Kind of a not recent thread here, but...
How much impact and/or influence do you think close relationships with other authors has on one's writing? Can you give any instance where you see L. Sprague de Camp's or Asimov's influence in Heinlein's writing, or vice versa?
It depends on the nature of the relationship. For instance, in that particular case, I don't think there was much significant influence beyond what they might have had on each other anyway. Whereas husband/wife combos like Kuttner/Moore and Hamilton/Brackett had a great deal of influence on one another and very close collaborators like Pohl/Kornbluth did. One thing to keep in mind is that, at that time, fandom was relatively small and closely knit and almost everyone knew everyone and influenced each other to one degree or another. Especially those who were in or came from Campbell's
Astounding stable.
so who are the new heinlinen today ?
Well, I feel like Varley was sort of branded that way and, while I can't explain my feeling, he seems to me to be accepting of it, but maybe not pleased. Whereas some people like Spider Robinson seem very much to want to be seen that way. And, of course, anyone who tries their hand at a juvenile will at least be compared with Heinlein. That raises Varley again, and Haldeman (who also has the
Starship Troopers/
Forever War connection). But none of the three are probably as new as you mean. Charles Stross recently wrote
Saturn's Children which loudly proclaimed its connection to Heinlein, especially
Friday. I'd need to re-read it to be totally fair but, to be honest, it struck me that Stross sort of came off second best to even late Heinlein. Not that it's necessarily a bad book.
I think, in a way, almost every writer is influenced (for, against, or otherwise) by Heinlein but a "Heinlein of today" doesn't spring to mind. For one thing, Heinlein (early, classic Heinlein at the least) was extremely American and wrote with a pioneering spirit and a clean, vigorous, natural style. American SF seems to be in a deep torpor and even what SF is set in the far future and/or in deep space has much decadence and little pioneering about it and stylistic fashion seems to have moved towards density and elaboration (or at least the pressure of generating thousand page novels has had that result).
I'd be interested in hearing others' candidates, though.
