USS Robert A Heinlein

Am listening to the audiobook of "Starship Troopers" again. Was the guy really as much as a libertarian dick as this book makes him out to be? Joe Haldeman says that he liked the guy, but had massive problems with his politics.

And is it true that he wrote the book in response to some late '50s anti-nuke efforts?

heinlein the space hitchens

Was the guy really as much as a libertarian dick as this book makes him out to be?

Yes. The book is pretty bad, imho. A lot of pontificating thinly-disguised as a "novel".

he wasn't a libertarian dickwad in the least, he was a rabid anti-communist bordering on fascist dickwad

altho haha full disclosure my wife's two favorite sci-fi writers as a young girl were Heinlein and Anne McCaffrey (I think she's soured on Heinlein a little, cuz a lot of the sexual politics of his stuff went over her head initially - but she still loves McCaffrey's telepathic space-pegasus stuff to no end)

x-post

lots of violence-for-the-sake-of-violence/uniform loving faggotry

If heinlein had invented a cult it would have wiped the floor with hubbard's pussilanimous sub-crowley nuthouse

if we combined this thread with the orson scott card one and add a touch of dean koontz we could have "batshit right-wing pulp authors"

pusillanimous

thanks

also, don't forget the inimitable Tim LaHaye

Thing is, dude had a thing for narrative, and when he was doing his more teenagey stuff(Have Spacesuit... or Glory Road), his novels were excellent, and he had some neat ideas(e.g. Number of the Beast).

It was when he got into politics(either national or sexual) that things went awry. Still a better pulp writer(when not pontificating) than Card, Hubbard, Koontz, etc, but yeah that ain't sayin' much.

I didn't think that Koontz was conservative-leaning, due to all the freaky sexual shit i've heard about his books.

Dude, LaHaye isn't even worth mentioning two breaths later.

oh yeah Heinlein is WAY beyond Card, and especially Hubbard, as a writer (Koontz I've never read).

Actually, that reminds me; I finally read Arthur C Clarke's _Childhood's End_, and I liked how there was even a little prefacing note that "the opinions expressed in this novel are not those of the author's". It's like, did RAH make mouthpiece characters(like the authority figures in ST) to deliver his own platitudes, or platitudes for the main character just to react against?

Still, I wonder if that note was on the original edition, or just the late '70s reprint I had.

It was when he got into politics(either national or sexual) that things went awry. Still a better pulp writer(when not pontificating) than Card, Hubbard, Koontz, etc, but yeah that ain't sayin' much.

I suspect that the beginning of the awry/huh?/Jump The Shark point is the short story "All You Zombies"

Tombot OTM on a Heinlein cult wiping the floor with L. Ron's minions

RAH had this weird-ass habit of being both fascistic(as opposed to somebody like Joe Haldeman) and libertarian(travel thru time & space & different dimensions for more people to fuck)

is "all you zombies" the crazy time travel one?

crazy time-travel one about being yr own mum and dad and daughter, as opposed to "By His Bootstraps" which is crazy time-travel one with future society and hat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnham%27s_Freehold
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Column

I'd only heard the titles to these, but never really much about their actual contents. Jesus Christ; did the dude feel some need to overcompensate for being too sick to stay in the Navy until the War broke and running for state office in Upton Sinclair's more-or-less socialist party in the '30s?

broke out, rather

my nipples went sprung

A "regretful review" of Number of the Beast called Vulgarity and Nullity

im about 150 pages through To Sail Beyond the Sunset....kinda dragging my feet. Is it worth pushing through?

if we combined this thread with the orson scott card one and add a touch of dean koontz we could have "batshit right-wing pulp authors"

Add Larry Niven

anyone know this novel? Harlan Ellison claims Back to the Future ripped it off...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_for_Love

Um, yes to the first, no to the second

Harlan making cranky self-serving claim w no basis in fact, as usual

James Redd OTM

Harlan was alluding to the novel's time-traveling protagonist having sex with his mother ... I'm trying to imagine him watching Back to the Future and storming out of the theater to phone Heinlein.