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Reading Room
Your quiet and comfy lounge to pick up a great book and discuss sci-fi literature.
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#1 |
More Than Just Okay
3,854 flights since Jul 2001
Location: The Uplift Mojo Party
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Robert A. Heinlein
So yeah, we need a thread dedicated to Science Fiction's most prolific blue collar writer.
My favorite RAH novel - hands down Stranger in a Strange Land. Also one of my favorite Iron Maiden songs! Great article in this month's Locus Magazine: ![]() |
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#2 |
More Than Just Okay
3,854 flights since Jul 2001
Location: The Uplift Mojo Party
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Re: Robert A. Heinlein
BTW - what in the hell does he have on? A bathrobe?
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#3 |
Psycho Teddy Sausage
3,648 flights since Dec 2001
Location: Seraph's pocket
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Re: Robert A. Heinlein
I've never read any of his stuff...I know I will someday because it's inevitable...but at the moment, his books don't sound too intriguing to me.
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#4 | |
Autobot Commander
2,027 flights since Dec 2003
Location: Homeworld: Cybertron. the great Autobot city of Iacon
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Re: Robert A. Heinlein
Quote:
could be a buddhist monk robe ![]() I have to agree, I love Stranger in a Strange Land. I managed to pick up the 30th anniversary uncut hardcover edition at a secondhand book store a few months ago. I love replacing my paperbacks. |
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#5 |
More Than Just Okay
3,854 flights since Jul 2001
Location: The Uplift Mojo Party
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Re: Robert A. Heinlein
Buddhist monk eh. Kind of L. Ron Hubbardish looking. In fact, the whole thing looks kinda weird, like a bad photoshop session gone bad. Is that really the best the can do? Looks like somebody used Paint to cut and paste onto a background.
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#6 | ||
More Than Just Okay
3,854 flights since Jul 2001
Location: The Uplift Mojo Party
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Re: Robert A. Heinlein
Here's a quote from the "Heinlein at 100 Years" article I thought was interesting:
Quote:
Agree? Disagree? It would depend on you define modern science fiction. Here's more: Quote:
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#7 | |
Psycho Teddy Sausage
3,648 flights since Dec 2001
Location: Seraph's pocket
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Re: Robert A. Heinlein
Quote:
Well, I never knew that. I thought it was Frank Herbert who was responsible. I suppose I should try out one of his books immediately now. |
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#8 | |
Hellblazer
2,877 flights since Nov 2001
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Re: Robert A. Heinlein
Quote:
It seems to me that some of the innovations that were collectively developed by the Golden Age writers seem to be credited solely to Heinlein whenever anyone is assigned one of these god damned eulogistic retrospectives. |
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#9 |
More Than Just Okay
3,854 flights since Jul 2001
Location: The Uplift Mojo Party
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Re: Robert A. Heinlein
You knew I had to disagree, although only partially. You mention the influence of PKD and I certainly agree that a great deal of today's SF literature was influenced by his ideas, but the most prevalent and obvious medium where we see PKD's influence is in film (how many films have been based on his stories and novels now, 8 at least). And yet with the sole exception of Blade Runner, every film based on a PKD work, from Total Recall to Paycheck to Minority Report has been little more than a PKD idea shoved into an action/sci-fi film. In that sense, Robert Heinlein has influenced PKD because Heinlein is the father of SF/Action. Most of Heinlein’s works were little more than military/war/action stories set in a Science Fiction settings, bugs instead of Nazis, space fighters for fighter planes, etc. I think Heinlein was the first to take Science Fiction out of the realm of heavy science or heavy-handed futuristic idealism (or horror) and set it firmly in this sub-genre. In way, he influenced Star Wars, Alien a hundred other SF/Action pieces. So yes, and no would be my answer.
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#10 | |||
Hellblazer
2,877 flights since Nov 2001
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Re: Robert A. Heinlein
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Last edited by SF_not_Sci-Fi : Nov 21, 2008 at 10:04 AM. |
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#11 |
More Than Just Okay
3,854 flights since Jul 2001
Location: The Uplift Mojo Party
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Re: Robert A. Heinlein
Films too - little argument that his ideals influenced an entire generation of Japanese anime, not to mention The Matrix films - PKD I mean.
And true, the action SF does date back to Flash Gordan and pulp mags, I suppose I was thinking in the realm of literature. |
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#12 |
Hellblazer
2,877 flights since Nov 2001
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Re: Robert A. Heinlein
True, Heinlein was probably the best writer amongst the people writing "Action/SF" stories for the pulps in his day, but this is a far cry from the vast stylistic and conceptual leaps that he has been credited with.
And if we're talking about golden age SF literature, we are most certainly talking about the "pulp mags." Where do you think these guys got their short stories published and their novels serialized? |
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#13 |
Cluster Admiral
1,670 flights since Nov 2001
Location: Chilling with Stuntman Mike...
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Re: Robert A. Heinlein
I have to say I'm a Heinlein fan, primarily because of the detail he goes into when creating worlds. I've said before now I'd love to live in the world he creates for Starship Troopers.
What annoys me is that my tutor is always going on at me about how I love to use my entire word limit for a story excercise in just creating a world, when he's a bigger Heinlein fan than me! |
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#14 | |
More Than Just Okay
3,854 flights since Jul 2001
Location: The Uplift Mojo Party
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Re: Robert A. Heinlein
Quote:
Really? Is it the idea of being publicly flogged? ![]() But lets face it, the world of Starship Troopers is a leftist nightmare, an ultra-conservative, military based culture where citizenship is a product of completed military service, where justice is swift and absolute, and morals are about as unambiguous as you can possibly get. I never figured out, in multiple readings, if RAH was creating a world he envisioned as ideal, something reflective of his own ideologies or if the entire work was satirical. Certainly Verhooven's film assumed the latter but having read nearly the sum of Heinlein's body of work I'm not sure I agree. |
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#15 |
Hellblazer
2,877 flights since Nov 2001
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Re: Robert A. Heinlein
I do not think that Verhooven so much read the content of the novel as satirical as he satirized the content of the novel. He simply brought out the ambient absurdity of the thing- an absurdity that Heinlein presented in all sincerity as a viable and desirable social/political program.
It was however neither the deepest nor the most astute satire and it left the depths of Heinlein's political absurdity largely unexplored. It is actually here (i.e his bizarre politics) that a great deal of Heinlein's true influence on the genre lies- I believe that it was RAH who popularized Randism in SF circles. |
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Heinlein books
by mightymem
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Forum: Reading Room
Any one here read a novel by Robert A Heinlein who is a classic scifi author, the film Starship troopers was actual based on his novel of the same...
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2 replies |
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Forum: Reading Room
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Forum: Pilot's Mess [chit-chat zone]
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Age 81.
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Demolition Man reviews (with some fan suggestions)
by demolition18
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Forum: Suggestions and problems
I have a list of a few reviews of Demolition Man. I even have fan fiction to go to the reviews. Maybe Frank Miller could write Demolition Man comics...
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4 replies |
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Demolition Man and Star Wars saga ideas to writers
by demolition18
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Forum: Off-World Discussion Forum
This thread is being deleted by me.
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1 reply |
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