![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This weekend an acquaintance of mine noticed that I was reading an sf book-- which one, I don't recall, but it was by a woman. He remarked that he had only ever read one female sf author in his life, Octavia Butler. (And liked her work.) I asked him who else he liked, thinking to rec more women.
"I love Niven and Pournelle!" he replied.
"Hmm," I said, and recced Bujold.
"Don't you like them?" he asked, noting my lack of enthusiasm.
"Not really."
"Not even Lucifer's Hammer?"
"No... The prose was clunky and it bothered me that once the apocalypse happened, suddenly there were gangs of rampaging black cannibals."
He denied the existence of rampaging black cannibals, and suggested that I had gotten the book confused with a different post-apocalyptic work containing rampaging black cannibals, Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold. I turn the matter over to the wisdom of LJ!
[Poll #1030388]
"I love Niven and Pournelle!" he replied.
"Hmm," I said, and recced Bujold.
"Don't you like them?" he asked, noting my lack of enthusiasm.
"Not really."
"Not even Lucifer's Hammer?"
"No... The prose was clunky and it bothered me that once the apocalypse happened, suddenly there were gangs of rampaging black cannibals."
He denied the existence of rampaging black cannibals, and suggested that I had gotten the book confused with a different post-apocalyptic work containing rampaging black cannibals, Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold. I turn the matter over to the wisdom of LJ!
[Poll #1030388]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I admit I read it a long time ago, but it was during a period when I was heavily into post-apocalyptic scenarios (don't ask), and I have a copy so I could read it again - but first I have to finish reading Eon, of which my impression so far is "Damn, I'm not smart enough to understand half of what's going on here. Yay!"
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
(I haven't read The Door into Summer, either.)
From:
no subject
In Time for the Stars, the hero marries his great-niece. This is an even closer genetic relationship than it usually would be, because she's the grand-daughter of his identical twin brother.
From:
no subject
Not quite. She's the hero's business partner's step-daughter and her mother is dead. The Evile Fiancee is unrelated.
From:
no subject
*On Dune, presumably.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
With whom he's been in telepathic contact since she was a preadolescent.
---L.
From:
no subject
1: I can't recall if she was 12 or 13 or if she was Hazel Stone or the inspiration cannon-fodder character.
From:
no subject
Moon, though, has much less to squick at than, say, Time Enough for Love or I will Fear No Evil -- let alone FF or Sunset.
---L.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Door is also very very creepy but free of the Lazarus Long taint.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
1: "Say, why don't I show what's wrong with how we treat blacks by having an equally repressive society run by Africans?"
2: "Let's show how different other societies can be by having them accept as normal something we think is repellent or vice versa (1). I know! Cannibalism!"
Although it is hard to believe that he wouldn't see the PR peril in stocking the book with black cannibals, given that the old stereotype of Africans as man-eaters got used as recently as 2001 by Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman. On the other hand, Mark Gruenwald apparently had no idea of the subtext some people would see in calling a Captain America's black sidekick "Bucky."
1: Venerian taboos about eating would be one example.
From:
no subject
Responding to comments upthread as well, I'd say Heinlein had a large and very obvious kink about older man/younger woman, without any bar to incest along the way. What's less large and obvious is his frequency of using cannibalism as a plot point or mark of extremism, possibly for its guaranteed shock value. Consider Stranger in a Strange Land. I'm *still* not sure what that one's about.
From:
PS
From:
Re: PS
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Black aristocrats eat white slaves in Farnham's Freehold (http://www.mail-archive.com/scifinoir_lit@yahoogroups.com/msg00965.html), but it's just like A Modest Proposal, honest (http://www.troynovant.com/Stoddard/Heinlein/Farnhams-Freehold.html).
Meanwhile, in Lucifer's Hammer, the bad black people are cannibals and thieves, and they talk funny, but there's a black astronaut so nothing is really wrong (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=226907).
From:
no subject
is black but not descended from slaves.
From:
no subject
And speaking of strange treatment of women, Grace. Holy Toledo.
P.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I can't know, but I think it was written to appeal to the post-WWII-hangover readers of the early 50s. Heinlein always said that he was writing for a marketplace, whatever marketplace he had to.
From:
no subject
Probably not, since it was published in 1941 (But written before Pearl).
The post-WWII-hangover story might be Water is for Washing, where a man who is phobic of water learns that thanks to a major geological event, the entire Imperial Valley region is about to become an inlet of the Pacific Ocia. This is of some concern to him because he is downhill from the Pacific when this happens. One of the kids he encounters while fleeing is a "Jap" and he's not pleased about the kid's enthnicity but he takes both kids with him. Later on, an unnamed tramp helps him keep the kids alive.
There's an interesting bit in the wikipedia article on Sixth Column:
The original idea for the story of Sixth Column was proposed by John W. Campbell (who had written a similar story called All), and Heinlein later wrote that he had "had to reslant it to remove racist aspects of the original story line" and that he did not "consider it to be an artistic success."[1] Heinlein did not provide details of his reslanting, but it is noteworthy that the mysterious force which has accidentally killed all but six[2] of the two hundred[3] American personnel at the beginning of the novel, is later revealed to be race-based, suggesting that the survivors were ethnic minorities. There are few clues to the ethnicity of the surviving personnel, though one of them has skin described as “brown.” [4] A possible clue is provided by the nickname of the one soldier who was not at the laboratory when the accident occurred: “Whitey.”[5] The irony is increased by the surname of the leading surviving scientist: “Calhoun,” the name of the prominent pro-slavery politician and political philosopher John C. Calhoun.[6]
If true, I completely missed it when I read it.
From:
no subject
One trick Heinlein did use, in Star Beast and Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Podkayne of Mars (and probably other books), was writing characters who, somewhere buried in the middle or late action, would be described off-handedly as non-white. This might not address racism actively, but it shakes up a white reader's (that's me) assumptions pretty painlessly in a way that sticks.
From:
no subject
Anti-Asian prejudice goes way back before WWII.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Also, I refuse to recommend Stranger in a Strange Land to anyone in this lifetime. Ever.
Also also, the Niven sequel to Ringworld I apparently read before that one was called -- no, damme, it wasn't a sequel. I remembered it by its delightfully cheeztastic cover: it was The Integral Trees.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Heinlein's women are like no woman I know, and the more alpha of his men get on my nerves, but this hasn't stopped me from reading everything he wrote.
From:
no subject