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PeterScott
Heinlein Nexus
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 8:10 am Posts: 2236 Location: Pacific NorthWest
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Heinlein Reinvented
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Mon May 04, 2009 8:02 pm |
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JamesGifford
PITA Bred
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2008 12:17 pm Posts: 2402 Location: The Quiet Earth
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
_________________ "Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders." - Luther In the end, I found Heinlein is finite. Thus, finite analysis is needed.
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Tue May 05, 2009 7:35 am |
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JackKelly
NitroForum Oldster
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:57 am Posts: 669 Location: DC Metro
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
Very interesting and fresh topic that should generate a good discussion. It can be approached from a variety of angles.
When I think of changes or new directions in Heinlein's writing over his career, I picture him aiming his writing at new audiences. Whether he did this primarily as a means to access additional revenue sources (logical given his practical approach to the writing craft) or because he wanted to show off his versatility I don't know. It is apparent that Heinlein grew bored writing for a particular market and frequently changed course. His success in doing this opened new fields for science fiction that had previously been closed. He wasn't always artistically or practically successful in his first attempts to reach new audiences, but he was persistent and he learned fast.
Some examples:
1. Breaking into and then upgrading the quality of pulp science fiction - his first known serious attempt (FUTL) was aborted, but then he broke in with Life-Line, a very good but not great short story. Within a year, his really good stuff (Requiem, If This Goes On, The Roads Must Roll, Coventry etc.) began rolling out in torrents. 2. After mastering the pulp world, he grew bored (Well, WWII intervened as well but I think he used it partially as an excuse) and he walked away from it. His next foray was two-pronged - writing both short fiction and non-fiction pieces for publication in the mainstream slick magazines and starting his juvenile novels. Since his short fiction for the slicks was not materially different from his pulp output that was an easier market for him. He had much less success with his pontificating non-fiction. His first attempt at long form juvenile fiction was successful commercially but not so much artistically IMO. Within two years though, he wrote Red Planet. 3. Next Heinlein wanted to reach the adult novel audience. His first three published adult novels were basically re-works and extensions of his early pulp work, but then by 1951 he had Puppet Masters, and he began plotting Stranger. By then, except for increasing levels of commercial success, Heinlein had reached all his intended audiences, and had them hooked for life.
_________________ "Being right too soon is socially unacceptable." - Heinlein, Expanded Universe
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Tue May 05, 2009 8:16 am |
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PeterScott
Heinlein Nexus
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 8:10 am Posts: 2236 Location: Pacific NorthWest
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
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Tue May 05, 2009 12:33 pm |
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JackKelly
NitroForum Oldster
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:57 am Posts: 669 Location: DC Metro
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
_________________ "Being right too soon is socially unacceptable." - Heinlein, Expanded Universe
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Tue May 05, 2009 12:55 pm |
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BillPatterson
Heinlein Biographer
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 1:33 pm Posts: 1024
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
[quote="Peter Scott"]As soon as Bill sees this discussion I predict he will be immensely frustrated with his other commitments because I'm sure he could and would like to slay entire forests on this topic. quote] Well, yeah, but one of those other topics is the writing of a critical study, so I will be slaying entire forests on this topic, one way or another.
One of the interesting notions my co-author, Robert James, came up with is that those visible places where Heinlein zigged when others were zagging are largely illusory. The "standard picture," which Panshin used, is that Heinlein wrote pulp and then abandoned it and then decayed for the last 25 or so years of his life into a "period of Alienation."
Robert says, no, it's not linear like that at all: Heinlein started out with this complex and demanding agenda, visible in FUTL, which he had to stop down and disguise to fit into the taboos of pulp fiction, and then he stopped himself down further in order to write for children. In 1959 he said, "enough!" and returned to his original agenda, to write "my own stuff, my own way" after Starship Troopers. (Whether or not that book could be published as a juvenile, it was written as one, so ST falls into the old self-suppression agenda in which he said he felt tied down with a thousand strings, like Gulliver among the Liliputians; Stranger, however, is the first book of the original-revived agenda. Heinlein wrote experiments and explorations and then found something like his true calling in the World as Myth books.
So the obvious changes in direction might represent nothing more than exploiting new markets as they opened up -- the kind of superficial technical competence of a wordsmith rather than any fundamental change in Heinlein.
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Tue May 05, 2009 2:01 pm |
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BillPatterson
Heinlein Biographer
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 1:33 pm Posts: 1024
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
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Tue May 05, 2009 2:24 pm |
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JackKelly
NitroForum Oldster
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:57 am Posts: 669 Location: DC Metro
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
_________________ "Being right too soon is socially unacceptable." - Heinlein, Expanded Universe
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Tue May 05, 2009 4:18 pm |
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PeterScott
Heinlein Nexus
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 8:10 am Posts: 2236 Location: Pacific NorthWest
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
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Mon May 11, 2009 5:03 pm |
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BillPatterson
Heinlein Biographer
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 1:33 pm Posts: 1024
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
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Tue May 12, 2009 6:39 am |
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RobertWFranson
NitroForum Oldster
Joined: Thu Jun 19, 2008 3:57 pm Posts: 152
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
_________________ http://www.Troynovant.com/ - recurrent inspiration
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Mon Jun 08, 2009 2:54 pm |
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BillMullins
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:40 pm Posts: 545
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
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Tue Dec 14, 2010 10:44 am |
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BillPatterson
Heinlein Biographer
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 1:33 pm Posts: 1024
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
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Wed Dec 15, 2010 5:31 am |
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beamjockey
Centennial Attendee
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:46 am Posts: 545 Location: Aurora, IL, USA, Terra
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
_________________ Bill Higgins bill.higgins@gt.org http://beamjockey.livejournal.com
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Wed Dec 15, 2010 5:41 am |
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jeepojiii
Joined: Sat Oct 23, 2010 12:42 pm Posts: 128 Location: Northern VA
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
Mumbles to self: Three in a row? Entirely too many Bills here.
_________________ OJ III
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Wed Dec 15, 2010 9:36 am |
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sakeneko
Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2008 8:22 am Posts: 603 Location: Reno, NV
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
Or, given the quality of the Bills on this forum, maybe not enough of them.
_________________ Catherine Jefferson <ctiydspmrz@ergosphere.net> Home Page: http://www.ergosphere.net
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Wed Dec 15, 2010 9:38 am |
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FredReynolds
Centennial Attendee
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:26 pm Posts: 61 Location: Northern California
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
_________________ "We all write that way today. But no one had written like that before Heinlein." ~ Robert Silverberg "...the man who ... taught me to argue with the accepted version." ~ Samuel R. Delany
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Wed Dec 15, 2010 12:12 pm |
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jeepojiii
Joined: Sat Oct 23, 2010 12:42 pm Posts: 128 Location: Northern VA
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
_________________ OJ III
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Wed Dec 15, 2010 9:02 pm |
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beamjockey
Centennial Attendee
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:46 am Posts: 545 Location: Aurora, IL, USA, Terra
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
_________________ Bill Higgins bill.higgins@gt.org http://beamjockey.livejournal.com
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Wed Dec 15, 2010 9:48 pm |
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BillMullins
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:40 pm Posts: 545
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
Just doing my part to regress "Bills" to the mean . . . ..
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Thu Dec 16, 2010 5:44 am |
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georule
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2009 3:18 pm Posts: 345 Location: Minnesota
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
Well, FUTL is just Connecticut Yankeee in reverse.
Really, right from the beginning (even if we didn't know it for another 65 years) he's telling you the whole genre thing is just a device for him, and whatever marketing gimmick it takes for any given story to hang the message on he's fine with.
I once talked to UC Riverside Eaton exploring a journal idea called "Golden Age", that obviously Heinlein would have a large part of, but not entirely.
Those guys, at least the serious practioners, were trying to change the world --all else was tactics. Even if some of them (including, at times, RA Heinlein) tried to deny it later. The contemporary letters are pretty bald on the matter.
When Bill (and/or RJ) and I do our occasional Abbott(s) and Costello, and he mentions Heinlein's "World-saving phase", I always come back with "As near as I can determine, Heinlein's 'world saving phase' was roughly 1907-1988". Hasn't failed to score for me with an audience yet.
_________________ "Rub her feet." --Woodrow Wilson Smith
"Hey, if I'm going to pass on the timeless wisdom of the ages in a Sig, that pretty well qualifies, in my experience." --Geo Rule
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Fri Dec 17, 2010 7:02 pm |
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RobertJames
Heinlein Nexus
Joined: Fri Jul 24, 2009 8:05 am Posts: 375
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
We exist but to serve....
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Sun Dec 19, 2010 12:16 pm |
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BillMullins
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:40 pm Posts: 545
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Re: Heinlein Reinvented
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Fri Sep 23, 2016 8:18 am |
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