Your favorite dated classic

[rachelmanija]

As someone said, the internet's oldest established permanent floating flame war has started up again ("Just like the Greeks thought that they'd successfully put Hector down and that no one would survive to avenge him, so the establishment thought it had successfully put Heinlein down and no one would survive to avenge him,") reminding me of how much I enjoyed Heinlein's juveniles when I was twelve, though even then I had a taste for the odd, the dated, and the, shall we say, differently good.

I vividly recall reading Heinlein's rant in Have Space Suit Will Travel about how anyone who can't use a slide rule is a moron, and having to figure out from context that he was referring to an obsolete calculating device. That was by far the most sf-nal moment for me reading that book - a visceral sense that I was living in someone's future, and things had changed.

I'm now curious to re-read some of what I read when I was twelve and see how it holds up and doesn't.

Note: I refuse to re-read any Heinlein novels not listed, on the grounds that even at twelve, I was unable to read any of the late ones containing orgies, fanfic, grokking, "Sorry about the rape, Friday," etc, and I would probably find them even more unreadable now. I have never read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but I hear it's more readable than most of his adult novels...?

[Poll #1607634]

Comments

[cpolk.livejournal.com]

i remember curling my lip in disgust fairly early on in Glory Road when heinlein described the woman as twenty five, the age when a woman stops growing and starts aging.

like, wow. really?

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

God, I'd forgotten that. I remembered the comment about Earth being the only planet with prostitution, for how can a woman sell what she has in infinite supply? Even when young I remember thinking "So, they don't have cooks or writers elsewhere in the galaxy either?"

[wiredwizard.livejournal.com]

=thinks hard= I don't remember any orgies in Citizen of the Galaxy...

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever read any of the Heinlein juveniles, though everyone says they're actually good. I'd be happy to hear about any of them.

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

I liked the way Heinlein handled the effects of massive sex ratio imbalance in Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and he kept the fun plot bits balanced with the political side better than in many of his later books.

Podkayne of Mars is my favorite of Heinlein's juveniles, though it's hard to read in some places through fifty years of social change.

I'd also suggest "I, Robot" as a good example of the future that turned out substantially different than expected.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

My 10 year old self hated Podkayne. It is a sufficiently huge hatred that 22 years later, I still can't forgive the book for existing enough to even try a reread.

So screamingly hateful.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Have Spacesuit, Will Travel or Citizen of the Galaxy.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress or Citizen of the Galaxy. If you read TMiaHM, follow it up with Livia's Some Origins of the Fire (http://yuletidetreasure.org/archive/45/someorigins.html).

[skygiants]

I went to wikipedia to try and look up the Andre Norton books I read as a child and remember which ones made the strongest impression so I could suggest something! From this I learned two things: Andre Norton's bibliography is so large it requires its own wikipedia page completely separate from everything else Andre Norton-related, and that the ones that made the biggest impression on me were, uh, the ridiculous ones with elves cowritten with Mercedes Lackey.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

On the bookcase behind me, three and a half shelves have been taken up with Andre Norton paperbacks. Just Andre Norton paperbacks. And we don't have everything she published.

I am deeply impressed by her prolificacy.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Heinlein's Creepy Sexual Issues are very, very much to the fore in MiaHM (including some incest!), so I would say avoid it to you. (I read it when young and enjoyed it, and may get around to a reread.)

The Door Into Summer is loving and tender. I loved Glory Road a lot, and the female protagonist, Star, has oodles of agency and motives of her own.

Door into Summer if you want science fiction, Glory Road if you want good old fashioned swords n' monsters n' stars adventure.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

The Door Into Summer is loving and tender.

Well... yes. But it does still involve a grown man planning to marry a 12(?)-year old when she grows up.

Of course, since I still like The Witches of Karres, possibly I should shut up now.

Actually, Karres would be a good thing to read, Rachel, if you haven't already. It depends almost entirely on tone, so if you don't like the tone you'll hate it, but you might like it.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

That passage made me ashamed of not knowing how to use a slide rule when I was in high school. In all fairness, I had grown up with one in the house but I was never told what it was and I didn't make the connection until after the fact. (My sister and I used it, when our mom's back was turned, as a stick-launcher.)

...I think I need to turn in my degree now.

[readsalot.livejournal.com]

Slide rules are annoyingly imprecise. I had to learn how to use one in high school chemistry in 1975 or thereabouts, and it was a bit faster than doing the math on paper, but still annoying. And I had a pretty good slide rule, because I found the one my much older brother had used when he was in high school. By the next year, they decided that everyone could probably afford calculators, and we started using those.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

I had actually been kind of expecting this question.

Here is what I would recommend as a short course in Heinlein. It slightly violates your rules, but I am hoping for forgiveness:

• The Star Beast. I think this one of Heinlein's better juveniles. The main downside is that the ostensible protagonist is dull, but he actually doesn't get that many viewpoint chapters as I recall. Other viewpoint chapters go to the eponymous beast, the protagonist's girlfriend (who is a better character), and the sarcastic African UN official who does most of the heavy lifting.


• Have Space Suit, Will Travel. This is also one of his better juveniles.


• Double Star. This is an adult novel not on your list, but it's an early one, and I think a lot better than The Door Into Summer for a variety of reasons. Jo Walton reviewed it on tor.com.


• The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag. This is a story collection, also published under the title 6 x H. He has some other good collections, but I think this one would appeal to you the most.

As for other things on your list... Harsh Mistress is certainly decent but you can see signs of his later problems starting to appear. Glory Road is something of a curate's egg: it has a lot of sexism, but also has an interesting scene where the main female character points out to the protagonist how many Earthly customs are predicated on the assumption that female sexuality is a commodity. The ending is interesting, too.

I've read very little Norton so can't recommend anything there.

For Asimov's fiction, I'd recommend the collection I, Robot, The Caves of Steel, or his non-SF mystery Murder at the ABA, if you can stomach the thought of a protagonist based on Harlan Ellison (or rather, Asimov's perception of Harlan Ellison). I have to note here that whatever you think of Heinlein's writing chops, Asimov's weren't as good, at least for fiction.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I should have said, early Heinlein adult novels are okay. I don't think I've ever read the two you mention.

Actually, the idea of a protagonist based on Asimov's perception of Harlan Ellison sounds hilarious. Plus I've already read two books which contain fictionalized Harlan Ellison, Ben Bova's The Star-Crossed, in which he's the hero, and (I suspect) the short, obnoxious author who gets murdered at a sf convention in Sharyn McCrumb's Bimbos of the Death Sun.

(If the latter sounds fun, it kind of is, but also conveys the strong message that all sf fans are fat losers, except for the few who are smart, thin, pretty, and dabble a teeny bit in sf while understanding that it's a mere hobby, unlike the serious interest of the sad fools scurrying below.)

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I'm curious as to your impression of Norton's Catseye, if you go reading that direction. Most of her books sort of pass out of my memory as soon as I've read them, like a pleasant dream, but that one's always stuck with me.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Yes, me too. That's the one I immediately thought of. I haven't reread it since I was a teenager, but I loved it way past sense.

[neery.livejournal.com]

I loved The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as a twelve year old, and some of the ideas in it blew my mind. It was the first time I'd heard of polyamory, for one thing. I also really loved all the physics and the worldbuilding. I wouldn't want to reread it now, because I'm pretty sure some things that seemed magical at the time would be offensive now, and I don't want to ruin my fond memories of it, but I'd be curious to read a review.

[cofax7]

Juveniles: I have fond memories of Have Space Suit, Will Travel, or The Door Into Summer. I have, personally, no desire to revisit those and discover they were awful.

But I would love to see you review some Norton. Which one, which one? Year of the Unicorn, perhaps, which is a retelling of Beauty & the Beast in the Witchworld universe. Or Moon of Three Rings, one of her few space operas with a female cast member.

(If I were on DW, I would use my Andre Norton icon.)

[em-h.livejournal.com]

I remember I really liked The Door Into Summer when I was a little kid. I cannot, however, remember why I liked it or what I liked about it. It's very likely that if I read it now I would hate it, but I'd love to read your take on it.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I've always had a softspot for Norton's "Catseye"

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

I am suggesting Podkayne of Mars for extremely selfish reasons. It's the only Heinlein I've ever read,I got it when I was 12 or so and read it half-a-dozen times like every book I owned back then, and I am curious to see how it holds up and what egregious 50s sexism I was missing but don't want to have to read it myself.

[notemily.livejournal.com]

The only Heinlein I've ever made it through was Stranger in a Strange Land. I adored it when I was 14 or so. I was like "FREE LOVE, GROKKING, YEAH!" Then I grew up and realized it was a sexist, homophobic piece of crap. No woman ever grows older than 18 in her heart, because that's when she's young and beautiful? Fuck you. (The book did give me an appreciation for Rodin, though.)

I remember reading somewhere (the foreword, maybe?) that Heinlein had put so much thought into his futures, but there were still a lot of little anachronisms, like the slide rule, or the fact that nobody wore pantyhose (they still wore stockings). It's the past-future, like watching old 50s and 60s sci-fi movies.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Definitely past-future. What was REALLY eye-opening was, last summer when I went to the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit at the Guggenheim, to realize just how much of Heinlein's vision of future-America was based on Wright's vision of the Non-City Of The Future. The super-tall building complexes, the robot-control helicopter-taxis, the swaths of green space AROUND the city-building-thingies -- looking at Wright's drawings is like looking at an illustration for the earlier parts of Stranger, except Wright drew it before Heinlein wrote it. That was pretty cool.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

IMO The Moon is a Harsh Mistress still holds up, and Have Space Suit, Will Travel remains the best of the juveniles. I also recommend Citizen of the Galaxy, and think that you personally might enjoy the teen-survival novel Tunnel in the Sky, which I recall as ducking many of his usual sex/race issues until an annoying several paragraphs at the end-- haven't reread it for many years, though, so I could be wrong about that. It's definitely the one of his that reminds me of things you usually like.

Andre Norton! Oh, so much love. Much of Norton has not dated, though I would not start the Witch World books with Witch World. My favorite Nortons are Year of the Unicorn, which is a great fantasy novel and a great romance; Wheel of Stars, which is an enjoyably and genuinely creepy horror-fantasy centered around an awesomely preposterous central concept; Galactic Derelict, which has some of her best travelogue; and Moon Called, which just seems to be what I want in that sort of fantasy novel. The High Hallack thread of the Witch World books starts with Year of the Unicorn and honestly I wouldn't read the Gryphon books (The Crystal Gryphon, The Jargoon Pard, I may be missing one) without having read that one, but you don't have to read any of the other Witch World threads for the High Hallack books to make sense.

Ninety percent of Asimov has dated horribly. I went through a revisiting-my-childhood phase last year and I found E.E. Smith far more readable, which says something. If you must, the short robot stories are still pretty fun, though the sexism fairy hit some of them Very Hard Indeed; and The Caves of Steel has actually dated in ways that help it because it is now possible to see its sexism issues as part of its dystopian setting.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Tunnel in the Sky does have some gender essentialism bits before the end, but is not too heavy-handed about them (and arguably in the context of what is effectively a tiny, abandoned colony it is more defensible than it would be otherwise). And it does at least have some decent female characters.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Oh, and you should totally read The Witches of Karres! It is lovely!

And if you're really in a back-in-the-day mood, I would be fascinated to see what an adult reader coming to E.E. Smith nowadays would think. I read them when I was very small and so I have no ability to tell whether anyone can still get anything out of them at all. The place to start with the Lensman books would be Galactic Patrol and the place to start with the Skylark books would be The Skylark of Space.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

DEFINITELY The Witches of Karres.

I found that purely by chance and loved it.

I wonder what I'd think of it now.

[darius.livejournal.com]

I like tool_of_satan's Heinlein recommendations.

A Mirror for Observers by Edgar Pangborn sounds like the kind of book I might have read at age 12, might still like to, but never have. It's the highest-ranked at http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/ByRank.php I could say that of.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

The Asimov I love best are things like his science essays... all horribly dated now, but they don't suffer as much from his characterization failings. Otherwise, I dearly love the stuff with Daneel.

The Rolling Stones is pretty much my favorite Heinlein juvenile. It's chronologically something of a sequel to Moon, but it's a lot more fun as pure story. The shorts with female protagonists are also damn fun, and I find it deeply irritating that for the most part they were considered unpublishable on their own.

I bounced off Andre Norton quite hard as a kid, and have never managed to unbounce. I'm not really sure why... Marion Zimmer Bradley and Anne McCaffrey worked a lot better for me.

I dearly love Arthur C Clarke's Dolphin Island, despite it being hideously schlocky. I also haven't reread it since I was about 12 because IT IS SCHLOCK. (it's the first SF book I ever read... at something like age 7 or 8)

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I picked Harsh Mistress because I would like to see someone other than me savage it. It is very open to savagery, despite the opinions of other commenters.

(Starship Troopers, the only other book of his I read as an adult, is such low-hanging fruit of reviewer-savagery that I can hardly recommend it. Let's just say that, within the first 20 pages, Heinlein blames the near-collapse of human civilization on the fact that evil psychologists required all the stalwart parents of the world to stop beating their children. Yeeeah.)

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

I love _The Door Into Summer_. You have to remember it's a product of its time (as was Heinlein), so if there are sexist or idiotic bits, just skim over them so you can enjoy this story. I also love the Monkees song (off "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, and Jones, ltd.") "The Door Into Summer" with a similar theme. _Glory Road_ is Heinlein's only fantasy novel, really, and I enjoyed it. _Podkayne of Mars_ is very good--sad ending--I'm sure there are sexist bits and dated bits, but again, it's a product of its time. _The Rolling Stones_ was fun, as was _Tunnel in the Sky_. _Tunnel_ strikes me as the SF version of _Glory Road_, actually.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Door into Summer is my favourite! But probably a Norton would be more fun, for you at least. Heh.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Glory Road is a wall-banger.