Making up for comments in my youth

[threemonkeys]

Happy 100th birthday Robert Heinlein. If you are like your long lived characters you have taken on another identity and another set of women companions. If not, then you are worm food but your legacy is still out there. You may have written some awful rubbish, especially in the later part of your career but at your peak you were the most important writer in the field. It is hard to think of another person more influential to the genre as a writer. Long may your name be remembered.

Comments

[thoatherder.livejournal.com]

So where was the peak?

Before "I will Fear No Evil", before "Starship Troopers"? before "Number of the Beast"?

The Nebulas started in 1965 and Heinlein never won one.

He won the Hugo for "Double Star", "Starship Troopers", "Stranger in a Strange Land", "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", so clearly the 1960s were his peak for awards.

Personally, I consider "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is his best 'adult' novel, while "Have Space Suit Will Travel" is his best "young adult' novel.

With the exception of Spider Robinson (a minor writer) and some of John Varley's works, who as a writer today shows the greatest Heinlein influence?

(Robinson is more of a thief in that he takes Heinlein themes and memes and tosses them into his novels wholesale. "Night of Power" is a good example, there is the "women protecting male egos" theme, the "killing people makes you horny" meme, the "come up with a new idea" theme. It's copying without understanding)

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Oh that "where was the peak" question. So many discussions over the years. So few conclusions. The problem is that it wasn't a consistent decline - there were peaks and troughs - or at least discontinuities. I'd love to see a chart of his interactions with Campbell & the number of short stories sold to Astounding. I bet there would be a correlation between that and the quality of his novels.

Hard to think of anybody who stands out in terms of writing style. Jerry Pournelle's King David's Spaceship is very like him but I refuse to read any more Pournelle so I can't say if there is more. You could argue that any writer who includes elements relating to civilisation, society, sex or a bunch of other elements is reflecting Heinlein's impact on the genre. He may or may not have been first to include them, but he was the one who made a much wider definition of SF possible by doing them well. Of course Campbell figures in there too - you can't really discuss the legacy of one without the other.

[thoatherder.livejournal.com]

If you read "Grumbles from the Grave", Campbell didn't have a lot of influence over Heinlein. Essentially Heinlein had an exclusive contract with Campbell *provided* Campbell didn't reject his stories. So Campbell took everything Heinlein wrote until Campbell finally cracked.

Even Asimov didn't have that arrangement, he got stories rejected from time to time by Campbell.

So what was the influences? There was the 'future history' idea, where all the short stories and novels were supposed to fit into a coherent whole. Which didn't work perfectly. Asimov copied that when he tried to tie the Robot and Foundation stories together, Niven copied it for his 'Known Space' series. But H Bean Piper has a similar idea with his stories and novels, did he think of it before Heinlein?

Heinlein influenced the writing partnership of Niven and Pournelle, he made them rewrite "The Mote in God's Eye".

He put more sex into the stories, but only when everyone else was, compare "Starship Troopers" (1959) with "Stranger in a Strange Land" (1961). Either he couldn't get it published until the social mores had changed, or he self-censored until they did.

"The Stars my Destination" (1956) has more overt sex in it than "Starship Troopers" (not that there is much).

"The Door into Summer" (1956) introduces the idea of 'child grows into adult and has sex with older protagonist' that features in later works (with incest added) but I'm not aware of many SF writers picking up that particular theme.

Certainly Heinlein was talked about a lot, and was very popular, he got more criticism than Asimov and Clarke (the big three) and more people trying to figure out how his writing had mass appeal when it was so flawed. But was he influential? Did he really push the envelope? Consider what the New Wavers tried to do in the 1960s.

Look at Peter Hamilton's immense trilogies, they have lots of sex, in Heinlein type descriptive prose, but I'd say they owed more to John Varley's writing than Heinlein's. Was Varley influenced by Heinlein? Possibly although he took his writing in different directions, certainly "Red Thunder" is reminiscent of Heinlein (but off in ways I have trouble describing, I must get my 17 year old to read it and find out how they react to it).

Heinlein was immensely popular, but I suspect popularity does not equate to influence.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

It's just a gut feeling, but personally I do think the popularity did translate into influence in this case. There was a big shift in SF around the time Heinlein became a star. It didn't get the "movement" label that new wave did, but it was happening. I can't help but feel that Heinlein helped drive that. However I guess you can argue that he was just the highest profile symptom too. I don't have the evidence to back it up either way - as I say, a gut feeling.

Did you read Alan's piece on Heinlein that he wrote for the con?