to him and he was told to remove about _one third_ of the story before they would accept it.

After he died, his widow arranged for the original version to be published. I read it. I advise you do so I you have not. After reading the vision that he had for the book, you will throw rocks at the ones the original editors put out.

It is a great book to curl up with in front of a fire with.


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## crushing (Mar 11, 2007)

Mr. Roley,  Thank you for that information.  My library happened to have the bigger, longer, uncut version of Stranger and I was wondering if it would be better than the one the publishers had him cut up.  I assumed so.


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## Kacey (Mar 11, 2007)

Don Roley said:


> Years ago they released the version of "Stranger in a Strange Land" that Heilein originally presented to the publishers. The version most of us first read was sent back to him and he was told to remove about _one third_ of the story before they would accept it.
> 
> After he died, his widow arranged for the original version to be published. I read it. I advise you do so I you have not. After reading the vision that he had for the book, you will throw rocks at the ones the original editors put out.
> 
> It is a great book to curl up with in front of a fire with.



I've read the longer version too - and it is quite good.  I checked it out from the library, and need to get a copy for myself; it's been years.

Alas... so many books... so little space in the house....


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## Sukerkin (Mar 12, 2007)

Kacey said:


> Alas... so many books... so little space in the house....


 
Couldn't agree more - that's why one room of my house has been converted into a library (floor to ceiling shelves on all walls, above the door above the windows and aisles across the width).

Starship Troopers, Stranger In A Strange Land and Glory Road are classic science fiction/fantasy but I do have to agree with those that've said his earlier work was his better.


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## redfang (Mar 12, 2007)

First one I read was _Stranger.(_Maybe it was _Job_,come to think of it.)

But Faves are _Friday, Time Enough for Love, Number of the Beast, I Will Fear No Evil, To Sail Beyond the Sunset. _Those come to mind, but I am hard pressed to think of a Heinlein novel that I didn't enjoy.


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## SFC JeffJ (Mar 12, 2007)

Starship Troopers was what initially got me interested in a military career.  Glory Road, Strangers in a Strange Land, Tunnel in the Sky, and a bunch of others are on my bookshelf.  I even enjoy Number of the Beast now and again.  Could be a lot shorter though!


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## crushing (Mar 18, 2007)

SFC JeffJ said:


> Starship Troopers was what initially got me interested in a military career. Glory Road, Strangers in a Strange Land, Tunnel in the Sky, and a bunch of others are on my bookshelf. I even enjoy Number of the Beast now and again. Could be a lot shorter though!


 
I just finished Stranger today, based on that experience and some of the comments in this thread, I'm putting Starship Troopers next on my list.  I have not seen the movie, but I have heard it was one of the most horrible book-to-movies ever done.


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## Kacey (Mar 18, 2007)

crushing said:


> I just finished Stranger today, based on that experience and some of the comments in this thread, I'm putting Starship Troopers next on my list.  I have not seen the movie, but I have heard it was one of the most horrible book-to-movies ever done.



Starship Troopers is a good book... the movie stunk, and had very little resemblance to the book beyond the title - kind of like I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov - it said "inspired by the novel" - and that's about all it was... from everything I heard, I never watched I, Robot_; _I had the chance to watch Starship Troopers and couldn't get halfway through it...


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## Cryozombie (Mar 18, 2007)

crushing said:


> I'm putting Starship Troopers next on my list.  I have not seen the movie, but I have heard it was one of the most horrible book-to-movies ever done.



Its an excellent book.  A so-so movie.  But when you see the movie after reading the book, about the only things they have in common are some names... that movie was NOT an adaptation of the book.  But then, Verhoven himself admitted he wanted to make a Giant Spider movie, and was presented Starship Troopers... and made it into his Giant Spider Movie.


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## Cryozombie (Mar 18, 2007)

*thread hijack* 

Also I thought this would be a good thread to bring up one of my favorite illiustrators, Michael Whelan.  

Mr. Wheelan did many of the more recent (80s) Book covers for Heinleins books, as well as all the McAffree Pern novels Kacey mentioned.​


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## Kreth (Mar 18, 2007)

Cryozombie said:


> *thread hijack*
> 
> Also I thought this would be a good thread to bring up one of my favorite illiustrators, Michael Whelan.
> 
> Mr. Wheelan did many of the more recent (80s) Book covers for Heinleins books, as well as all the McAffree Pern novels Kacey mentioned.​


I like his artwork and that of the Bros. Hildebrandt. Maybe they could have him redo the Wheel of Time covers, instead of that hack Sweet... :idunno:


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## jks9199 (Mar 18, 2007)

crushing said:


> I just finished Stranger today, based on that experience and some of the comments in this thread, I'm putting Starship Troopers next on my list.  I have not seen the movie, but I have heard it was one of the most horrible book-to-movies ever done.


Horrible is an understatement.  The movie basically turned a very thoughtful and intelligent political book with a great war/adventure story running through it into a cartoon propaganda piece.

Read *Starship Troopers*.  In fact, if you've already read it, but haven't re-read it lately... Re-read it.  (I'm due to do so myself... but got myself sidetracked with the Liaden's again...)  Think of the movie as a neat special effects piece only loosely connected to the book, and probably more connected to the role playing game.  (And it didn't have powered armor, anyway!)


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## jks9199 (Mar 18, 2007)

Kacey said:


> Starship Troopers is a good book... the movie stunk, and had very little resemblance to the book beyond the title - kind of like I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov - it said "inspired by the novel" - and that's about all it was... from everything I heard, I never watched I, Robot_; _I had the chance to watch Starship Troopers and couldn't get halfway through it...


I thought *I, Robot* was a reasonable adaptation of several of Asimov's stories into a movie.  Bluntly... few of his stories would make a good movie, in my opinion.  They're great reads -- but too cerebral to make into a movie.  Can you imagine many people having the patience to watch a movie based on *Foundation*, for example?


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## exile (Mar 18, 2007)

Kacey said:


> Starship Troopers is a good book... the movie stunk, and had very little resemblance to the book beyond the title - kind of like I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov - it said "inspired by the novel" - and that's about all it was... from everything I heard, I never watched I, Robot_; _I had the chance to watch Starship Troopers and couldn't get halfway through it...



I took a pass on the movie _I, Robot_, for exactly the same reason. Not sure why, but Hollywood seems totally helpless in the face of Golden Age sci-fi. I can imagine a brilliant movie made from Arthur C. Clarke's _Childhood's End_&#8212;it couldn't match the book , I don't think, but it could be as good in relation to the book as, say, LoTR was in relation to Tolkien's books... but it'll never happen. 

I think the best movie adaptation of a sci-fi novel was probably _The Forbidden Planet_. And that was probably because the novel was based on an ingenious premise but had little of the complexity or nuance that shines out on every page by authors like Asimov and Clarke; mostly it was suspense that drove the storyline, and that sort of thing usually comes off pretty well in movie adaptations.


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## Kacey (Mar 18, 2007)

jks9199 said:


> I thought *I, Robot* was a reasonable adaptation of several of Asimov's stories into a movie.



I didn't... but I've been reading Asimov for 30 years, and I have my own visualizations of what the characters should look like and act like.  Now, I felt that the movie of Bicentennial Man was very well done... but if you look at the information on I, Robot, the movie, it says "suggested by" the novel - and I really think that's all it was... suggested... 



jks9199 said:


> Bluntly... few of his stories would make a good movie, in my opinion.  They're great reads -- but too cerebral to make into a movie.  Can you imagine many people having the patience to watch a movie based on *Foundation*, for example?


They _are_ great reads - and that's what Asimov wrote them for - to be read, not as the basis for movie scripts - and I don't see any reason why he should have done otherwise.  There are a lot of good novels that have been ruined by being turned into movies; there are some movies that are better than the book - although, IMHO, that generally only happens when the book is written after the movie.  LoTR, now - that was a great job of turning great novels into good movies - but even then, I have a few problems with some of the changes... but that is, as they say, a topic for another thread.

Now, getting back to Heinlein, The Twilight Zone did a great job with The Puppet Masters - one of the better jobs of turning a book into a movie, as far as I'm concerned.


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## FearlessFreep (Mar 18, 2007)

I thought _I, Robot_ was a fairly decent movie in it's own right.  As a fan of Asimov, I thought it was influenced pretty well by the ideas of Asimiv but with a distinctively Hollywood flair


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## exile (Mar 18, 2007)

jks9199 said:


> I thought *I, Robot* was a reasonable adaptation of several of Asimov's stories into a movie.  Bluntly... few of his stories would make a good movie, in my opinion.  They're great reads -- but too cerebral to make into a movie.  Can you imagine many people having the patience to watch a movie based on *Foundation*, for example?



I don't think cerebrality is necessarily a death-knell for some book-to-move/TV project. Certainly, there are plenty of very cerebral TV series that have been great successesjust about anything by Dennis Potter for example. _The Singing Detective_ is a very demanding, dense enterprise, but it succeeded brilliantly. 

I think the problem is that normal studio production in the US relies heavily on extremely expensive special effects that require mass-audience appeal to generate the box $$$ necessary to keep the project in the black. A Hollywood version of _Foundation_ would wind up spending eight figures on a recreation of Trantor and still more on the space battles involving the early history of the Foundation and its expansion, figuring that that's what it would take to keep audiences coming in. It's that kind of mindset that's the problem. I think any of these great Golden Age novels could be done and done brilliantly, Heinlein included of course, but not with a Hollywood studio system director...


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## Don Roley (Mar 19, 2007)

You know, of all the Heinlein books, I always thought that _Tunnel in the Sky_ would be the one best suited for a movie.

Anyone have any other suggestions?


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