A new Heinlein book is due out in September!

[thewayne]

Apparently he started it, set it aside for other projects, then died. His estate contacted Spider Robinson, and Spider has finished it! Spider's a very good writer, though I haven't read much by him of late, I'm confident that he did a very good job. Quoth the article: "the novel is based on the notes and outline created by Heinlein for the novel over 50 years ago". So hopefully this is more early/mid-career and not the late stage of his career, or as I like to refer to it, his Dirty Old Man phase.

I have no problem with sex in books, but I just didn't care for it when Heinlein included it. Though it's been a while, I think that now I wouldn't consider it erotic enough. (Though I recently read an amazingly erotic scene in Cory Doctrow's Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town: the main character meets a woman with wings...)

Anyway, info on the book is here: http://variablestarbook.com/, and the ever-present Slashdot thread is here: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/29/1746219. The cool thing is that you can download the first eight chapters!

Comments

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

I didn't think Friday was too wretched sex-wise, though I Will Fear No Evil was kind of like a novel length proselytization paper for the Free Love movement. . .

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Friday had a good enough story that I could overlook his sex scenes, but IWFNE and Cat Who Walks Through Walls, much less Number of the Beast just didn't do anything for me.

But I love his pre-Stranger In A Strange Land stuff.

[thedragonweaver.livejournal.com]

Strangely enough, I love To Sail Beyond the Sunset even though it is way over-the-top with the sex. I think it's because Maureen is a far more dimensional character than any of the heroines in the prior books— Deety and Hazel and all. (I do, however, tend to skip from point to point so that I'm following her history rather than her bizarre present.) When Heinlein gets a character down his writing is at its most interesting. (I like Time Enough For Love for the same reason— Lazarus is a cantankerous cuss and that comes through clearly— many of his later hero types weren't deep enough to be good.)

My favorite Heinlein is The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. That's generally considered his best work, and I agree.

[vaudy.livejournal.com]

Dirty Old Man phase; yes, that about describes it. I've only read a handful of Heinlein's books, but I prefer the earlier ones, too. I dunno, it seemed to me that the few later books that I mangaed to slog through didn't have plots so much as set-ups for sex. Of course, I was a teenager when I read them, and I was a terrible prude when I was a teenager.

[thedragonweaver.livejournal.com]

You'd never heard the Dirty Old Man bit?

As I said above, there is some good stuff in there, but the sex is sometimes a bit much. Time Enough For Love is perhaps the best balance because there's a ton of story in that book, and Lazarus, the original Very Randy Man, isn't much of a kiss-and-tell type, so the sex doesn't overwhelm the rest.

Of course, I say that from a perspective I would NOT have had in high school, as I was a prude too. (Publicly forgiving but privately shocked, shocked, shocked.)

[ateji.livejournal.com]

Heinlein = one of those writers who went nuts in his old age and churned out stuff that fans of the early stuff don't tend to like. Check. I thought Herbert was the only one of that era. ;) Orson Scott Card's getting there.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

It's been a while since I've read Card. I LOVED the first two Ender books, and I read two more (perhaps the third, then the one that followed the small kid from the battle school, which I don't remember as being particularly good).

Currently my favs are Weber, Ringo, and Cory Doctrow, though Terry Pratchett will always pretty much be my #1 fav.