Sarah Hoyt writes about growing up a child of Heinlein.
2 thoughts on ““The Lieutenant Wouldn’t Like It””
I wish they’d come across a trove of unpublished manuscripts of his. ‘Twould be awesome.
Depends…I hold the opinion that pretty much everything that RAH wrote post-TMIAHM is pretty crappy, especially the stuff post-TIA (e.g., starting with “The Number of the Pages^H^H^H^H^H Beast”) although I don’t really like I Will Fear No Evil or Time Enough for Love either). And from the early ’60, the quasi-juvenile Podkayne of Mars was pretty crappy too, as was the last quarter of Glory Road. Plus, the only version of Stranger in a Strange Land currently in print is the unedited version that Virginia Heinlein put out after the copyright reverted to her, and I think that the original published version is much tighter and better, but my copy of that one is 40+ years old, yellowed, and falling apart.
But like Sarah, I grew up on the juveniles, plus short novels like The Puppet Masters, The Door Into Summer, Universe / Common Sense, and the Future History collection, and the ethos permeated me at the right time to have an effect. I totally get “the Lieutenant wouldn’t like it” as a shorthand for the guiding principle.
I wish they’d come across a trove of unpublished manuscripts of his. ‘Twould be awesome.
Depends…I hold the opinion that pretty much everything that RAH wrote post-TMIAHM is pretty crappy, especially the stuff post-TIA (e.g., starting with “The Number of the Pages^H^H^H^H^H Beast”) although I don’t really like I Will Fear No Evil or Time Enough for Love either). And from the early ’60, the quasi-juvenile Podkayne of Mars was pretty crappy too, as was the last quarter of Glory Road. Plus, the only version of Stranger in a Strange Land currently in print is the unedited version that Virginia Heinlein put out after the copyright reverted to her, and I think that the original published version is much tighter and better, but my copy of that one is 40+ years old, yellowed, and falling apart.
But like Sarah, I grew up on the juveniles, plus short novels like The Puppet Masters, The Door Into Summer, Universe / Common Sense, and the Future History collection, and the ethos permeated me at the right time to have an effect. I totally get “the Lieutenant wouldn’t like it” as a shorthand for the guiding principle.