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From: amigo2@ihuxq.UUCP (John Hobson)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Heinlein and Wolfe
Message-ID: <576@ihuxq.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 1-Feb-84 11:50:40 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxq.576
Posted: Wed Feb  1 11:50:40 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 3-Feb-84 02:44:12 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 39

More flame on Heinlein.  Someone, I think it was George Orwell, said
that H. G. Wells was "a natural storyteller who has sold his
birthright for a pot of message."  I think that the same is true of 
Heinlein.  One of the best examples of this is Glory Road, of which
the first two-thirds is a rollicking adventure story (I think that
it is a bit heavy handed in the sex department, but that is one of
Heinleins major failings generally), but in the last third he gets
on his high horse and starts preaching his socio-political message
and gets impossible to read.  

Starship Troopers is another good example of Heinlein's writing
merely to preach.  Johnny Rico (the hero--Heinlein does not have
protagonists, he has heros.  See Lazarus Long) is a mere cardboard
cutout, not a character, and any novel that has has verbatim
lectures from courses in "History and Moral Philosophy" makes me
think that the author has other motives than just telling a story. 
I first read it in college when I took an SF course, and the
professor, knowing that I had served a tour as an infantry officer
in Viet Nam, asked me what I thought of ST.  I said, knowing nothing
of Heinlein's background, "This author has an intimate knowledge of
the military, but he has never served in combat.  No one who has
ever been in combat could have possibly written this novel.  It
glorifies war."  It turned out that I was perfectly correct,
Heinlein graduated from Annapolis in the late 1920s, and has
invalided out of the Navy in the mid-30s with tuberculosis.  He
spent WWII in an R&D job in Philadelphia (for you Heinlein fans out
there, I am not trying to disparage him, just pointing out his lack
of combat experience, which is important in judging any author who
writes war novels).  For an antidote to ST, read Joe Haldeman's The
Forever War, which I am told was written in answer to ST.

I like Gene Wolfe.  The Book of the New Sun reminds me very much of
James Branch Cabell.  Has anyone else noticed this?

				John Hobson
				AT&T Bell Labs
				Naperville, IL
				(312) 979-7293
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