Heinlein's juveniles

[j d worthington]

Stranger in a Strange Land... after Starship Troopers, eh? Well, be prepared for a major gear shift on that... and look for the uncut version, by the way... flows much more smoothly....

 

[Connavar]

I know what its about which is why i wanna read it.


I like how he tells his views in Troopers about several things like when he talks about why some systems of goverment works and some didnt work.

I like to try his nun Juvies to see how diffrent they are and his writing are.


Anyway i can see why he is mentioned a SF master, he is great storyteller that hooks you in from the start and makes you think about diffrent stuff.

Like when he is talking about juvenil criminals and why there is no such thing. Heck loved it when he compared them to puppies that must be thaught how to behave. Funny how stuff like that from an old book can be so current.

 

[Pyan]

Stranger in a Strange Land... after Starship Troopers, eh? Well, be prepared for a major gear shift on that...

"Major" is putting it mildly, CoR - if I was in the habit of giving strong advice, and if Starship Troopers was the first RAH that you've read (which I think you said somewhere), I would say leave Stranger for a little while and try The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, or Tunnel in the Sky, or something a wee bit less...ummm.... unique than that one.

(Edit) Crossing posts, CoR - but I'd still stand by my advice. TMIAHM is not really a juvenile, in my opinion, and carries on a lot of RAH's views on politics from ST.

 

[Connavar]

Now you are scaring me about Stranger


Whats so diffrent about comparing to his other work? Without spoilers.


I liked the idea of the story which is why i wanted to read it.

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress i can read next since its not a juvie and i wanna see right now his nun juvie before reading more of the juvies.
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[Pyan]

Whats so diffrent about comparing to his other work? Without spoilers.

There's nothing actually wrong with it, CoR, but it has been known to put people off RAH, at least temporarilly.
It's a very talky book, for a start, with a lot of discussion about religion, sexual mores, tolerance, and the views of RAH on organised religion come through it very strongly.
It's also a very long book, with noticable slow points in the story, and this has also been mentioned as a reason for people giving up on it. It's also been noted as consisting of two definite halves - the first being a typical RAH adventure story, but the second being almost exclusively devoted to the human need for religion amd social bonding, which isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Please, please, though, don't be put off reading it - it's one of the best books he ever wrote - but in my opinion, and I must stress that, it is not the best one to read if you've only just discovered RAH.

 

[Connavar]

Its his most famous so i will read for sure!

Im gonna read The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress,Tunnel in the Sky,Red Planet,Citizen of the Galaxy before Stranger just to get know him better before reading hist most famous work.


I dont mind talky as long as its good. Even in Troopers sometimes you see him talk about his political views alot. I like when a writer tells you in a good what he feels about something.

 

[Pyan]

Hope that was helpful - I don't often give such strong advice - my usual view is that people that are interested enough to post here are quite capable of making their own minds up, but this is an exception, backed-up by both personal experience, and what others have said on the subject.

 

[Connavar]

Also it would not be fair to Heinlein to read his most famous work before knowing him better. Might not understand as well Stranger if i read it too early.


Yeah it was very helpful thanks.

 

[j d worthington]

I'll add a couple of thoughts here on this one... I'd only read a collection of his short stories (The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein, the ACE pb. edition from the 1960s) and a couple of other stories ("Waldo" and "The Man Who Sold the Moon") in an anthology, when I tackled Stranger in a Strange Land. Of course, I was 12 at the time, and it blew my little mind away.... not to mention I followed it up with I Will Fear No Evil, which was... ummmm..... very strange for a boy that age. Then I went back and read his juveniles, and on to read his other work. So I'm not sure it would necessarily put someone off... but it does seem to work that way a lot of the time.

However, the caution about this one is not that it is a bad book... or even that it is talky (quite a few of his books are that -- even his older work has a fair amount of that, if you really take note, especially things like "The Man Who Sold the Moon", and large chunks of "Waldo"); rather, it is that the philosophy that most people come away with from that particular book seems so at odds with Heinlein in general (it isn't, really; he's just going about things in a different way), which can be a bit of a jolt if you've not read more of his work and realized that he does approach things from different angles in his work a lot of the time. (Of course, I've also seen people who read Stranger first, and loved it... and then hit Starship Troopers next, and were appalled! These are the ones who tend to label Heinlein "fascist", in most cases.)

But by no means be scared of Stranger -- it's a challenging book, but I think a very good book; thought-provoking (as well as outright provoking at times! ), carrying a full range of the emotional spectrum, and does combine an adventure story with a dialectical, even didactic approach. Though some are put off on it, and it certainly has its flaws, it is a true virtuoso performance, well worth reading... but I do think that, for most, it might be better to tackle it a bit further on rather than right off.

 

[Connavar]

The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein? Are there good stories there? Also are there another good collection for short stories?

Does he have a series? I dont think i have seent that when i read about him in wiki. I know though that there is a character of his that appear in several books. I think he is called Lazarus.

I feel like i must read him more of him as soon as possible, he is a like a drug to me

 

[j d worthington]

Hmmmm... a series, eh? Well, in a manner of speaking, yes ... and no.

His juveniles form a series of a sort -- not following the same characters, but building on each the previous books thematically, so that, when read in succession, you can see the development of various ideas that appear in somewhat primitive form in Rocket Ship Galileo, and which build and take on broader and broader implications as he explores them throughout the series, culminating in Starship Troopers.

Lazarus Long (a.k.a. Woodrow Wilson Smith) does appear in several places, but -- aside from Methuselah's Children and Time Enough for Love -- he is not the main character in these. However, they are a subset within his "Future History" series, the majority of which were collected into The Past Through Tomorrow (with the exception of "'Let There Be Light--'", "Universe", and "Commonsense" and the much later (and lengthy) novels. That series (or the main branch of that series, as there are connections between some of his juveniles and other works and the series proper -- notably The Rolling Stones, Space Cadet, etc.), is as follows:

"Life-Line" (TPTT)
"'Let There Be Light--'" (MWSM)
"The Roads Must Roll" (TPTT)
"Blowups Happen" (TPTT)
"The Man Who Sold the Moon" (TPTT)
"Delilah and the Space Rigger" (TPTT)
"Space Jockey" (TPTT)
"Requiem" (TPTT)
"The Long Watch" (TPTT)
"Gentlemen, Be Seated" (TPTT)
"The Black Pits of Luna" (TPTT)
"It's Great to be Back!" (TPTT)
"'-- We Also Walk Dogs'" (TPTT)
"Searchlight" (TPTT)
"Ordeal in Space" (TPTT)
"The Green Hills of Earth" (TPTT)
"Logic of Empire" (TPTT)
"The Menace from Earth" (TPTT)
"'If This Goes On--'" (TPTT)
"Coventry" (TPTT)
"Misfit" (TPTT)
"Universe" (prologue only) (OotS)
Methuselah's Children (TPTT)
"Universe" (OotS)
"Commonsense" (OotS)
Time Enough for Love
The Number of the Beast
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
To Sail Beyond the Sunset

(TPTT = The Past Through Tomorrow; MWSM = The Man Who Sold the Moon [collection]; Oots = Orphans of the Sky). And, since Cat is concerned with the same timeline and such as The Moon is a Harsh Mistress that novel, too, becomes at least closely linked with the Future History series. Even Stranger is connected to it, as well as (albeit with some wide leeway) I Will Fear No Evil. Essentially, with Heinlein, as so many writers with a strong worldview, all his work is interrelated as he explores these ideas... resulting in such concepts as a multiverse, where alternate versions of different characters or situations can be played out, allowing an examination of these themes from different angles (which is something that he shares with Michael Moorcock -- who is about as different a writer from Heinlein as one can imagine! )

As for The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein -- there has been a revised, expanded version of that titled Expanded Universe, which will be easier to find. There are several collections of his stories: Assignment in Eternity; The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (a.k.a. 6XH); Waldo & Magic, Inc. (2 novelettes); The Menace from Earth (which has not only the title story, but several unrelated stories); Requiem (uncollected pieces plus tributes to Heinlein); and Off the Main Sequence (which has three stories not collected elsewhere); as well as those collections which originally comprised his Future History series: The Man Who Sold the Moon, The Green Hills of Earth, Revolt in 2100. The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein contains the contents of both Waldo & Magic, Inc. and The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag.

Enjoy!

 

[Connavar]

It seems to me its simpler to think like this. For example if i wanna read his future history books, i start with the first one realese order wise. The same with Juvies, then you can see how his ideas grows and change with time.
For example if i wanna read The Man who sold the moon, then i get the first future history book aka Methuselah's Children read it first.

His short stories are easier, its just get the diffrent collections and read them in the order the stories came out.



Now after alot of thinking after your post that made it clear to me which stories and timelines are connected little or alot. I choose these to order and read :

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
I Will Fear No Evil
The Day After Tomorrow
The Number of the Beast


Even though The Moon is a harsh mistress is connected to others books i havent read and who came before it, i wanna read it to sample more of Heinlein.


Then i will go back and read the juvies and future history books,short stories in the order they came out. That way i can see him and his ideas grow with time.

 

[TTBRAHWTMG]

He doesn't always write them in chronological order, often bouncing ahead and then back in his timelines...especially once you start getting into his multiverse stuff, which allows for time travel, etc. Try not to worry about it too much...some references will go over your head the first time you read them, then you will read another book that expands on a character or idea, and then you go back and reread and some of the references flesh themselves out. You get the idea...just keep reading Heinlein and you won't be dissatisfied! For example I read The Cat Who Walks Through Walls before I read Strangers...they talked about this Jubal Harshaw guy in Cat...didn't think much of it...then read Strangers and "Oh...that is what this Jubal guy was all about!". Another example is that I read Space Cadet before "Blowups Happen" and didn't get the reference when they kept putting extra names on the roll calls...then read Blowups and bingo..."that was why they kept referring to that name". You'll run into these all the time with Heinlein, but they are almost always readable independently, and you should find the self-referencing more entertaining than frustrating.

 

[j d worthington]

Essentially, that's it. The list given above is the chronology within the series... Methuselah's Children was the first book published, but not the first story in the series... those were scattered through the pulp magazines for a bit before the original, shorter version of Methuselah's Children was also published there. So... you can read them either way: the order in which they were published, or series-chronologically....

 

[Connavar]

Speaking about juvies, isnt there a movie on Red Planet? Or am i thinking of the wrong Mars movie.

 

[j d worthington]

Speaking about juvies, isnt there a movie on Red Planet? Or am i thinking of the wrong Mars movie.

Yes, there is one (or, rather, a miniseries):

"Red Planet" (1994) (mini)

I've never seen it, though, so I can't tell how good or bad it was....

 

[Connavar]

Lucky me i havent seen it.


I think i was thinking of another Mars movie.

 

[j d worthington]

This one, perhaps?

Red Planet (2000)

 

[Connavar]

Yep thats the one. Nothing to with the book right.

 

[j d worthington]

Yep thats the one. Nothing to with the book right.

Correct...