heinleinblog

New Science has an article on elevators to outer space, but you have to pay to read the whole thing:

If you can make it into low-Earth orbit – about 160 kilometres up – then you are halfway to anywhere in the solar system. Sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein’s remark has become a mantra in the space community, mainly for its irony: despite leaps in rocket technology costing billions of dollars, those first 160 kilometres are still the hardest.

[tags]space elevators,new scientist,Heinlein[/tags]

From the Arkansas Democrat & Gazette:

ABC has tapped a number of its stars to feature in the midseason anthology series Masters of Science Fiction.

The six-episode series will adapt stories from such noted writers as Harlan Ellison, Robert Heinlein and Robert Sheckley. Physicist and author Stephen Hawking will introduce each episode.

Signed on to star in the series are Terry O’Quinn (Lost ), Anne Heche (Men in Trees ) and James Denton (Desperate Housewives ). Others include Judy Davis (Life with Judy Garland ), Malcolm McDowell (Entourage ) and Sam Waterston (Law & Order ).

Wanna guess who is staring in what segment?

BTW: The Heinlein segment will be an adaptation of the short story “Jerry Was a Man.”

[tags]Heinlein,Masters of Science Fiction[/tags]

SciFi Fodder likes Variable Star:

I think this comment from John Varley (from the Amazon.com book site) summarizes this novel quite well. He says, “Completing a book from notes by a dead author is almost always a mistake. But Robert A. Heinlein apparently isn’t really dead. He was obviously standing at the side of Spider Robinson as he wrote this book, guiding his hand. Variable Star will delight the fans of the greatest science fiction writer who ever lived, and at the same time, stays true to Spider’s passionate themes of optimism, kindness, and humanity’s future among the stars.�

Heinlein Lives. I like that idea.

[tags]Variable Star,John Varley,Spider Robinson,Heinlein[/tags]

CNet has a brief article on “Variable Star”:

An unfinished novel by science fiction master Robert A. Heinlein has been completed by author Spider Robinson and will soon be released. “Variable Star” is available for preorder on Amazon for $16.47.

For those who simply can’t wait for the hard copy, check out these excerpts from the first two chapters. According to the Heinlein site, two chapters will be released each week until Sept. 19–the book’s official release date.

[tags]Variable Star,Spider Robinson[/tags]

A company is making roofing tiles that contains sod, complete with grass. The idea is to provide a natural way to cool the urban environment:

I confess that my real interest in the TM9 turf mat is that I keep looking for grass carpets, as found in Kurt Vonnegut’s 1959 novel The Sirens of Titan. In the book, carpets made of real grass are used to illustrate elegant living. I first read about the idea in Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land; winchell Ben Caxton had a living grass carpet in his bachelor flat.

[tags]grass roofs,Stranger in a Strange Land,Heinlein,Robert Heinlein[/tags]

A software company borrowed from Heinlein:

The company adopted the name of its search platform — Grokker — from a 1961 Robert Heinlein novel, “Stranger in a Strange Land,” where the main character, Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised by Martians, uses the term “grok” to mean “understand completely.”

[tags]grok,Heinlein,Robert A Heinlein,Stranger in a Strange Land[/tags]

Not that there are many regular readers these days. I haven’t been posting for a while. There’s a good reason. In recent months, I have:

A. Endured an Internet outage at my new home.

B. Lost the use of my laptop, which woduld have allowed me to get connected to away from home.

So, I’ve been begging, borrowing and stealing Internet access. What little time I had for blogging had to be devoted by Peoria Pundit, and then to Bill’s Content. HBeinlein woduld understand, I get the vast majority of my blog-generated revenue from these two sites, and jobs that pay come first.

The Student Operated Press interviews the co-author of “You’ve Got To Rewad This Book,” a collection of stories about how books have influenced the contributors’ lives:

Beloved librarian and bestselling author Nancy Pearl writes how, at age ten, Robert Heinlein’s science fiction book Space Cadet impressed on her the meaning of personal integrity and gave her a vision of world peace she’d never imagined possible. Two years later, she marched in her first civil rights demonstration and learned that there’s always a way to make “a small contribution to intergalactic harmony.”

Heads up: The site has an embedded auto clip.

[tags]Nancy Pearl,Space Cadet,Heinlein[/tags]

Let’s play “Guess What They Are Promoting.”

The quote from the press release:

“It is the entrepreneurs of the United States who are the trendsetters, the people who have the audacity to do what others say cannot be done,” he said. “Robert Heinlein once said ‘Always listen to the experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it’.”

The product? A company that operates call centers. At least they are U.S.-based call centers.

[tags]Heinlein[/tags]

Just for kicks, I typed “heinlein” into the search bar at YouTube.com and this was what I found:

The graphics are really cool. Too bad they don’t have hip television commercials for science fiction novels.

[tags]YouTube,Number of the Beast,666[/tags]