Methusaleh's Children

[Jerry]

As I mentioned elsewhere, today was Robert Heinlein's 100th birthday.



Good on you, Wompet. If you have any trouble locating them, give a holler. However they seem to say in print for some reason...

Most of them are available, online, through Powell's books. They are a family run business and are really good people to deal with.

[Woodsheal]

Have always loved Heinlein as well....

And speaking of kilted societies in SciFi stories, check out Jerry Pournelle's (some co-authored with Larry Niven) "CoDominium/Empire of Man" future history novels. The men on the planets Covenant, Prince Samual's World, and New Scotland are all kilt-wearers....

[Weasel Mender]

Having been a fan since I stumbled upon Stranger in a Strange Land I have enjoyed and after 20 years of searching now own all his works. In my research I have not been able to find a reference of Boib being kilted, if this so mores the pity!

Weasel

[fluter]

By the way, for fans who have not read Stranger in a Strange Land "recently" --- i.e. in the last 16 years:

When Virginia Heinlein was in the process of renewing copyrights, she had the blessed inspiration to get the original manuscript from UC Santa Cruz, and decided that version should be published. So you can now get his original Stranger as it was before his editor/publisher got hold of it. The published version was cut by about 60,000 words, and tactically rewritten in spots.

Alas, I have never seen a reference to RAH's being kilted.

[Mr. MacDougall]

I've actually found Stranger in a Strange Land and Podkayne of Mars to be worse for being read as an adult.

[emolas]

I've actually found Stranger in a Strange Land and Podkayne of Mars to be worse for being read as an adult.

I found I was able to better understand some of the more subtle pokes Stranger takes at society/religion/government after growing up and experiencing them. Or it could be that the version I read as a child was the edited one and the one I read as an adult was a reprint of the original manuscript.

[Zardoz]

well, Podkayne is a book for young readers, while Stranger surely is not! I'll second the recomendation to seek out the 'unabridged' version of Stranger though, it's a better novel in many subtle ways. A big part of 'Grumbles From The Grave' (which is a collection of Heinlein's letters back and forth with his agent and editors) concerns cutting on Stranger.

If you have not heard of it yet, any Heinlein fans need to get a copy of the novel 'Variable Star' it is truly the last RAH novel, it was written by Spider Robinson, from a outline and fragments Heinlein set aside in the 50s and never finished. It's a great read.

One other note, at Apollocon this year I had the pleasure to meet David G. Hartwell, who is the senior editor at Tor Books. He is finishing up editing a huge Heinlein biography due out hopefully by the end of the year from Tor.

[Mr. MacDougall]

In my opinion, RAH shined brightest when he was writing about things he believed in, like personal responsiblity, and the duties of a citizen to the state, and vice versa. Unfortunately, in Stranger in a Strange Land he wrote about things he didn't believe in, and the writing rang false to my inner ear. And in Podkayne of Mars, when I read it as an adult, mostly what I saw were his unwritten assumptions about the roles of women, which was uncomfortable to me.

[Zardoz]

http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/w...rahrahrah.html