"Stranger In A Strange Land" was written by Robert A. Heinlein, a right-wing reactionary who hated the hippie movement and everything it stands for.

Most people take it as brilliant satire, but a few kooks think it is the real thing.

It has always been my assumption, Heinlein went a little bit berserk when he found himself to be a cult hero to people whom he openly despised.

\\ In this case, maybe the book drove the author psycho.

Lernaeus: Churchill2004: If anything, she somewhat idolized manual labor and simple blue-collar competence, and the super-rich Galt-types in her books often took such jobs to show that it was productivity vs. "mooching" that was her beef, not elevating the rich over the poor.

A lot of people go to the "elevating the rich over the poor" point when slamming Atlas Shrugged, which is one way you can tell they either never read the book, or they weren't paying attention when they did.

None of the characters were "super-rich", including John Galt.

Galt was an engineer for an auto company, generally not a profession that makes one "rich". Halley was a starving composer, Akston was an ousted college professor working as a fry cook, Daniels was a teacher, iirc. Danneskjold was a philosopher, and his wife a retired actress. Stockton ran a foundry. Yes, there were some characters whose work brought them wealth, but that wealth was being destroyed in the novel. The only one that could be described as "super-rich" was d"Anconia, heir to a centuries-old mining dynasty -- and he destroyed his own family's fortune to prevent funding the looters. Others, while they could be called "upper class" aren't the Rockefeller/Gates/Buffet types critics paint them as.

But it wasn't primarily about the money; it was about the work. It was about their work being impeded (Rearden), squandered (Galt), taken for granted (Taggart), stolen (Halley), mocked (Akston), and used for destructive purposes (Galt, d'Anconia).

Sure, Rand defended industrialists' right to their own wealth, but she didn't defend wealth intrinsically, i.e. advocated a "whatever it takes to get rich" philosophy. The means to that wealth is what was morally paramount to her -- it is good that you earn your wealth by your own creativity, diligence, and voluntary trade; it is immoral for you to earn it via theft, fraud, confidence schemes, looting, or mooching, regardless of your justification or circumstances.

Good grief, I don't believe it! Someone who has read Atlas Shrugged and actually understands it?

What are you doing on FARK?

Certainly dont qualify as great....but the followers....they know now how to do psychotic.

olddinosaur: "Stranger In A Strange Land" was written by Robert A. Heinlein, a right-wing reactionary who hated the hippie movement and everything it stands for.

Heinlein was a lot of things, but oversimplifying him as a "reactionary right-wing" is spectacularly absurd. He was a libertarian, militaristic, and a hedonist... but that's only right-wing in the sense of loving guns and loathing taxes.

tomWright: Has a lot of fanatical followers, going so far as to ban DDT without evidence and without a suitable replacement, condemning millions to death by malaria.

WRONG. This has become somewhat of an urban legend, and is simply false.

The problem with DDT was that it built up in the environment. Plenty of other pesticides work just fine without this. The die-off of many species of birds and their comebacks have been well documented.

If I remember correctly, J.R.R. Tolkien referred to Hitler as a "ruddy little ignoramus" and hated him and the Nazis for using his scholarly works to advance their ideology.

ykarie: /since when did personal responsibility become interchangeable with being only responsible for oneself?

Probably around the same time selfishness, callousness, and an inability to feel guilt became virtues.

/I blame Ayn Rand.

Felgraf: I seem to recall something about the Samaritans desecrating a jewish temple with pig bones and feces at some juncture...

The jews of the time were desecrating their own temples.
later on didnt a certain rabbi do something to tables ?

// have a few mites in my coin collection
/ religious scumbags are religious scumbags

James F. Campbell: I blame Ayn Rand

It started a "few" days before that book

Slartibartfaster: later on didnt a certain rabbi do something to tables ?

You mean that Carpenter's son... Yeah he was a little bit uppity...

I'm Your Alt: You mean that Carpenter's son... Yeah he was a little bit uppity...

Successful and attractive though, gotta give him that, not a bad run for a bastard child of a whore.

rockymountainrider: and still no mention of Snowcrash...?

Snow Crash is pretty obscure out in the real world. I've never met anyone in real life who's actually read it.

Good Lord. 215 comments on literature with psychotic fan bases and NO ONE has mentioned The Turner Diaries yet?

This: olddinosaur: "Stranger In A Strange Land" was written by Robert A. Heinlein, a right-wing reactionary who hated the hippie movement and everything it stands for.

Heinlein was a lot of things, but oversimplifying him as a "reactionary right-wing" is spectacularly absurd. He was a libertarian, militaristic, and a hedonist... but that's only right-wing in the sense of loving guns and loathing taxes.

You skipped the hating of the Left wing and the not hating the Right wing part.

scumbucket: If I remember correctly, J.R.R. Tolkien referred to Hitler as a "ruddy little ignoramus" and hated him and the Nazis for using his scholarly works to advance their ideology.

Tolklien was no fool. If he didn't want to put down people with "swarthy" complexions there were lots of ways to do that. There are lots of ugly racial beliefs that stop well short of Hitler.

jvl: tomWright: Has a lot of fanatical followers, going so far as to ban DDT without evidence and without a suitable replacement, condemning millions to death by malaria.

WRONG. This has become somewhat of an urban legend, and is simply false.

The problem with DDT was that it built up in the environment. Plenty of other pesticides work just fine without this. The die-off of many species of birds and their comebacks have been well documented.

Insects had started becoming immune to DDT by the 1960s. It has never been "banned" in this country and is, in fact, still used (without much effect) in Africa.

jvl: tomWright: Has a lot of fanatical followers, going so far as to ban DDT without evidence and without a suitable replacement, condemning millions to death by malaria.

WRONG. This has become somewhat of an urban legend, and is simply false.

The problem with DDT was that it built up in the environment. Plenty of other pesticides work just fine without this. The die-off of many species of birds and their comebacks have been well documented.

But not because of DDT. DDT was a political ban, being blamed primarily for harming eggshell production in birds. The actions of other pollutants were ignored. DDT was just the most visible thing around so fingers were pointed at it.

Kind of like blaming cats for the Bubonic plague back in 1500's Europe.

DDT was clearly over-used, but this was the during the beginning of the whole agricultural and chemical revolution of the post-WWII period when a lot of excesses were going on in a lot of areas.

But the knee-jerk reaction to just ban it was overkill. It was as ignorant a decision as was the rampant over-use of it and other chemicals was.

Instead it's use should have been more tightly controlled, which is sort of happening now as third world countries are starting to turn back to DDT with controlled use in some areas to control mosquitoes and other insects that spread disease.

DDT, like any poison, can be good or bad, how it is used is the issue.

Compared to alternatives, it is cheap and effective, important for poor nations.

Until biologically and environmentally safe alternatives are created and made cheap enough to the poorest nations to afford, to ban something like DDT is nothing less than murder.

Something we are seeing again with the controversies over GM foods. Countries are actually refusing to import GM foods out of fear of what they have been told about them. Preferring that their people starve in false safety rather than be fed and healthy.

Jim_Callahan: There are a number of ways to treat human interaction with theoretical external species. Humanity being better at a number of things and rising quickly to power is as valid as any other. Humanity doing that by hijacking existing technology, improving it, and using it better than the originators is a general reference the US. Remember the book was written during a series of major conflicts and competitions between the US and other parts of the world (to the extent that nuclear armageddon is just assumed at the beginning of the book), a certain amount of "American values are the key to success" was prevalent in a lot of literature, not even just fiction. The fact that you don't agree doesn't make a pretty well-constructed story suddenly become crap.

It wasn't about using the existing (mothballed and magically still working) technology better than the originators. It was about how that technology was somehow competitive enough to let them fight a species who could freely travel interstellar distances, and had made themselves known galaxy-wide as the most efficient conquerors and warriors in the entire area.

It was less about "American Values" and more about "Americans are superhumanly awesome and perfect and could not possibly be improved upon in any way." Saying this is good literature is like saying Mein Kampf is a good story.


A kid knowing nothing, and growing up to be a genius when given the resources to learn and develop is not exactly a plot-breaking unbelievable chain of events, either. I don't know where you grew up, but most of the scientists, engineers, and geniuses I encountered developed from these little, 8-pound proto-humans called "babies", I don't know if your folk, carved whole and adult from the stoic bedrock of the universe with all the knowledge they'll ever have, are familiar with them, but they're fairly common where I'm from. In fact, the change from these tiny non-adult forms into adult forms is the central theme of something like 90% of our literature. You should read some of it sometime, it's not bad.

It's not that he learns stuff. It's not even that he plugs his brain in and basically gets learning downloaded; I had no issue with that trope in The Matrix. It's that he downloads the info available on a backwater mining station, and this somehow enables him to effortlessly and flawlessly outwit every single other species in the galaxy, while also figuring out how to reverse engineer a tech the galaxy hasn't been able to figure out for eons.

The best of all those other races should have far more knowledge than was ever available to be downloaded to Johnny. They've also had far more time. The only way to rationalize the story is if the humans are so much smarter and better than every other race in the galaxy.

In which case, given that they had the nukes the Psychlos were so vulnerable to, how in the hell did the Psychlos ever take over in the first place?


It's one thing to have a focus on a character. It's another to Mary Sue that character into perfection while turning the entire story into a tale about how awesome humanity is, without ever presenting any conflict to worry about. They never lose. That's the problem. If they'd had to fight back and forth, and finally managed to push the Psychlos off their planet, it would have been a better story.

Case in point; the shark-toothed banker aliens. Hubbard builds them up as master manipulators, the smartest creatures in the galaxy, who basically rule through economic manipulation. But Johnny Awesomeface, because he's an American good ole boy, is smarter than their entire farking planet. It's been a couple years since I read it, but IIRC, the only time they "outsmart" him is when they basically pull the "oh, international political intrigue" card for the first time.

And then Johnny Awesomeface has a frown, knocks the dust off his boots, and out-political-intrigues them like he's late for dinner.


To sum up, Battlefield Earth is Duke Nukem minus all the irony, one-liners, and hilarity that makes Duke Nukem funny-stupid, as opposed to stupid-stupid.

yakmans_dad: jvl: tomWright: Has a lot of fanatical followers, going so far as to ban DDT without evidence and without a suitable replacement, condemning millions to death by malaria.

WRONG. This has become somewhat of an urban legend, and is simply false.

The problem with DDT was that it built up in the environment. Plenty of other pesticides work just fine without this. The die-off of many species of birds and their comebacks have been well documented.

Insects had started becoming immune to DDT by the 1960s. It has never been "banned" in this country and is, in fact, still used (without much effect) in Africa.

In the 1970s and 1980s, agricultural use was banned in most developed countries, beginning with Hungary in 1968[26] then in Norway and Sweden in 1970, and the US in 1972, but not in the United Kingdom until 1984. Vector control use has not been banned, but it has been largely replaced by less persistent alternative insecticides. (new window)

erewhon: Good Lord. 215 comments on literature with psychotic fan bases and NO ONE has mentioned The Turner Diaries yet?

Nobody except the Farker who posted the picture of the front cover!?

Weaver95: most of you know that 'Bioshock' was fictional, right?

Absolutely. Rapture couldn't have failed in reality, because people may not be great, but neither are they that frakking psychotic.

This: olddinosaur: "Stranger In A Strange Land" was written by Robert A. Heinlein, a right-wing reactionary who hated the hippie movement and everything it stands for.

Heinlein was a lot of things, but oversimplifying him as a "reactionary right-wing" is spectacularly absurd. He was a libertarian, militaristic, and a hedonist... but that's only right-wing in the sense of loving guns and loathing taxes.

I have to say as a possibly psychotic fan of Heinlein that the thing I took out of his books are that -

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody has to pay somewhere.

Sex should be both pleasurable and consensual and no one else's farking business- gender is mutable - (He would not be in favor of any of the anti-gay legislation or "family values" legislation)

Women can be kick ass scientists and universal empresses but mens sometimes have trouble admitting it ( He supported the ERA)

Don't belong to a society that requires you to carry registry ID - (Arizona's new law would require his character to move the F*ck out of Arizona)

Religion is a Barnum Bailey circus that can be used to both elevate and control the masses.

Redheads are sexy.

Don't vote unless you're willing to think about it and earn it. Otherwise you're a lazy assed git who doesn't have the right to complain.

None of these things are right wing.

calbert: strangely absent: Bible, Koran, Talmud, Twilight.

Ha ha! Religion, amrite?

This: Callahan'sMartiniShaker: /I am a fan of Heinlein -we should all have lots of really, really, good consensual sex with smart hot people redheads who can travel through time and build their own spaceships.

Heinlein obviously liked the gingers.

/props to your handle
//although I couldn't really imagine Callahan mixing a lot of drinks.
///well, except for the Hickory Dacquiri, Doc.

Thanks - you are correct about the redheads and I am remiss in not mentioning them.

I chose my handle partially because I believe that Callahan would be able to make a perfect martini but most of his clientele wouldn't ask for one so it would be sitting there, frequently ignored and seldom desired, but every now and then it might get lucky and shine.

shivashakti: What? No Ayn Rand?

It's "five greatest books", not "five most long-winded preachy doorstoppers."

Callahan'sMartiniShaker: Sex should be both pleasurable and consensual and no one else's farking business- gender is mutable - (He would not be in favor of any of the anti-gay legislation or "family values" legislation)

The dark side of this was he also wasn't too stingy on the whole "age of consent" thing - in his books teenagers had adult rights and responsibilities in every sense.

The saddest part was how he misread the sexual revolution. He imagined it would end up with group marriages and everybody being in open relationships... obviously, because folks like to fark everything with legs, and we'll eventually get over our prudishness and jealousy. What he missed is that most people (especially women) seem to *like* the current system of binary till-death no-sex-but-your-spouse marriages.

JimmyFartpants: nicolepoliti.files.wordpress.com

Creationist?

Callahan'sMartiniShaker: Women can be kick ass scientists and universal empresses but mens sometimes have trouble admitting it ( He supported the ERA)

I always took Heinlein's stance on gender issues to be that men and women are basically the same, but as a species we have a need for separate gender roles, and thus will create distinctions between ourselves for that purpose.

One of the best examples where he gets into this is in The Cat That Walks Through Walls, where he's got one male character who's a gung-ho ex-military kind of guy, and his lady, who's just as if not more gung-ho, but is willing to dial it back because she knows he needs to feel like she needs him.

I've seen a lot of people imply this means Heinlein was a misogynist, but I think it was more that he was reflecting on the idea that people who love each other do what they can to make those they love happy. And most of his novels are giant orgies of love. While the women will often take care of their men and not try and take over when the men need to feel in control, the men are just as bound to be stalwart and noble and all that. He exaggerates the gender stereotypes, but lets his characters be self-aware about it.

Being a Heinlein fan is sort of terrible today, because I'm wildly liberal and progressive about so much, but also staunchly conservative about some things, and people get confused because they think I either need to be afraid of all change and wanting to return to the 1890s, or be a free-spirited no-limits hippie type.

funk_soul_bubby: Cracked links should get their own Seanbaby tag, because I don't care much to read it unless it's Seanbaby.

Amen.

This: The dark side of this was he also wasn't too stingy on the whole "age of consent" thing - in his books teenagers had adult rights and responsibilities in every sense.

To be fair, he was deliberately trying to discuss WHY there is an "age of consent", and whether a specific age made any sense at all as a measure. He deliberately poked into a lot of these kinds of holes in sexuality, on purpose. Age of consent is one, but he also did quite a bit on incest. There's one story in Time Enough For Love where he gets really open about it; why do we have an incest taboo? Because it reinforces bad genes and is more likely to cause harmful mutations. So, if it's the effects on potential children that are the problem, is there any harm in incest where there is no possibility of such issues? He dealt with it in two ways; once between two twins who'd been genetically tweaked to ensure they had exactly opposite genes, meaning there was no greater chance of mutation than there had been between their parents, and later, when Lazarus Long went back in time and started sleeping with his own mother, because he knew his mother never had any deformed kids so there was no hereditary risk.

I don't think he had incestual leanings, I think he wanted people to think about why we had sex taboos, and whether some of them still made sense.


The saddest part was how he misread the sexual revolution. He imagined it would end up with group marriages and everybody being in open relationships... obviously, because folks like to fark everything with legs, and we'll eventually get over our prudishness and jealousy. What he missed is that most people (especially women) seem to *like* the current system of binary till-death no-sex-but-your-spouse marriages.

I don't think he misread it, I just think we aren't there yet. He makes the point in several books that the reason open marriages and such "work" is the lack of jealousy and possessiveness. Neither of those are very nice things. People don't want to be in a binary marriage because they love the other person, they want to be in a binary marriage because the other person is THEIRS. It's a statement of ownership.

Nor am I immune. I'm a pretty monogamous guy, but I like to think of it more like Lazarus Long; I'm not morally offended by other forms, and I might be open to them if approached carefully about it, and I'm aware that my reasons have to do with my own issues more than anything. But binary marriage is still based on some pretty ugly bases.

Thorak: One of the best examples where he gets into this is in The Cat That Walks Through Walls, where he's got one male character who's a gung-ho ex-military kind of guy, and his lady, who's just as if not more gung-ho, but is willing to dial it back because she knows he needs to feel like she needs him.

The Cat Who Walks Through Walls is pretty weak as a story, but it gets you the best picture of Heinlein at the end of his life (spoilers). The lead character is pretty much a stand-in for Heinlein himself - an old ex-military man with a cane... polite and chivalrous to a fault, and heavily libertarian. Followed up with some wish-fulfillment and fan-service (self-service) of just wankery of all his favourite characters. His writing about homosexuality in that book also stands out - he wants to be cool with it, because he loves the idea of a perfect pansexual future... but he feels uncomfortable writing about it.

The final act is the saddest part. First he gives himself the ultimate wish-fulfillment of eternal youth and love and heroism with all his favourite characters, and then the harsh reality when it all goes wrong.

It's Heinlein speaking directly, about his own impending death. He was an old man, and he knew he would die soon... and so the character breaks the 4th (5th?) wall and rants directly at the author (not the audience), for being so heartless and killing them all... even his beautiful wife and the pure, innocent little kitten. And when you see the character as a stand-in for Heinlein, you realize it's Heinlein himself ranting at the cruelty and heartlessness of the universe, using himself as a proxy for the God he doesn't believe in.

The story is a farking mess, but it's a good way to get to know RAH.

Thorak: Nor am I immune. I'm a pretty monogamous guy, but I like to think of it more like Lazarus Long; I'm not morally offended by other forms, and I might be open to them if approached carefully about it, and I'm aware that my reasons have to do with my own issues more than anything. But binary marriage is still based on some pretty ugly bases.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd love to live in Long's world of free sex and group marriages. I just think that attachment to the old model runs a lot deeper than Heinlein thought. Personally, I think I would do okay in an open marriage (yes, including letting my wife bang other dudes) but I think the freak-outs that a lot of other people have on the subject run deeper than some ambiguous societal cultural thing.

Just wanted an excuse to post this.

This: Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd love to live in Long's world of free sex and group marriages. I just think that attachment to the old model runs a lot deeper than Heinlein thought. Personally, I think I would do okay in an open marriage (yes, including letting my wife bang other dudes) but I think the freak-outs that a lot of other people have on the subject run deeper than some ambiguous societal cultural thing.

I don't think it's all that ambiguous, I think it goes back to possessiveness. Just like pretty much every culture has a sense that this thing is mine and what that ownership means, it also extends that to your spouse. They are yours. This is why I think you see so many cases where the person who got cheated on attacks the person their SO was cheating WITH, rather than their SO. Because their SO is theirs, in their mind, and they have to attack the person who was "stealing" from their stuff. It's the only way that this makes any sense to me whatsoever; I simply don't understand why they would be angry at the "other man/woman".

And yes, I've been put through the grinder; I divorced my ex-wife over her infidelity. I wasn't angry at the dudes she'd been banging, I was angry at HER. Never occurred to me to even care about them.

It boils down to ownership. It's a very basic human instinct. You'll see toddlers doing the "MINE" thing early on, even without coaching. That's why we can't handle open relationships and multiple marriages; we're all mostly still toddlers screaming "MINE" when it comes to our significant others.

Poplopo: rockymountainrider: and still no mention of Snowcrash...?

Snow Crash is pretty obscure out in the real world. I've never met anyone in real life who's actually read it.

Fair enough but even in college I'm certain that Plato was confused as either a cartoon dog or a small planet.

\Rene Descartes was a drunken old fart who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.

Jim_Callahan:
The best description of the protagonist of "Atlas Shrugged" that I've heard is "a man with the amazing talent to pay other people to invent new metals".

I recall the book saying how Henry Rearden spent 10 years of late nights developing this metal. He probably did have people there working with/for him, but I remember descriptions of him toiling away.

Then again, I've actually read the book.

Thorak: Callahan'sMartiniShaker: Women can be kick ass scientists and universal empresses but mens sometimes have trouble admitting it ( He supported the ERA)

I always took Heinlein's stance on gender issues to be that men and women are basically the same, but as a species we have a need for separate gender roles, and thus will create distinctions between ourselves for that purpose.

One of the best examples where he gets into this is in The Cat That Walks Through Walls, where he's got one male character who's a gung-ho ex-military kind of guy, and his lady, who's just as if not more gung-ho, but is willing to dial it back because she knows he needs to feel like she needs him.

I've seen a lot of people imply this means Heinlein was a misogynist, but I think it was more that he was reflecting on the idea that people who love each other do what they can to make those they love happy. And most of his novels are giant orgies of love. While the women will often take care of their men and not try and take over when the men need to feel in control, the men are just as bound to be stalwart and noble and all that. He exaggerates the gender stereotypes, but lets his characters be self-aware about it.

Being a Heinlein fan is sort of terrible today, because I'm wildly liberal and progressive about so much, but also staunchly conservative about some things, and people get confused because they think I either need to be afraid of all change and wanting to return to the 1890s, or be a free-spirited no-limits hippie type.

I think of Heinlein's work as Socratic -he takes ideas and makes both the reader and his characters question their basic assumptions. He never lets anyone in his books believe something unchallenged. He also always had characters that represented all the sides of an issue and he didn't spare his protagonists from having less than perfect outlooks or views - this allows people to interpret what they want with their own agendas.

Anyone who tells me that Heinlein is a misogynist automatically screams out to me that they never read his books or believe that his male protagonist MUST be the character he identifies with and they didn't read until the end.

Ditto for anyone who tells me he supports fascism or any other ism - his works are classic "what ifs" and he follows them through.

I find it funny that he is now accused of being a fascist and he used to be accused of being a free-love goddamned hippy.

The thing I was most influenced by in Stranger in a Strange Land was the concept of "Fair Witness". I aspire to their level of ethics and personal discipline.

I will shoot my own dog if i need to, and will cry shamelessly after he can't see me anymore. I will fight any government that tries to legislate what I believe or and I will fight that same government if it tries to force other people to believe what I believe.

There's really no political space for extreme social libertarians that believe in universal human co-responsibility (take care of the poor, treat the sick, protect the weak, prevent abuse by the strong) which is why people need to stick labels on the old SF stuff and people who learned to think from reading it - we're scary when we don't fit.

But if someone can read LoTR as a white race manifesto and Lolita as a how-to instead of a hell-no-don't it shouldn't surprise either of us that no one knows what to do with Heinlein or Niven for that matter.

And I've never understood the whole Catcher in the Rye thing. I don't get it's attraction for conspiracy theorists at all.

Callahan'sMartiniShaker: But if someone can read LoTR as a white race manifesto and Lolita as a how-to instead of a hell-no-don't it shouldn't surprise either of us that no one knows what to do with Heinlein or Niven for that matter.

I can't imagine anybody getting anything wierd from Niven - other than his working with the abhorrent Pournelle, Niven usually comes off as "Heinlein Lite" to me, but with more focus on clever ideas than anything else.

Callahan'sMartiniShaker: Ditto for anyone who tells me he supports fascism or any other ism - his works are classic "what ifs" and he follows them through.

This is where I think Heinlein fans are fooling themselves. While Heinlein may or may not have supported the idea of military-run democracy, you can damned well tell that Starship Troopers was a love-letter to military life.

I'm Your Alt: erewhon: Good Lord. 215 comments on literature with psychotic fan bases and NO ONE has mentioned The Turner Diaries yet?

Nobody except the Farker who posted the picture of the front cover!?

Meh. Did a text search of the thread.

Thorak: To sum up, Battlefield Earth is Duke Nukem minus all the irony, one-liners, and hilarity that makes Duke Nukem funny-stupid, as opposed to stupid-stupid.

And a green highlight was added.

This: Callahan'sMartiniShaker: But if someone can read LoTR as a white race manifesto and Lolita as a how-to instead of a hell-no-don't it shouldn't surprise either of us that no one knows what to do with Heinlein or Niven for that matter.

I can't imagine anybody getting anything wierd from Niven - other than his working with the abhorrent Pournelle, Niven usually comes off as "Heinlein Lite" to me, but with more focus on clever ideas than anything else.

Callahan'sMartiniShaker: Ditto for anyone who tells me he supports fascism or any other ism - his works are classic "what ifs" and he follows them through.

This is where I think Heinlein fans are fooling themselves. While Heinlein may or may not have supported the idea of military-run democracy, you can damned well tell that Starship Troopers was a love-letter to military life.

Being pro-military was a positive democratic ideal at the time - and he loved aspects of the time he was a solidier. He was an officer for several years until he was discharged for health reasons.

It was also a love letter to civics and informed democracy but people forget that part - he advocated an "earned vote" through service and full freedoms for non-citizens - like idealized metics in Greek city states.

Also people tend to forget that it was written before the Vietnam war. That changed a lot of things and views of the military in a democracy was one of them.

But people only remember the Bugs and the Suits or worse yet forget that the book has nothing to do with the travesty that is the Starship Troopers Movies. Which are lovely satires of the military in the 80's but have nothing to do with the books or Heinlein. The scriptwriter and director never even read the book.

I am pro- military and pro peace. You can do that if you aren't running for office.

BadAnalogyGuy: SharkTrager: BadAnalogyGuy: *uh, spoiler, but seriously you haven't already read Lolita? Go read it, man*

Everyone dies in Lolita? I believe Lolita is still alive, as well as Humbert Humbert at the end. The only ones I can remember dying were Lolita's mother and Quilty.

Lolita dies in childbirth.

:-O

I guess I stopped reading after Lolita talks about "beastly boys" and I rubbed one out.

Maybe it's time to revisit it again.

From the Foreward:

"Mrs. 'Richard F. Schiller' died in childbed, giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray Star, a settlement in the remotest Northwest."

At the end Humbert writes the book is to be published only when he and Lolita are no longer alive.

rockymountainrider: and still no mention of Snowcrash...?

\the only way it could be worse is if the film adaptation were done by Paul Verhooven!

Your second statement invalidates your first.

If think Snowcrash should be on this list, you think it is an oft-misinterpreted GREAT book leading to psychotic people. REAL psychotic people, not just people you don't like or like laughing at.

If you think it could barely be worse, then you think it isn't a great book, and then it shouldn't be on this list.


/READ, people.
//If you can't be troubled to comprehend an entire farking headline, why the fark should we be troubled to read your opinions on a significantly larger body of text?

Zeiss_Ikon: Just wanted an excuse to post this.

People who wear diving helmets can keep their own sweat.

Callahan'sMartiniShaker: It was also a love letter to civics and informed democracy but people forget that part - he advocated an "earned vote" through service and full freedoms for non-citizens - like idealized metics in Greek city states.

Yes, but Heinlein is very careful to note that full citizenship is earned via any participation in the military, even if all you do is watch others go off to fight while you sit at a desk pushing paper. This corresponds far too conveniently with his own level of service. For an interesting take on this, read Asimov's autobiography. He and Heinlein worked together during WWII doing military research that essentially amounted to nothing. Asimov wrote that he always felt guilty that the real soldiers went off and risked their lives while his group was never in any danger whatsoever. Heinlein, otoh, felt a strong need to justify his level of service to be just as good as the guys who were getting shot at.

Unfortunately, my introduction to Heinlein was The Number of The Beast which seriously confused me. Since he was so famous, I later picked up The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. It was even worse. Who was the Lazarus Long dude and why should I care who he wants to boink? Much later I heard that these later works were atypical so I gave him another shot: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was outstanding as was Starship Troopers. Alas, first impressions are hard to shake and for me Heinlein will always be that dirty old man first and foremost.

Persnickety: Unfortunately, my introduction to Heinlein was The Number of The Beast which seriously confused me. Since he was so famous, I later picked up The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. It was even worse. Who was the Lazarus Long dude and why should I care who he wants to boink? Much later I heard that these later works were atypical so I gave him another shot: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was outstanding as was Starship Troopers. Alas, first impressions are hard to shake and for me Heinlein will always be that dirty old man first and foremost.

To be fair, this is like starting with Return of the King and wondering what the hell "hobbits" are and why a ring is so important. You're reading sequels that assume you've read the material up to that point. Heinlein just didn't stamp a big, giant "Extended Universe Series #6" on the cover. This is made more complicated by the fact that they aren't strictly sequential, and later works often explain what the hell earlier works meant.