Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2005 22:19:51 -0400
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] RAH, Ghod with feet of clay,was: Re: Conspiracy, was Saturday: National Flying  SaucerDay

> dicconf at radix.net 7/2/2005 10:46:48 AM >>>
>
>On Fri, 1 Jul 2005, Michael Walsh wrote:
>
>>>> omni at omniphile.com 7/1/2005 10:43:45 AM >>>
>>> At 09:20 AM 7/1/05 -0500, samlubell at verizon.net wrote:
>>>> Actually, some sort of tribute to "A Century of Robert Heinlein"
>>> would
>>> make sense.  He did write a lot of good short stories.
>>>
>>> And a lot of good novels...
>>
>> Some classic stuff, some awful stuff.
>
>And some stuff that a selfelected panel of critics define as "awful"
>because it isn't Politically Correct.

I wouldn't  know about those folks & their choices, but I do know what
I've read & what I've liked over 4 decades.

A few years ago I reread "Starship Troopers."

I had first read it in the mid sixties, the 1963 Signet pb (this
cover:
http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?ph=2&bi=182782446),

which I thought was pretty cool, but these earlier RAH pbs covers are
pretty neat, and have, to me, Ye Olde Sense of Wonder:

http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?ph=2&bi=439003218
http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?ph=2&bi=211515124
http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?ph=2&bi=273829214 )

Anyway, 4 decades later... time for a reread.

That was a mistake.

Sometimes you really can't go home again.

Am I misremembering the Heinlein of the Campbell era who could slip in
bits of background and like without stoppping the story?  I don't mind
reading folks with points of view, but puhlease... don't stop the story
for lectures.  Jeeze.  Having read the rediscovered first novel - "For
Us, The Living" - all I can think is that he was taken over by his
pre-Campbell self.

Towards the end of his life, novels like "Friday" started out with a
kick, but somehow managed to dribble into inconsequentiality.

"Time Enough For Love" had it's moments with stories such as "The Tale
of the Man Who Was Too Lazy To Fail" that remain a delight in memory of
an otherwise far too long of a book

No question RAH - with Campbell - transformed Amercian SF.  And no
doubt the Saturday Evening Post publication of RAH brought him - and
quality SF - to a wider audience.  The YA novels  brought the wonder of
places beyond earth to a younger audience, and with most of those he was
able to straddle the YA and "adult" market with books such as "Citizen
of the Galaxy" which was YA but also first published serieally in
Astounding.

And he had the final word on travel stories with "All You Zombies."

& I now insert: YMMV.

mjw