Robert A Heinlein

But sometimes there are very good reasons for biases or taboos, and a work that challenges said biases or taboos shouldn't be celebrated solely because it challenges them.

Anyone who believes that their biases and taboos are axiomatically correct is exactly the sort of person Heinlein was the most disdainful of. Science fiction is about playing What If?, and you can't do that if you're going to hold certain beliefs as too sacred to examine. Nobody is saying you have to agree with the beliefs expressed in the stories (and good luck pinning down exactly what Heinlein himself believed according to his works), but if you aren't willing to engage in the inquiry, you're not going to be a good audience.

edited 10th Apr '17 2:14:23 PM by Fighteer

Agreed. No belief is so sacred that it should not be examined, and science fiction is a wonderful genre to explore one's own beliefs and predispositions.

However, science fiction is also a wonderful genre for escapism and to read just for pleasure, which is my usual reason for re-visiting a work.

If you don't like a particular story for any particular reason - writing style rubs you the wrong way, implausible outdated technology you just can't take seriously, or as in this case moral choices you think were made the wrong way with the author's apparent approval - then there is no reason to trouble with a particular work again after you have read it once. Reading time is a valuable commodity after all.

edited 10th Apr '17 2:27:13 PM by Bense

"I did research on victims a long time ago. The TWO MOST COMMON REACTIONS are the PTSD breakage people always think of, or a heavy dose of hypersexuality where they try to fill in the hole left behind by the rape with actual consensual (for values of consensual given the victim's mental state) sex. It becomes an addiction, usually."

"There's a really distasteful normative statement implied there, in that one insists that a victim of trauma, be it rape or any other form of violence, must suffer from PTSD or some other emotional/psychological damage from the event, and there's something terribly wrong about them if they don't. That's almost as harmful an attitude as that victims of violence should "man up" and deal" with it. One envisions trauma counselors following victims around like accident lawyers asking them, "Aren't you traumatized? Don't you need help?"

• Takes a deep breath and cools himself.* I never even implied someone had to be traumatized by rape. I relayed findings I had years ago stating two common reactions. That doesn't imply someone HAS to react that way. You always do this to me. You always want to read things as more absolute or horrible whenever I say them. I did not judge. I did not. I said most common. The majority has no claim to authority on what is right, wrong, or mentally healthy or unhealthy. And I never said that.

edited 10th Apr '17 5:52:14 PM by Journeyman

Dude, don't take what I say so personally. We're having a discussion.

You're a mod, we have history, and this isn't the first time I've said something that you've said you hate. You've thumped me in the past and when you're around I'm always watching myself because I don't want banned. So of course I'm going to take what you say personally. If this were the first time, I wouldn't have.

So I just finished The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and I got thinking it would be an interesting book to adapt for a movie, particuarly in the current climate. (Apparently Fox thought so too though I can't say there's been progress on it).

I'm wondering about how to do it.

• Updating it for 2017 would obviously be needed. Probably bump it up a century to 2175. The industry the moon was colonized for, food production, would more likely be rare earth element mining though you would lose the play with the "food's going to run out" driving it. More advanced computers and wireless communications. Adam Selene's image would be handled differently.

• Why does Earth use conscript labor? The main reason probably boils down to the presumption that after a point, Earth to Moon is a one way trip and that lessens the supply of volunteers. Alternately, Earth hits the automation singularity, doesn't cope well with so many people out of work and that's the surplus population problem rather than food.

• The Professor can keep his anarchisim but cut down on the Author Tract bits and give him some more insecurities. He's leaning on Mike as much as Mannie is behind the scenes but it comes off more like he's an actual know-it-all.

• The Earth tour gets compressed into a montage beyond a few key scenes.

• Play up the Declaration of Independence theme: Lives, fortunes and sacred honor. People lose their lives and their fortunes; the honor part comes up in the bombardment of Earth, especially dealing with civilian casualties. The ending with Mannie, cut off from Mike's guidance, deciding to target the seacoast cities as a last gamble and praying Earth surrenders before they can't be called off, is a great What You Are in the Dark moment.

Incidentaly, "Uprising", the current proposed title for the adaptation, is bleh but "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is kind of a mouthfull. I like "Free Luna" as a title.

edited 17th May '17 12:16:40 PM by Elle

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a pretty non-indicative title anyway. It would lend itself more to a story about survival in the harsh lunar environment than about the revolt of a lunar nation composed of convicts and exiles.

You could Title Drop it while Mannie is explaining to Stu why life on the Moon is different from life on Terra.

And then get quite properly dinged by CinemaSins.

Stop reading my mind. >.>

Besides, it will get multi-dinged for the repetition of "Free Luna" and then he'd be confused.

(My idea works better with the movie having an alternate title.)

edited 17th May '17 2:56:27 PM by Elle

Apparently Heinlein's working title for the novel was "Brass Cannon", which manages to be even worse.

Yeah, TBH I don't really get the significance of that other than the Professor being a romantic.

Yeah, the brass cannon story never really made a whole lot of sense to me either.

I rather like what editor John W. Campbell said of Robert Heinlein, which was "Bob can write a better story, with one hand tied behind him, than most people in the field can do with both hands. But Jesus, I wish that son of a gun would take that other hand out of his pocket."

I help your help tropers, or my pseudo-niece is gonna break my legs!

My nieces took part in a summer reading program and I sponsored them, so I owe them money—in the form of new books. I'm thinking of getting one of the Heinlein juvenile novels for my nine year-old pseudo-niece but I'm not too familiar with those. I recall reading:

• Red Planet
• Have Spacesuit—Will Travel
• Tunnel in the Sky
• the Star Beast
• Citizen of the Galaxy

I'm leaning toward Red Planet or Tunnel at the moment, though I'm wondering if Red Planet is little too Science Marches On. If I recall, Hazel Stone stars in one novel right? Any others with female protagonists?

My actual niece is two, so no RAH for her.

If I were to pick a Heinlein juvenille for a nine year old, I'd probably go with The Rolling Stones. It's about the Stone family generally, so I'd hesitate to call Hazel the main character, but she's in it and she's certainly a main character. (It takes place some time after The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress — Hazel is the grandmother of the family.)

Have Space Suit – Will Travel wouldn't be a bad choice either. The POV character is a teenage boy, but the other main character is a precocious genius-level little girl who helps out just as much as the main character does, and she's quite well-written in that she comes across as both believably ridiculously smart and still a child — she acts like a genius, but doesn't act like a miniature adult.

Red Planet isn't bad, but is very much Science Marches On and also stars almost entirely two young boys, so probably not your best bet. Citizen of the Galaxy and Tunnel in the Sky also suffer from a lack of interesting female characters, and the content may be a bit rough for a nine year old. (Citizen of the Galaxy is pretty dark in general, starting with the main character living as a slave under a brutal dictatorship, and by the end he's involved in a legal feud with his uncle — the Corrupt Corporate Executive of the family-owned MegaCorp — and has to give serious thought to the possibility of being assassinated by his family. Tunnel in the Sky has a bunch of kids getting killed in the wilderness, and by the end has the kids pairing of and getting married, though I don't recall if any of them actually get pregnant or give birth.) Whether or not it's appropriate depends a lot on the nine year old.

May I suggest Podkayne of Mars? Has tween female protagonist, since it occurs on a ship bound for Mars rather than Mars itself Science Marches On is not that big a factor.

On the other hand, if you want to introduce her to juvenile female oriented science fiction/fantasy you might want to consider Anne McCaffrey's Harpers Hall trilogy

edited 24th Oct '17 6:45:59 AM by tricksterson

Unpublished Heinlein novel Kickstarter.

"Parallel universe" companion for The Number of the Beast, said to be more like earlier Heinlein in tone than TNotB.

Beyond what's on the KS page, I don't have any more information.

Well that's interesting. Why do they need a KS for it? Milking cash from fans?

Yeah, that's... super weird.

At a guess, publishing as more than just some overglorified fanzine, as far as physical product quality goes, since they're also publishing a "collectors edition" as well as regular hardback.

Edited by Nohbody on Sep 6th 2019 at 10:56:36 AM

One of the people involved chimes in with more details.

The problem with crowdfunding projects like that is you're paying in advance for something whose quality is completely unknown. And by quality, I don't mean the typeface and the bookbinding; I mean the quality of the work itself, which is not under the control of the people running this campaign.

There's obviously a huge nerd factor to finally getting one's hands on Heinlein's last novel that he never published, I acknowledge that it has value regardless of whether the actual product is any good or not, and that might be enough to justify this Kickstarter. It just calls to mind something Zero Punctuation said about this sort of thing: "It was successful before it was even released." (paraphrased) They could have put an apology letter in every box and still gotten all their money.

Heck, I might even buy this thing when it comes out, but only after the reviews come in.