Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2004 16:06:20 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: That "new" Heinlein novel . .
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

>twhite8 at cox.net 01/02/04 06:20PM
>>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu>
>To: <wsfalist at keithlynch.net>
>Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 1:05 PM
>Subject: [WSFA] That "new" Heinlein novel . .
>
>> John Clute gives it a fairly positive review
><http://www.scifi.com/sfw/curr=
>> ent/excess.html>.
>>
>> "For us, though, in 2004, For Us, the Living, as far as its arguments =
go,
>=
>> is pure Heinlein; indeed, because almost every radical notion he ever =
=
>> generated appears here in utero, the book rewrites our sense of
>Heinlein's =
>> entire career; and because Heinlein's career, as we understood it, has =
=
>> always seemed expressive of the nature of American SF from 1939 to =
1966,
>=
>> this small, slightly stumblebum first novel rewrites our understanding =
of
>=
>> those years, especially the early ones, when John W. Campbell Jr. was =
=
>> attempting to shape the nascent genre into a weapon of
>future-purification.=
>> "
>
>But, as hinted in your quote, Clute is far less kind to Campbell, whom he
>calls a "redneck" and "bluenosed."   His thesis seems to be that if
>Heinlein had only been able to publish "adult SF" (read: drenched in sex)
>in ASTOUNDING circa 1939, all of SF would have been far better for it.
>This is laughable for many reasons, not least of them the mores of the =
time
>and the obscenity laws of the time, over which Campbell had no control.

The only pulps with any hint of sex (and usually somewhat unpleasant) that =
I'm aware of are the "spicy pulps"; here's a sample of the covers from a =
company doing facsimiles of them <http://www.adventurehouse.com/shopping/en=
-us/dept_85.html>  Others can be found by using Google images and search =
for: Spicy Pulps .

>
>Clute kinda skips around the actual nature and quality of the actual =
book,
>but others who have read it say it's pretty bad *as fiction* being
>basically a set of didactic lectures.   I'd like to read it myself, =
mostly
>out of curiosity -- and as someone who has read all his other early
>fiction.

>From everything I've read it's an interesting precursor to many of RAH's =
ideas; but very much only for those who are familar with RAHs writings. =

mjw

>
>--Ted White
>