Door into Summer

[silverflight8]

I decided that it was time to start on Heinlein (on whim) while in the library which has lots of sf. The only problem is that Heinlein has written a lot of stuff, so I went to ask the librarian sitting at the desk.

He didn't even know who Heinlein was! (GASP) But then he gave me the funniest look and said: "But you know who would know?" and I said--realizing suddenly and cutting him off rather rudely--"The librarians upstairs?" (The speculative fiction collection is upstairs.) He nodded. I don't think he's got a very good opinion of sf/f, or maybe of the librarians upstairs. But it was really funny. His expression was priceless. Maybe he was just chagrined that he didn't know who Heinlein was, when I'd worded the question like he ought to know.

So I got recs (I asked the librarian and she said: "That would be Robert Ansolm Heinlein, right?" straight off) and finished Door into Summer a couple days ago. I enjoyed it hugely. It wasn't just good, it was fun. The only part that I didn't like was the part with Ricky, because it was wayyyyy too close to grooming for me. I love Dan (the protagonist). He's a mechanical engineer and a rather brilliant inventor, and he's also pretty optimistic and funny, and Heinlein's sideways descriptions of certain things (er, like the women that Dan likes) were amusing. It also had time-travel into 2000. Some of the things were obviously not true (we still have colds, ugh, I have a sore throat right now.) But there are some things that Dan was trying to invent by 2000 that we've already got--like dictation software. Dictation software is so common that it's actually packaged into Windows 7 operating systems! But also, we're still using zippers.

I'm also pleased that I managed to track down one of the allusions from Among Others ("you have to be prepared to abandon your baggage").

Comments

Re: Ah Heinlein!

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

You're not alone in thinking short-form Bradbury was superior to long. Though it's been many years since I've read either, I've long thought of 451 as a poor cousin to Orwell's 1984. (A digression: as a novel and an examination of the psychology of totalitarianism, including of those who are both victims and perpetrators, nothing I've read beats Arthur Koestler's Darkness At Noon.)

But back to Bradbury, some of his stories will stay with me until the day I day. He wasn't the best writer of his time, but he was one of the most powerfully evocative, if that makes any sense.

Re: Ah Heinlein!

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

I do like 1984 a lot better--mostly because of Orwell's language, to be honest. Whatever use his writing advice is (some of it is logically impossible, though perhaps arguably he was using hyperbole) I love his writing.

Which is your favourite Bradbury short story? I remember reading the Veldt (which I think has a similar atmosphere/themes to Farenheit 451--again with the tv screens and the idea that people lose empathy/stop thinking of others as people and merely as barriers to achieving "happiness".) But I've just realized I also get lump Bradbury with a lot of short stories I read for school--so like Vonnegut and his "Harrison Bergeron" (forcing equality), Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game". Hm. Clearly, more remedial reading is required :D

Re: Ah Heinlein!

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

Christ, "The Veldt"! I think I was about 10 when I first read that uber creepy little masterpiece. "More tea?" indeed!

Of Bradbury's individual stories, the ones that stand out best in my memory include "A Sound of Thunder" and "The Foghorn", along with those in The Martian Chronicles. The latter is marketted as a novel, but is really a series of linked stories with some brief bridging material to tie them together. But some very good stuff there.

I also really liked his horror novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes when I was younger, though I admit the last time I picked it up I didn't finish the re-read.

But in truth, arguably the best short story writer in SF was Theodore Sturgeon. As with Bradbury, novels weren't his forte; unlike Bradbury, his understanding of human nature include things like sexual desire and the complications of adult love.

I'd suggest books, but they've all been reissued in a series of Collected Works, and I think those are in chronological order. But he wrote really good stuff as far back as the 40s ("-and Now the News" and "Microcosmic God" are both classics) and up until he died in the 80s.

Re: Ah Heinlein!

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

Yes exactly! At the beginning the kids' reaction might just be run of the mill surliness but in the end--*shiver*

*adds more to the recs* Sturgeon, I've heard that name, but now I can't remember from where...

Re: Ah Heinlein!

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

Sturgeon's (few) novels are (a) not as good as his short work and (b) often are made up (some of) his short work, with added padding.

I'd start with a "best of" and if you like it, move on from there.

(Three anecdotes: I very nearly wrote him a fan letter sometime in the 1980s, but the fucker went and died on me before I got around to it. The story was a late-period one and, I still think, a very good one.

(I had the inordinate pleasure of reading a lot of Sturgeon's correspondence, while doing research for Judy (yes that Judy!) Merril at the National Archives when she was working on her memoirs. They had a torrid, yet cerebral, affair that lasted many years.

(I lived in the building across from the library, on Huron, while the library was under construction. The apartment was passed on to me by Judy when she moved into an artist's retirement complex near Harbourfront.)

(And a fourth. Judy hated it (or said she did) when they changed the name from The Spaced Out Library to The Merril Collection. Her name is on it, though, because it was her donation of her private collection that got the whole ball rolling.)

Re: Ah Heinlein!

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

I very nearly wrote him a fan letter sometime in the 1980s, but the fucker went and died on me before I got around to it
Oops! :P

Holy cow you are really connected to that collection o.O I'd read a little bit about Merril and her donation, but didn't realize she didn't want the collection named after her. It's a pity, then :(

I finished the first book of Foundation! I almost yelled when Hari Seldon announced that the Encyclopaedia was a farce. Still waiting on the rest of the series to arrive.

Re: Ah Heinlein!

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

Holy cow you are really connected to that collection o.O I'd read a little bit about Merril and her donation, but didn't realize she didn't want the collection named after her. It's a pity, then :(

Yes, she taught two or three intensive creative writing classes at my high school. She was very impressed by the first story I produced and so, I guess, I made an impression. (The first story I handed in for the second class, on the other hand, she called "a piece of shit" — which gives you a sense of the kind of teacher she was. Very good, but not one for sugar-coating, especially if she thought you had some talent.) Anyway, I ran into her again at a peace rally some years later and we became friends of sorts.

As for the name, reading back what I wrote, I wonder if she wasn't pleased on at least some level. She bitched, but I like to think she appreciated the honour, or at least the intention behind it.

The Foundation trilogy really holds up quite well, doesn't it? Have the other books arrived yet?

Re: Ah Heinlein!

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

I had no idea she taught! Although, oof, what a comment to get :P

I haven't yet! It's still on hooooooold.

Re: Ah Heinlein!

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

It was. Though the blow was softened somewhat by the fact that she started the class by dramatically dropped all the manuscripts we had turned in prior to the first class (maybe a dozen or 15 of them, most of us returning kids) and declaring, "What a pile of shit."

Those were the days ...

(And I still think she was wrong about mine!)

Re: Ah Heinlein!

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

:) I feel my generation (or perhaps it was just my teachers) went the other way--encouraging rather than criticizing. Though I didn't do any real creative writing for school past grade 9.