Robert Anson Heinlein ( ; July 7, 1907 - May 8, 1988) is an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers," his sometimes controversial works continue to have influences that affect the genre, and in modern culture more generally.
Heinlein became one of the first American science fiction writers to enter mainstream magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s. He is one of the best-selling science fiction novels for decades, and he, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke are often regarded as the "Big Three" English science-fiction writers. Among his most notorious works are the Stranger in the Strange Land , Starship Troopers , which helped create marine archetypes and space mecha, and the libertarian novel The Moon Is a Mrs. Ghost .
As the author of many science fiction short stories, Heinlein is one of a group of writers who became famous under the editor of John W. Campbell in the magazine Fiction of Astonishing Knowledge ; although Heinlein denied that Campbell influenced his writings to a great extent.
Within the framework of his science fiction, Heinlein repeatedly discussed certain social themes: the importance of individual freedom and independence, the obligations of individuals owe their society, the organized religious influence on culture and government, and the tendency of society to suppress nonconformist thought. He also speculated on the effect of space travel on the practice of human culture.
Heinlein was crowned Scientific Science Fiction Writer first in 1974. He won the Hugo Awards for his four novels; In addition, fifty years after publication, his five works were awarded "Retro Hugo" - a retrospective award for works published before the Hugo Award emerged. In his fiction, Heinlein coined the terms that have become part of the English language, including "grok", "waldo", and "speculative fiction", as well as popularizing existing terms such as "TANSTAAFL", "pay forwards", and " sea ​​". He also anticipated computer-aided mechanical design with "Drafting And" and described the modern version of the water mattress in his novel The Door into Summer, though he never patented or built it. In the first chapter of the Space Cadet novel he anticipated the phone, 35 years before Motorola invented the technology. Some of Heinlein's works have been adapted for film and television.
Video Robert A. Heinlein
Life
Birth and childhood
Heinlein was born on July 7, 1907 by Rex Ivar Heinlein (accountant) and Bam Lyle Heinlein, in Butler, Missouri. He is the German-American 6th generation: the family tradition says that Heinleins fought in every American war beginning with the War of Independence.
His childhood was spent in Kansas City, Missouri. The views and values ​​of this time and place (in his own words, "The Bible Belt") have a definite influence on his fiction, especially his later work, when he is very interested in his childhood in building atmosphere and atmosphere culture in his works. such as Enough Time for Love and For Sailing Outside Sunset .
Heinlein's experience in the US Navy has had a powerful influence on his character and writings. He graduated from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, with the class of 1929 and later served as an officer in the Navy. He was assigned to the new aircraft carrier USSÃ, Lexington in 1931, where he worked on radio communications, then in the previous phase, with a transport plane. The captain of this carrier is Ernest J. King, who served as Chief of Naval Operations and Supreme Commander, US Fleet during World War II. Heinlein was frequently interviewed for years later by military historians who asked him about the Captain King and his service as commander of the first US Navy's first modern aircraft carrier.
Heinlein also served on the destroyer USS
In 1929, Heinlein married Elinor Curry from Kansas City in Los Angeles, and their marriage lasted about a year. Her second marriage in 1932 to Leslyn MacDonald (1904-1981) lasted for 15 years. MacDonald, according to the testimony of a Heinlein Navy friend, Rear Admiral Laning, "is extraordinarily intelligent, widely read, and very liberal, even though a Republican is registered," while Isaac Asimov later recalled that Heinlein, at that time, "liberal flame." (See section: Politics of Robert Heinlein.)
California
In 1934, Heinlein was discharged from the Navy because of pulmonary tuberculosis. During long hospitalization, he developed a design for a water mattress.
After his return, Heinlein attended several weeks of graduate classes in mathematics and physics at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), but he soon quit because of his health or because of the desire to enter politics.
Heinlein supported himself in several jobs, including sales of real estate and silver mining, but for several years found money in limited inventory. Heinlein was active in the End Poverty socialist Upton Sinclair movement in California in the early 1930s. When Sinclair won a Democratic nomination for the California Governor in 1934, Heinlein worked actively in the campaign. Heinlein himself ran for the California State Assembly in 1938, but to no avail.
Author
Although not poor after the campaign - he has a small disability pension from the Navy - Heinlein turned to write to pay off his mortgage. His first published story, "Life-Line", was printed in the August 1939 edition of the astonishing Science Fiction . Originally written for the contest, he sold it to Astonishing significantly more than the first prize of the contest. Another Future History Story, "Misfit", followed in November. The others saw Heinlein's talent and fame from his first story, and he was quickly recognized as the leader of the new movement toward "social" science fiction. In California he hosted the MaÃÆ' Â ± ana Literary Society, an informal meeting of new writers from 1940-41. He was a guest of honor at Denvention, Worldcon 1941, held in Denver. During World War II, he undertook flight engineering for the US Navy, also recruited Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp to work at the Naval Shipyard of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania.
When the war ended in 1945, Heinlein began to re-evaluate his career. The atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with the outbreak of the Cold War, dug him to write nonfiction on political topics. In addition, he wants to get into a market that pays better. He published four influential short stories for The Saturday Evening Post magazine, presiding, in February 1947, with "The Green Hills of Earth". It made him the first science fiction writer to come out of the "ghetto porridge". In 1950, the movie Destination Moon - a documentary - as he had written stories and scenarios, written alongside scripts, and created many effects - won an Academy Award for special effects. Also, he started a series of juvenile novels for the publishing company Charles Scribner's Sons that lasted from 1947 to 1959, with a book-level every fall, in time for Christmas gifts to teenagers. He also wrote for Boys' Life in 1952.
At the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard he met and befriended a chemical engineer named Virginia "Ginny" Gerstenfeld. After the war, his engagement fell, he moved to UCLA for doctoral studies in chemistry and made contact again.
When his second wife's alcoholism gradually spiraled out of control, Heinlein moved away and the couple filed for divorce. Heinlein's friendship with Virginia turned into a relationship and on October 21, 1948 - shortly after the nisi decision came - they married in the town of Raton, New Mexico shortly after setting up a home in Colorado. They remained married until Heinlein's death.
As Heinlein became more successful as a writer solving their initial financial problems, they had a home custom built with innovative features, later described in an article in Popular Mechanics. In 1965, after various chronic health problems of Virginia traced back to altitude sickness, they moved to Santa Cruz, California which is at sea level. They are building a new residence in the village of Bonny Doon, California. Robert and Virginia designed and built their own California home, which is a circle. Previously they have also designed and built their Colorado home.
Ginny no doubt serves as a model for many intelligent and highly independent female characters. He is a chemist, a rocket test engineer, and holds a higher rank in the Navy than Heinlein himself. He is also an outstanding college athlete, getting four letters. In 1953-1954, Heinleins traveled throughout the world (mostly through ships and cargo ships, as Ginny hated flying), described by Heinlein in Tramp Royale, and who also provided background material for science fiction novels. organize spaceships on long trips, such as Podkayne of Mars and Friday . Ginny acted as the first reader of the manuscript. Isaac Asimov believed that Heinlein swung to the right politically at the same time he married Ginny.
Heinleins formed a small "Patrick Henry League" in 1958, and they worked on President Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign.
When Robert A. Heinlein opened the Colorado Springs paper on April 5, 1958, he read a full-page ad demanding that the Eisenhower Administration halt nuclear weapons testing. Sci-fi writers are stunned. He called for the formation of Patrick Henry's League and spent the next few weeks writing and publishing his own polemic that denounced "Communist goals hidden in realistic-sounding bullshit" and prompted Americans not to be "soft-headed."
Heinlein had used topical materials throughout his juvenile series in 1947, but in 1959 his novel Starship Troopers was considered by editors and Scribner owners to be too controversial for one of his prestige lines, and was rejected.
Heinlein finds another publisher (Putnam), feeling himself free from the constraints of writing novels for children. He has told the interviewer that he does not want to do a story that is only added to the category specified by other works. Instead, he wanted to do his own work, stating that: "I want to do my own business, in my own way". He will continue to write a series of challenging books that repeat the boundaries of science fiction, including the Strange Land in the Weird Land (1961) and the Moon is the Ghost Madame (1966).
Next life and death
Beginning in 1970, Heinlein underwent a series of health crises, broken by periods of heavy activity in his hobby of masons. (In personal correspondence, he refers to it as "the usual and favorite work among books".) The decade begins with life-threatening peritonitis, a recovery that takes more than two years, and treatment requiring multiple transfusions of rare blood types Heinlein, A2 negative. Once he was fit enough to write again, he began working on Time Enough for Love (1973), which introduced many of the themes found in his later fiction.
In the mid-1970s, Heinlein wrote two articles for the Britannica Compton Yearbook . She and Ginny crossed the country helping to reorganize blood donors in the United States in an effort to help the system that has saved her life. At a science fiction convention to receive his signature, fans will be asked to sign along with Heinlein a wonderful promise he gave that the recipient agrees that they will donate blood. He was a guest of honor at Worldcon in 1976 for the third time at MidAmeriCon in Kansas City, Missouri. At the Worldcon, Heinlein hosts donor blood events and donors' receptions to thank all those who helped save lives. While on vacation in Tahiti in early 1978, he suffered a temporary ischemic attack. Over the next few months, he grew tired, and his health declined again. The problem is determined to be a blocked carotid artery, and he has one of the earliest carotid bypass surgeries to fix it. Heinlein and Virginia have become smokers, and smoking often appears in its fiction, just like a fictional self-lighting cigarette.
In 1980 Robert Heinlein was a member of the Citizens Advisory Council for the National Space Policy, chaired by Jerry Pournelle, who met at the home of SF author Larry Niven to write space policy documents for the future Reagan Administration. Members include aerospace industry leaders such as former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, General Daniel O. Graham, aerospace engineer Max Hunter and VP North America and Space Shuttle manager George Merrick. The Council's policy recommendations include the ballistic missile defense concept which was later transformed into what the Strategic Defense Initiative called by those who liked it, and "Star Wars" as a derision term coined by Senator Ted Kennedy. Heinlein helped with the Council's contribution to Reagan's "Star Wars" speech in the Spring of 1983.
Asked to appear before the US Joint Committee and Senate Committee that year, he testified to his belief that spin-offs from space technology benefit the weak and the elderly. Heinlein's surgical treatment reinforced him, and he wrote five novels from 1980 until he died in his sleep from emphysema and heart failure on May 8, 1988.
At that time, he has compiled a preliminary note for another novel World as Myth . Some of his other works have been published posthumously.
After his death, his wife Virginia Heinlein issued a compilation of Heinlein's correspondence and recorded an autobiographical examination of his career, published in 1989 under the title Grumbles from the Grave . The Heinlein archive is stored by the McHenry Library Special Collection department at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The collection includes manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, and artifacts. Most archives have been digitized and available online through Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Archives.
Maps Robert A. Heinlein
Work
Heinlein published 32 novels, 59 short stories, and 16 collections during his lifetime. Four films, two television series, several episodes of radio series, and board games have been derived more or less directly from his work. He writes scenarios for one of the movies. Heinlein edits the anthology from other SF writer short stories.
Three nonfiction books and two poems have been published posthumously. For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs was published posthumously in 2003; Variable Star , written by Spider Robinson based on an outline by Heinlein, published in September 2006. Four collections have been published posthumously.
Series
During his career, Heinlein wrote three rather overlapping series.
- Series of the Future History
- Lazarus Long series
- Heinlein Teens
Initial work, 1939-1958
Heinlein began his career as a story writer for the In-depth Science Fiction magazine, edited by John Campbell. The science fiction writer Frederik Pohl has described Heinlein as a "Campbell era mass-sfp writer". Isaac Asimov said that, since his first story, the science fiction world accepts that Heinlein is the best science fiction writer available, adding that he will hold this title throughout his lifetime.
Alexei and Cory Panshin noted that the impact of Heinlein was immediately felt. In 1940, the year after selling 'Life-Line' to Campbell, he wrote three short novels, four novels, and seven short stories. They went on to say that "No one has ever dominated the science fiction field as Bob did in the first few years of his career." Alexei expressed admiration for Heinlein's ability to show readers a world very different from the one we live in now, but has many similarities. He says that "We find ourselves not only in the world other than ourselves, but identifying with living, breathing individuals operating in their context, and thinking and acting in accordance with its provisions."
The first novel Heinlein wrote for us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs (1939), saw no prints during his lifetime, but Robert James traced the manuscript and published it in 2003. Although some regard it as a failure as a novel, considers it only as a disguised lecture on Heinlein's social theories, some readers take a very different view. In his review, John Clute wrote: "I would not suggest that if Heinlein had been able to publish [such works] publicly on the pages of Astonishing in 1939, SF would have a precise future, I would suggest, however, if Heinlein , and his colleagues, have been able to publish SF adults in Astounding and his fellow journals, so SF may not do such a terrible job by pointing out something that actually lives here at the beginning of 2004. "
For Us, the Living is very interesting as a window into the development of Heinlein's radical ideas about man as a social animal, including his interest in free love. The roots of many themes found later on can be found in this book. It also contains a large amount of material that can be considered a background for other novels. This includes a detailed description of the protagonist's treatment in order to avoid being banned into Coventry (a lawless land in Heinlein myth where unlawful offenders are ostracized).
It seems that Heinlein at least tried to live in a way consistent with this ideal, even in the 1930s, and had an open relationship in his marriage to his second wife, Leslyn. He is also a nudist; taboo nudism and the body is often discussed in his work. At the height of the Cold War, he built a bomb shelter beneath his home, just like the one at Farnham Freehold .
After For Us, The Living , Heinlein began selling (to the magazine) the first short story, then the novel, compiled in Future History, complete with a timeline of significant political, cultural, and technological changes. A chart of future history was published in the May 1941 edition of Astonishing . Over time, Heinlein wrote many novels and short stories that deviated freely from the Future History on several points, while maintaining consistency in several other areas. The History of the Future is finally taken over by the actual events. This discrepancy is explained, after a mode, in its World stories as a Myth.
Heinlein's first novel published as a book, Rocket Ship Galileo was initially rejected for going to the moon was considered too unreasonable, but he soon found the publisher, Scribner, who started publishing Heinlein teenagers once a year for the Christmas season. Eight of these books are illustrated by Clifford Geary in a distinctive white-on-black stroke style. Some of the representative novels of this type are Having Space Settings - Going Going , Farmers in the Sky , and Starman Jones . Many of these were first published in serial form under other titles, for example, Farmer in the Sky published as Satellite Scout in Boy Scout Boys' Life magazine i>. There is speculation that Heinlein's intense obsession with his privacy is partly due to the apparent contradiction between his unconventional personal life and his career as a children's book writer. However, For Us, The Living explicitly discusses Heinlein's political interests inherent in privacy as a matter of principle to nullify this line of thinking.
Heinlein's novels for young audiences are usually called "Heinlein teenagers," and they feature a mixture of teen and adult themes. Many of the problems he faces in these books have something to do with the problems experienced by teenagers. The protagonist is usually a very intelligent teenager who has to make their way in the adult society they see around them. On the surface, they are a simple story about adventure, achievement, and dealing with stupid teachers and jealous peers. Heinlein is a vocal proponent of the idea that adolescent readers are much more sophisticated and capable of handling more complex or difficult themes than most people realize. Her teenage stories often have maturity for those who make them easy to read for adults. the Red Planet , for example, describes some highly subversive themes, including revolutions in which young students are involved; his editors demanded major changes in the discussion of this book on topics such as the use of weapons by children and the gender of misidentified Martian characters. Heinlein was always aware of the editorial limitations imposed by the novel editor and his story, and while he observed the restrictions on the surface, often succeeded in introducing ideas that were not often seen in other teenage SF girls.
In 1957 James Blish wrote that one of the reasons Heinlein's success "is a high-class engine that runs, today as usual, into the storytelling." Heinlein seems to have known from the start, as if instinctively, a technical lesson on fiction, where another writer must learn the hard way (or quite often, never learn).He does not always operate the machine for the best profit, but he always seems to be aware of it. "
1959-1960
Heinlein convincingly ended a teenage novel with Starship Troopers (1959), a controversial work and his personal response to the left who called on President Dwight D. Eisenhower to stop nuclear testing in 1958. "The" Patrick Henry "ad surprised them," he wrote many years later. "Starship Troopers make them angry." Starship Troopers is the future story of the duties, citizenship, and military role of society. This book describes the community in which voting rights are obtained by showing willingness to place the public interest in front of its own interests, at least for a short time and often under severe conditions, in government service; in the case of the protagonist, this is the military service.
Then, at Expanded Universe Heinlein said that it was his intention in the novel that services could include positions outside of strict military functions such as teachers, police officers, and other government positions. This is presented in the novel as a result of the failure of the government of suffrage which is not accepted and as a very successful arrangement. In addition, franchises are only granted after leaving the designated service, so those serving their requirements - in the military, or other services - are excluded from any franchise exercise. The military career completely loses its right until retirement.
The name Starship Troopers is licensed for an unrelated B movie script, called Bug Hunt in Outpost Nine , which is then titled to benefit from the book's credibility. The resulting film, titled Starship Troopers (1997), written by Ed Neumeier and directed by Paul Verhoeven, has little relation to the book, beyond the inclusion of character names, depictions of space marines, and the concept of suffrage obtained from military service. Heinlein's fans are very critical of the film, which they regard as the betrayal of Heinlein's philosophy, presenting the society in which the story takes place as a fascist.
Similarly, powerful armor technology that is not only important for books, but a subgenre of later science fiction standards, is completely absent in films, where characters use weapons of WWII technology and wear lightweight combat equipment that is slightly more advanced. than that. In the Verhoeven film of the same name, there is no combat armor. Verhoeven commented that he had tried to read the book after he bought the rights to it, to add it to his existing movie. But he only read the first two chapters, feeling too boring to continue. He thought it was a bad book and asked Ed Neumeier to tell his story because he could not read it.
Mid-period work, 1961-1973
From about 1961 ( Foreign in the Strange Land ) to 1973 ( Enough Time for Love ), Heinlein explores some of the most important themes, such as individualism, libertarianism , and free expression of physical and emotional love. Three novels from this period, Strangers in Strange Land , Month is Mrs Ghost , and Enough Time for Love won the Futurist Libertarian Award Prometheus Hall of Fame Society, designed to honor classical libertarian fiction. Jeff Riggenbach describes The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress as "undoubtedly one of the three or four most influential libertarian novels of the last century".
Heinlein did not publish the Strangers in the Strange Land until some time after it was written, and the theme of free love and radical individualism is prominently displayed in his first unpublished novel, For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs .
The Moon is Mrs. Ghost tells of the war of independence launched by the colonies of Imlek punishment, with significant comment from the main character, Professor La Paz, regarding the threat posed by the government to individual freedom.
Although Heinlein had previously written several short stories in the fantasy genre, during this period he wrote his first fantasy novel, Glory Road , and in Foreign in the Strange Land and Later work, 1980-1987
After seven years of absence due to poor health, Heinlein produced five new novels in the 1980 period ( The Number of the Beast ) until 1987 ( To Sail Beyond the Sunset ). These books have a series of common characters and time and place. They most explicitly communicate Heinlein's philosophy and beliefs, and many parts of dialogue and a long dialogical exposition with government, sex, and religion. These novels are controversial among readers and one critic, David Langford, has written about them very negatively. Four Hugo awards from Heinlein are all for books written before this period.
Most of the novels from this period are recognized by critics as branch-makers of the Future History series, and are referenced by the term World as Myth.
The tendency toward self-reference of authors begins at Strangers in Strange Land and Enough Time for Love becomes more pronounced in novels such as Cats That Walk Through the Wall , the first-person protagonist is a disabled military veteran who is a writer, and finds love with a female character.
Novel 1982 Friday , a more conventional adventure story (borrowing the characters and background of the previous short story Gulf , also contains connection suggestions to The Masters Puppet ) continues the Heinlein theme by expecting what he sees as the ongoing disintegration of Earth society, to the point where the title character is strongly encouraged to seek new life beyond the planet. This ends with a traditional Heinlein record, as in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress or Time Enough for Love, the freedom can be found at the border.
Novel 1984 Job: A Comedy of Justice is a sharp satire of organized religion. Heinlein himself is agnostic.
Posthumous publication
Several of Heinlein's works have been published since his death, including those of For Us, The Living and 1989's Grumbles from the Grave , a collection of letters between Heinlein and his editors. and agents; 1992 Tramp Royale , a southern hemisphere tour visited by Heinleins in the 1950s; Take Back Your Government , a guidebook on participatory democracy written in 1946; and an award volume called Requiem: Jobs and Tribut Collected for the Grand Master , contains some additional short works previously unpublished in book form. From the Main Order , published in 2005, including three short stories that have never been collected in Heinlein's books (Heinlein calls them "stinkeroos").
Spider Robinson, a colleague, friend, and admirer of Heinlein, wrote Variable Star, based on the outline and notes for the teen novel Heinlein prepared in 1955. The novel was published as a collaboration, with Heinlein named above Robinson on its cover, in 2006.
The complete collection of Heinlein's published works has been published by the Heinlein Prize Trust as "Virginia Edition", after his wife. See Complete Works section of the Robert A. Heinlein bibliography for details.
Influences
The main effect on Heinlein's writing style is probably Rudyard Kipling. Kipling is the first modern example known as "indirect exposition", a technique of writing that Heinlein later became famous. In his famous text "On the Writing of Speculative Fiction", Heinlein quotes Kipling:
There are nine-and-sixty ways Build tribal laying And every one of them is right <
Stranger in the Strange Land actually comes from Kipling's modern version The Jungle Book , his wife suggests that the boy was raised by Martians instead of wolves. Likewise, Citizen of the Galaxy can be seen as Kipling's reboot of Kim's .
Even philosophically, Starship Troopers ideas need to serve in the military to vote, can be found in Kipling "The Army of a Dream":
Poul Anderson once said of Kipling's science fiction "As easy as A.B.C.", "a beautiful science fiction thread, showing the same eye for detail that will later distinguish Robert Heinlein's work".
Heinlein describes himself as also influenced by George Bernard Shaw, after reading most of his drama. Shaw is an example of previous writers who used competent men, the favorite Heinlein archetype. He denies, though, any direct influence Back to Meta has on Methesis Children .
Views
Heinlein's books investigate ideas on various topics such as sex, race, politics, and the military. Many are seen as radical or preceding their time in their social criticism. His books have inspired much debate about the specificity, and evolution, of Heinlein's own opinion, and have given him lavish praise and criticism. He is also accused of being opposed to philosophical questions.
Brian Doherty quotes William Patterson, saying that the best way to gain an understanding of Heinlein is as "a full service iconoclast, a unique individual who decides that things should not happen, and will not continue, as they are." He says this vision is "at the heart of Heinlein, science fiction, libertarianism, and America." Heinlein imagines how everything about the human world, from our sexual customs to our religion to our cars for our government to our plans for cultural survival, may become disabled, even very fatal. "
The critics of Elizabeth Anne Hull, for his part, have praised Heinlein for his interest in exploring fundamental life questions, especially the question of "political power - our responsibility to each other" and about "personal freedom, especially sexual freedom.
Politics
Heinlein's political position shifted throughout his life. Heinlein's early political propensity was liberal. In 1934, he worked actively for Demton's Upton Sinclair campaign for the Governor of California. After Sinclair's defeat, Heinlein became an anti-Communist Democratic activist. He made an unsuccessful bid for the seat of the California State Assembly in 1938. The first novel of Heinlein, For Us, The Living (written 1939), consisted mostly of speeches advocating the Social Credit system, and the early story of "Misfit" (1939) deals with an organization that appears to be the Franklin D. Roosevelt Civil Conservation Corps that is translated into space.
This time in his life, Heinlein then said:
As I write the Metaphysics, I am still politically very naive and still have the hope that libertarian ideas can be delayed by the political process... It [seems] to me that whenever we succeed in establishing a freedom they take another. Maybe two. And that's my characteristic of the society when it gets older, and more crowded, and higher taxes, and more laws.
Heinlein's fiction of the 1940s and 1950s, however, began to support a conservative view. After 1945, he became convinced that a strong world government was the only way to avoid collective nuclear destruction. His novel in 1949 Space Cadet illustrates a future scenario in which a military-controlled global government implements world peace. Heinlein ceased to consider himself a Democrat in 1954. He belonged to those who in 1968 signed the pro-Vietnam War advertisement in the Galaxy Science Fiction .
Heinlein considers himself a libertarian; in a letter to Judith Merril in 1967 (never sent) she said, "As for libertarians, I have been a lifetime of radical life, you may have used the term" philosophical anarchist "or" autarkis "about me but" libertarian " more easily defined and fit enough. "
Strangers in Strange Land are embraced by hippie counterculture, and libertarians have found inspiration in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress . Both groups find resonance with themes of their personal freedom in thought and action.
Race
Heinlein grew up in the era of racial segregation in the United States and wrote some of the most influential fictions at the height of the civil rights movement. The novels initially preceded their time both in their explicit rejection of racism and the inclusion of their color protagonists - in the context of science fiction prior to the 1960s, the presence of character characters was nothing new, with green being more common than chocolate. For example, his novel 1948 Space Cadet explicitly uses aliens as a metaphor for minorities. In his novel Star Beast , de facto the foreign minister of the Terran government is the deputy secretary, Mr. Kiku, who is from Africa. Heinlein explicitly stated his skin was "ebony black", and that Kiku was in a happy marriage.
In a number of his stories, Heinlein challenged the possibility of racial prejudice by introducing a strong and sympathetic character, only to reveal later that he came from Africa or another ancestor; in some cases, book covers show characters as fair-skinned, when in fact the text states, or at least implies, that they are dark or African. Heinlein repeatedly denounces racism in his non-fictional works, including many examples in the Expanded Universe.
Heinlein revealed in Starship Troopers that the novel protagonist and narrator, Johnny Rico, a disgruntled former relative, is a Filipino, actually named "Juan Rico" and speaks Tagalog in addition to English.
Race is a central theme in some Heinlein fiction. The most notable and controversial example is Farnham Freehold, which forms a white family into a future where the white man is a slave to a black cannibal ruler. In the 1941 novel Sixth Column (also known as The Day After Tomorrow), the white resistance movement in the United States defended itself against the invasion by the Asian fascist state ("Pan-Asia") using "super-science" technology that allows ray guns to be tuned to a specific race. The book is sprinkled with racist insults against Asians, and blacks and Hispanics are not mentioned at all. The idea for the story was encouraged by Heinlein by editor John W. Campbell, and Heinlein later wrote that he "had to re-tilt it to remove the racist aspect of the original storyline" and that he did not "think of it as an artistic success." However, a fierce debate in the scientific community about sensible development of ethnic bioweapons.
Individualism and self-determination
In accordance with his belief in individualism, his work for adults - and sometimes even his work for teenagers - often portrays both oppressors and oppressed with considerable ambiguity. Heinlein believes that individualism is incompatible with ignorance. He believes that the right level of adult competence is achieved through broad education, whether this is happening in the classroom or not. In a teen novel, more than once the characters look with disgust at the choice of students of the class, saying, "Why did not you learn something useful?" In Enough Time for Love , Lazarus Long gives a long list of abilities a person should have, concluding, "Specialization is for insects." The individual's ability to make himself explored in stories like I'm going to be afraid of not evil , " ' - All You Zombies - ' ", and "By Bootstrap Him ".
Heinlein claims to have written Starship Stroopers in response to "a call to end unilateral nuclear testing by the United States." Heinlein suggests in the book that Bugs is a good example of Communism as something that humans can not successfully obey, because humans are highly determined individuals, while Bugs, being collective, can all contribute wholly without considering the desires of the individual.
Sexual problems
For Heinlein, personal liberation including sexual liberation, and free love were the main subjects of his writing beginning in 1939, with For Us, The Living . During the early period, Heinlein's writings for younger readers need to take into account both the editorial perceptions of sexuality in his novel, and the potential perception amongst the buying community; as criticized by William H. Patterson, his dilemma is "to sort out what is really inappropriate from what is just too sensitive to the imaginary librarian". In the middle period, sexual freedom and the abolition of sexual jealousy were the main themes of Stranger Land in 1961, in which the sexually progressive reporter Ben Caxton acted as a dramatic foil for less parochial characters, Jubal Harshaw and Valentine Michael Smith (Mike). One of the main characters, Jill, is homophobic.
According to Gary Westfahl, "Heinlein is a problematic case for feminists, on the one hand, his works often feature strong female characters and strong statements that women are equal or even higher than men, but these characters and statements often reflect attitudes a stereotype of helplessness about the peculiar characteristics of women.This is confusing, for example, that in the expanded universe Heinlein called for a society in which all lawyers and politicians are women, basically on the ground that they has a mysterious feminine practicality that men can not duplicate. "
In books written as early as 1956, Heinlein deals with the incest and sexual nature of children. Many of his books include Time for the Stars , The Glory of the Road , Enough Time for Love , and Amount Animals are dealt explicitly or implicitly with incest, feelings and sexual relationships between adults and children, or both. The treatment of these themes includes the romantic relationship and the eventual marriage, after the girl becomes an adult through the passage of time, a 30-year-old engineer and an 11 year old girl in The Door into Summer or an intra-familial incest more open at To Sail Beyond the Sunset and Farnham Freehold . Peers such as L. Sprague de Camp and Damon Knight have commented critically about Heinlein's description of incest and pedophilia in a mild and even agreeing way. Philosophy
In To Sail Beyond the Sunset , Heinlein has the main character, Maureen, states that the purpose of metaphysics is to ask the question: Why are we here? Where do we go after we die? (and so on), and that you are not allowed to answer questions. Asking is a metaphysical point, but answer they are not, because once you answer this kind of question, you cross the line into religion. Maureen did not state the reason for this; he simply states that such questions are "beautiful" but have no answers. Maureen's son/lover, Lazarus Long, made a related statement in Time Enough for Love. In order for us to answer the "big question" of the universe, Lazarus states at one point, it would be necessary to stand outside the universe.
During the 1930s and 1940s, Heinlein was very interested in General Semantics Alfred Korzybski and attended a number of seminars on the subject. His view of epistemology seems to have flowed from that interest, and his fictional character continues to expose Korzybskian's view to the end of his writing career. Many of his stories, such as the Bay , If It Happened - , and Strangers in the Weird Land , rely heavily on the premise, related to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis famously, that by using properly designed language, one can change or improve mentally, or even realize untapped potential (as in the case of Joe Green in Gulf ).
When the novel Ayn Rand The Fountainhead was published, Heinlein was very impressed, as quoted in "GrumblesÃ,..." and called John Galt - the hero of Rand's Atlas Shrugged - as a pattern heroic base at The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress . He is also strongly influenced by the religious philosopher P. D. Ouspensky. Freudianism and psychoanalysis were at the peak of their influence during the height of Heinlein's career, and stories like Time for the Stars were involved in psychological theory.
However, he was skeptical about Freudianism, especially after a struggle with an editor who insisted on reading Freud's sexual symbolism into a teen novel. Heinlein was fascinated by the social credit movement of the 1930s. This is shown in Beyond This Horizon and in his 1938 novel For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs, which was finally published in 2003, shortly after his death.
Pay ahead
The term "pay-ahead", though occasionally used as a quote, was popularized by Robert A. Heinlein in his book Between Planet , published in 1951:
The banker grabbed the fold of her dress, pulled out a credit note. "But eat first - full stomach swung judgment, do me the honor of accepting this as our welcome greetings to newcomers."
Her pride says no; his stomach said YES! Don picks it up and says, "Uh, thank you! You're so good I'll pay it back, first chance."
"Instead, pay ahead for some other relatives who need it."
Heinlein was a mentor to Ray Bradbury, gave him help and was very likely to convey the concept, made famous by the publication of letters from him to Heinlein thanked him. In Bradbury's novel Dandelion Wine, published in 1957, when the main character Douglas Spaulding reflects on his life saved by Mr. Jonas, Junkman:
How do I thank Mr. Jonas, he wondered, for what he has done? How do I thank him, how to pay him back? Not possible, not possible at all. You can not pay. Then, how? What? Give him somehow, he thought, give it to someone else. Keep the chain moving. Look around, find someone, and move on. That's the only way...
Bradbury has also suggested that the author he has helped thank him by helping other authors.
Heinlein preached and practiced this philosophy; now the Heinlein Society, a humanitarian organization founded on its behalf, does so, linking the philosophy with its various endeavors, including Heinlein to Heroes, the Heinlein Society Scholarship Program, and the Heinlein Society blood drive. Author Spider Robinson makes repeated references to doctrine, connecting it with his spiritual mentor, Heinlein.
Influence and inheritance
The Dean of Science Fiction Writers
Heinlein is usually identified, along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, as one of the three master science fictions to emerge in the so-called Golden Age of science fiction, associated with John W. Campbell and his magazine Astonishing In the 1950s he was a leader in bringing science fiction out of a low-cost and less prestigious "ghetto pulp". Much of his work, including short stories, has been preserved in many languages ​​since their initial appearance and is still available as a novel a few decades after his death.
He is at the peak of his being during, and himself helps to begin, a tendency toward social science fiction, which is in line with the general genre maturity away from space operas to a more literary approach touching on adult issues such as politics and human sexuality. In reaction to this tendency, harsh science fiction began to be distinguished as a separate subgenre, but paradoxically Heinlein was also considered an important figure in hard science fiction, because of his extensive knowledge of scientific techniques and careful research is shown in his story. Heinlein himself stated - with clear pride - that in the days before his pocket calculator he and his wife Virginia had worked for several days on a mathematical equation depicting the Earth Marsh rocket orbit, which was then put into a single sentence from the Space novel Cadet .
Writing style
Heinlein is often credited with bringing serious writing techniques into the science fiction genre.
For example, when writing about a fictitious world, previous writers were often limited by the reader's knowledge of typical "opera room" settings, leading to a relatively low level of creativity: the same Starship, the death ray, and the creepy alien rubber became present at everywhere. This is necessary unless the writer is willing to go to a long exposition of setting the story, at a time when the word count is at a premium in SF.
But Heinlein used a technique called "indirect exposition", probably first introduced by Rudyard Kipling in his own science fictional business, the Aerial Board Controller stories. Kipling has taken this during his time in India. This technique - mentioning details in a way that enables the reader to deduce more about the universe than is actually to be a trademark rhetorical technique from Heinlein and the generation of writers influenced by it. Heinlein is significantly influenced by Kipling outside of this, for example quoting him in On the Writing of Speculative Fiction.
Likewise, the name Heinlein is often associated with a competent hero, a character archetype that, although he may have flaws and limitations, is a strong and capable person capable of solving the soluble problems set in their path. They tend to feel entirely self-confident, have extensive life experiences and a range of skills, and do not give up when things get tough. This style not only affects the writing style of the author's generation, but even their personal character. Harlan Ellison once said, "Early in life when I read Robert Heinlein, I got a thread that flowed through his story - the idea of ​​a competent person... I have always considered that my ideals I have tried to be a very competent person. "
While Heinlein uses this style, in part, as an example for the reader, it also has an appeal to the self-image of general competence among many readers of Science Fiction, who may see themselves as having technical skills, broad knowledge, scientific understanding, and problem-solving skills great, all of whom feel disrespected at school and work.
Heinlein Writing Rule
When a co-author, or fan, writes Heinlein asks for writing advice, he famously lists his own rules for being a successful writer:
- You must write
- Complete what you started
- You must refrain from rewriting, except for editorial commands
- You have to put your story on the market
- You must save it on the market until it's sold
About what he said:
The above five rules are really more related to how to write speculative fiction than those said above them. But they are amazingly difficult to follow - that is why there are so few professional writers and many candidates, and that is why I am not afraid of giving a racket!
Heinlein then published the entire article, "On the Writing of Speculative Fiction", which included the rules, and from which the above quotations were taken. When he says "whatever is said above them", he refers to other guidelines. For example, he describes most stories as one of several basic categories:
- Gadget Story
- The Story of Human Interest
- Boy Meet Girl
- Little Tailor
- The Man-Who-Learned-Better
In the article, Heinlein praised L. Ron Hubbard as identifying "The Man-Who-Learned-Better".
Influence among authors
Heinlein has widespread influence on other science fiction writers. In a 1953 poll of prominent science fiction writers, he was more often cited as an influence than any other modern writer. Critics James Gifford writes that "Although many other writers have exceeded Heinlein's output, few can claim to match its broad and seminal influence.Scientific science fiction scores from the Golden Age before the war to this day strongly and enthusiastically praise Heinlein for smoldering on the path their own careers, and shaping their style and story. "
Heinlein gave extensive suggestions to Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle about the manuscript text of The Mote in God Eye . He contributed the cover of the description "Probably the best science fiction novel I've ever read." Writer David Gerrold, who was responsible for creating tribbles on Star Trek, also praised Heinlein as the inspiration for his Dingilliad novel series. Gregory Benford refers to his novel Jupiter Project as a tribute to Heinlein. Likewise, Charles Stross says his Hugo Award nomination novel Saturn's Children is "Space Hall and Honor Robert A. Heinlein at the end of the period", referring to Heinlein Friday .
Words and phrases created
Outside of the science fiction community, some words and phrases that Heinlein invented or adopted have gone into general English usage:
- Waldo, the protagonist in the eponymous short story "Waldo", whose name means a mechanical arm or robot in the real world similar to that used by characters in the story.
- TANSTAAFL, short for There Is No Something Like it as Free Lunch, an existing term that refers to the fact that things that should be given free always have some real cost, popularized in Month is Mrs. Harsh .
- The Moonbat used in US politics as a degrading political term referring to progressive or left, was originally the name of a space ship in its Space Jockey story.
- Grok, the word "Martian" to understand something entirely one with it, from Strangers in Strange Land .
- Space, a term now popularized by Heinlein in short stories, a concept which was later made famous by Starship Troopers, even though the term "sea space" is not used in the novel.
- The speculative fiction, the term Heinlein is used for the serious and consistent separation of Scientific Fiction writing, from the pop "sci fi" of the day, which generally takes on a great artistic license with human knowledge, as much as a space fantasy than science fiction.
Inspiring culture and technology
In 1962, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart (then still using his birth name, Tim Zell) founded the Church of All Worlds, a Neopagan religious organization modeled in many ways after the religious treatment in a foreign novel in the Land of Strange . This spiritual pathway includes several ideas from the book, including non-mainstream family structures, social libertarianism, water-sharing rituals, acceptance of all religious paths by one tradition, and the use of terms such as "grok", "art art", and "Never Thirst ". Although Heinlein is not a member or promoter of the Church, there is often a correspondence exchange between Zell and Heinlein, and he is a paid subscriber for their magazine, Green Egg. This church still exists as a 501 (C) (3) religious organization which is incorporated in California, with membership worldwide, and remains an active part of today's neopagan community.
Heinlein is very influential in making space exploration for the public seem more like a practical possibility. His stories in publications such as The Saturday Evening Post took a fact-finding approach to their space arrangements, rather than the previously common "wow" tone. Documentary films-such as Destination Month advocate Space Race with unspecified foreign powers nearly a decade before such ideas become commonplace, and promoted by an unprecedented publicity campaign in print publications. Many astronauts and others working in the US space program grew up with the Heinlein teen diet, evident by naming the crater on Mars afterwards, and the awards punctuated by Apollo 15 astronauts into their radio conversations on the moon.
Heinlein also became guest commentator for Walter Cronkite during the Apollo 11 landing on the moon of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. He told Cronkite during the landing, "This is the biggest event in human history, to date - this is the New Year's Day of the First Year." Entrepreneur and entrepreneur Elon Musk says that Heinlein's books have helped inspire his career.
Heinlein Society
The Heinlein Society was founded by Virginia Heinlein on behalf of her husband, to "pay" the author's legacy for future generations "Children of Heinlein." The Foundation has programs to:
- "Promote Heinlein's blood drive."
- "Provide educational materials to educators."
- "Promote scientific research and thorough discussion of the work and ideas of Robert Anson Heinlein."
The Heinlein Society also founded the Robert A. Heinlein Award in 2003 "for outstanding works published in science fiction and technical writings to inspire human space exploration."
In popular culture
- In the 1967 episode of Star Trek The Trouble with Tribbles, the title creature in this episode resembles flat-cat cats of Mars in the 1952 Heinlein novel The Rolling Stones
- In 1974, Jimmy Webb used the title of writer The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress for his song of the same name:
Robert Heinlein was sort of my initial mentor. I started reading his books when I was eight years old.... I guess I really get more of my education from science fiction than out of public school. I was reading Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov and learned a lot about the language dialect itself and how these words were used to create emotions. I learned this from the authors without realizing it.... The moon is Mrs. Harsh is one of the best titles I have ever heard in my life. I am really guilty of taking something from another writer. In this case I have contact with lawyer Robert A. Heinlein. I said, "I want to write a song with the title, 'Moon is Mrs. Ghost.' Can you ask Mr. Heinlein if it's okay with him?" They called me back and he said he did not mind.
- In the 1985 science fiction movie Explorers , one character is a genetically modified speaking rat called Heinlein.
- In the 2001 Fake Heinlein 2001 novel by Laurence M. Janifer, Heinlein appeared indirectly as a recognized copywriter, reportedly one of his unpublished stories, "The Stone Pillow".
Awards
In his lifetime, Heinlein received four Hugo Awards, for Double Star , Starship Troopers , Strange Person in Strange Land , and Month Is Mrs. Harsh, and was nominated for four Nebula Awards, for Strangers in Strange Land , Friday , Enough Time for Love , and Jobs: A Comedy of Justice . He was also given five Hugos posthumous, to Farmers in Heaven , "Destination Month", "If It Happened", "Way Should Be Thrown", and Men Selling Month
The American Science Fiction writer named Heinlein, his first Grand Master in 1974, presented 1975. The officers and former president of the Association chose the author
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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