Tuesday, January 19, 2010

More Heinlein

  So I was looking for photos of Bonny Doon after Roberta X reminded me of Heinlein's second foray into architecture and came across his bibliography while practicing my google fu and came to the startling conclusion I have read everything he wrote, most of it twice and some is read biannually. As I have mentioned before he had a huge influence on both my political and societal outlook. A quote from my search is pretty apt, "Large numbers of white middleclass teenage boys, still the biggest demographic of science fiction readers, embraced Heinlein's ideals of personal freedom and minimal governmental control. As a result many of them also joined the Libertarian party."
   My personal favorites in no particular order are Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, A Citizen of the Galaxy, Time Enough for Love, Farnham's Freehold, Podkyane of Mars, Have Spacesuit Will Travel, Glory Road, Number of the Beast, J.O.B. a comedy of Justice, Orphans of the Sky, I will Fear no Evil, Methuselah's Children, Red Planet and The Rolling Stones.
   In my last read through of Heinlein's writings I noticed that his early stuff, say up to the fifties has a large portion of socialism and trust in government authority that disappears in his later stuff which is pretty solidly libertarian and minimalist government wise. There was also a undercurrent of distaste for organized religion.  I found seeing the change in his political outlook fascinating and wonder at the reasons for the change. The obvious ones are the atrocities of both the Nazis and Soviet regime under Lenin and then Stalin would give pause to any rational human who could look at the difference in  socialist theory and the reality of humans but was that it?  I haven't really found anything to answer that yet. I tell you one thing I was hoping for more than this lousy dystopian government we are stuck with.
Oh yeah the pictures, Bonny Doon , they aren't great but they seem to be all there is.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Blog Archive