heinleinblog

I’ve ignored this site for far too long. I’ve deleted the spam and I’m making posts again. It’s the least I could do for The Master. And I’m gonna have to do that review of “Variable Star” I’ve been dreading.

Paul Malmont made RAH a charcter in his homage to the pulps, A Chinatown Death Cloud Peril: A Novel:

The death of H.P. Lovecraft, then a fringe writer, even for the pulps, serves as the hook for the mystery that draws Gibson and Dent into a web of intrigue that stretches from New York’s Upper West Side to the the northern steppes of Manchurian China. As one might expect from a novel that is itself a pulp adventure, facts, though they are laced throughout the work, never get in the way of the story. What we’re treated to as a result is a cornucopia of real-life characters playing against a conspiracy of super-villains. Orson Welles and Mao Tse Tung are among the cameo players here, though their roles are hardly pivotal. Robert Heinlein and Louis L’Amour are integral to the plot, however. The villains, at least the main ones, a Chinese warlord bent on revenge, and an American military man with no motive beyond greed, are drawn in detail convincingly realistic.

[tags]Robert Heinlein,Paul Mamont,pulps[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]

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]

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]

The Master’s name is used to describe the Great Basin:

Today there are likely more scorpions, spiders and snakes living in the Great Basin than people. If you’re fortunate, you will cross paths with bizarre-looking reptiles and bugs that could have crawled out from the pages of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. Much of the scenery is harshly unappealing, a face only a mother could love, but those who slow down enough may discover an unheralded beauty equal to any scene imaginable.

Methinks the writer is confusing the book with that God-awful abomination of a movie. But thanks for the plug anyway.

It’s called “The Virginia Edition: The Virginia Edition: The Definitive Collection of Robert A. Heinlein” and it’s a whopper of a set:

This historical project will consist of forty-six titles spanning the entire writing career of Robert A. Heinlein. The Virginia Edition will contain all of Heinlein’s novels and short stories. It will also include all of his non-fiction titles along with the vast majority of his interviews, social commentaries, speeches and articles. Finally the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust has agreed to allow us to include several volumes of Heinlein’s letters and personal correspondence

The project apparently benefits the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust and the Butler Library Foundation. The set is going to be printed on high quality paper, and they are going to make only 5,000 of ‘em. The prices start at $2,200 and end at $4,100 for a leatherbound set.

Wow. The money goes to good causes, but it’s just a smidge out of my price range. Somehow, I think I’m going to stick to the paperback versions. But when I finally get that lottery check from Nigeria I’ve been expecting, I’m make this first on my list. They sure would look nice adorning the walls of my trailer.

R.A.H. is invoked in an article about future treatments for bi-polar disorder:

The science fiction writers whose works I’ve read mostly seem to have underestimated how long it would take for their predictions to come true (though occasionally they overestimated). Robert Heinlein, one of my favorite writers, forecast “cold sleep” would be common by 1970, so that people with incurable diseases or any other reason (and enough money) could have themselves put in suspended animation. (In the same book, The Door Into Summer, he predicted waterbeds would be invented – after 2001.)

Discovered at this site.

I should point out that not only is this a new Heinlein novel, but also a new Spider Robinson novel, which is something that also makes me shout out in glee.

I would kill to know something about the plot.