Groking: “The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein” by Farah Mendlesohn

“Heinlein was always adamant, at all times in his life, that he wanted to teach people to think. For all his grumbling about hippies and weak-minded liberals, Heinlein was not interested in followers: he wanted critical thinkers for his readers. And, of course like all authors, he had little patience with people [...] who wanted him to do their homework for them.”

In “The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein” by Farah Mendlesohn

“By the end of the short-story period, all the key elements of Heinlein are in place: sentiment, family first, a clear idea of bravery and duty, women matter, slavery is wrong, and the traces of sexual radicalism evident in For Us, the Living  [...].”

In “The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein” by Farah Mendlesohn

“But there are three clear divisions in terms of the rhetorical techniques Heinlein uses: the cinematic, the didactic, and the picaresque.”

In “The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein” by Farah Mendlesohn

“For a society to use people effectively, Heinlein argues, that society has to be egalitarian, and one of the strengths of Heinlein was the degree to which he argued that on behalf of women.”

In “The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein” by Farah Mendlesohn

“Heinlein’s hatred of sexual coercion is sharp: he was explicit about it in his own private notes and he extended this into his writing. It is hinted at in Podkayne of Mars first, where Podkayne is uneasy with the ‘fatherly pats’, and explicit in the contemporaneous The Moon is a Harsh Mistress where, as is well known, sexual autonomy lies entirely with the female and there are two clearly assaults”

In “The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein” by Farah Mendlesohn

“For Heinlein, allowing women to be sexual beings who enjoyed sex was fundamental to challenging the blue laws and a culture in which women pretended they did not.”

In “The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein” by Farah Mendlesohn

“My contention is that in those texts [To Sail Beyond the Sunset and I Will Fear No Evil] in which women have narrative and focalised agency, Heinlein made a  conscious effort to think about what women were like, and how they thought about themselves. He tried to create for them a voice that was embodied and aware of being female in a male world. In [his work] he also tried to make an argument about the possibilities for shifting that sense of self.”

In “The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein” by Farah Mendlesohn

“To Sail Beyond the Sunset, a curious, anti-feminist and yet feminist novel, brings into focus Heinlein’s idea of a perfectly integrated, right-ordered individual, and the person in the frame is a woman. It is in this story that we get most strongly the sense of Heinlein trying to write women from the inside and focus himself as a women. [...] I have come to believe that it is simply not the book that I read in 1987 at the age of nineteen; my current age and experiences have profoundly shifted my response. [...] There are a number of incidents that convince me that To Sail Beyond the Sunset could be understood as Heinlein writing himself as a woman [...].”

In “The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein” by Farah Mendlesohn

As a lifelong fan of Heinlein, I do see the Competent Man character described in many of his writings.  However, almost every Competent Man in a Heinlein novel sees themselves as incomplete and ignorant with a thirst for more knowledge and experience to fill their perceived character gaps.  Every Competent Man has as a hero a more Competent Man.  It is these two pieces of the Competent Man which gives him the will and desire to live through even the worst of circumstances.

I've read someone say that if you look at their skill sets they are bordering on John Galt levels of Absurd... thus often making their perceived deficiencies seem equally absurd if not disingenuous. Not so.  Though a book hero might have more than the usual dosage of skills, it's meant to be an aspiration.  ("All I know is that I know nothing" isn't about how much you know, but about continuing to learn.  Some knowledge becomes useless [DOS commands, anyone?] so keep adding new knowledge to your brain.

"The Competent Man" may be out of reach for the sub-average intellect, but it's surprising how little you have to know about something to have a good grasp of its fundamentals (Example:  How much training do you need to have about fishing to do it well enough to survive?  A single book could impart such knowledge; that's what the Boy Scout Manual used to be.)  Learning more after that is much easier than becoming a super-expert in some narrow field.  I'd rather have a small team of generalists than a large team of specialists.  Even those generalists will have individual strengths.

Still, in today's highly technical world, there is a blizzard of new stuff to know about a variety of topics; it's hard to know what to stay focused on.  So learn about things that are most likely useful.  Some of them will be more interesting than others. The one theme that seems common throughout all of Heinlein writing eras is the theme of individual responsibility: It’s in “Rocket Ship Galileo”, “Between Planets”,“The Green Hills of Earth,” “Have Space – Will Travel”, “Starship Troopers”,  “Citizen of the Galaxy”, “Time Enough for Love”, “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”, “Double Star”, “Friday”, etc.

I'd say that Heinlein's protagonists are more grounded in reality and more likely to have flaws but they're definitely a little bit over-competent. They're a bit more along the lines of the Renaissance man or polymath model though.

What I took away from Heinlein during my first pass through his works (as a tween and early teen and now - I’ve re-read a few of his works recently: vide LINKS above) was the notion that it was OK to be smart and competent, and that if you worked hard and applied your brains and learning, you could succeed despite the idiots who tried to stop you. Also that women could be smart, stubborn, competent, and equal to men, and that such women were the best ones to hang out with. (In fairness, I got a lot of that from Mom too, with no Freudian nonsense intended.) This became an essential part of who I am (or at least, who I try to be), and for that, I'll always be grateful. On many levels, I've found his books aged well upon returning to them. Now, more than 40 years of "woke" later, I can see some of the creaky bits and flaws that younger me never noticed. But I can forgive him those flaws in most cases because the writing still flows beautifully, and I usually enjoy the characters and plots. Even when he lectures. I grew an awful lot intellectually by asking and answering the question of why some of his theses left me uncomfortable or unconvinced. The Heinlein of "Starship Troopers" would probably enjoy that attitude; the later Heinlein might well have sneered at me. His letters, his sort of autobiographies (“Expanded Universe”, “Grumbles from the Grave”, etc.) and the biographies (Patterson’s, although an hagiography still worth reading - volume 1 and volume 2) I've read suggest he was a perfect lamb if he liked you, but a nasty old bugger if he didn't. From my current perspective, I see the box he grew up in and laud him for at least recognizing the box and trying to look beyond it. That's also become a cherished part of who I am.

I’m with Mendlesohn on "Farnham's Freehold" (I execrated it even when I read it as a teen, and I've never been able to make it past the first pages even now 30 years later; the opposite happened with “To Sail Beyond the Sunset”; I loathed back then, and then a few decades I later I loved it).

Fascist? Let's try to keep our facts straight here. It's not fair to bring up “Sixth Column”. He only wrote it because it was John Campbell's idea and Campbell wasn’t a good enough writer to pull it off so he offered Heinlein a lot of money to do it instead. Even Heinlein said that it was way too racist for his tastes. Why are you guys being so hard on Heinlein when you glossed right over all the shady stuff Campbell got up to? For further research, I recommend reading his posthumous autobiography “Grumbles from the Grave” and now “The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein”. Heinlein did his best to hose down Campbell's racism. It was enough to make it an interesting book about rebellion in a tech society. But Heinlein was not proud of it. I keep it in the "paid prose" section. “Starship Troopers” isn't fascist, illiberal yes, but fascist no. The core of the book is that political authority should be given to those who are willing to sacrifice and risk themselves to have it. Most specifically through federal (not necessarily military, and this point is made in the book) service. Anyone who thinks that Heinlein was supportive of fascism knows nothing about Heinlein or fascism. Some of the political ideas expressed in his work could be described as crackpot, but that's true of any literary utopia. Ever read "Erehwon?", "Walden Two?"

In his essays, Heinlein was a supporter of democracy and public control of government. His book "Take Back Your Government" sets forth a plan for political public service and for localized block voting as a means of stymieing oligarchistic, bureaucratic authoritarianism. Heinlein was not, strictly speaking, a Libertarian in the Ayn Rand/Von Meises/Harry Brown style. You would more accurately call him an Individualist.

I have always believed that ridiculous 'Fascist' label on Heinlein comes from idiots equating saying anything positive about military service with being a fascist. The system in “Starship Troopers” isn't authoritarian though, it’s diametrically opposed to Fascism, and explicitly does not have any of the constraints you're talking about wherein it singles out any group for not being able to vote. Rather it demands that those who expect something from society be willing to put something into it, which nothing like Fascism, wherein the society is considered paramount and individuals as completely irrelevant. Also check out "For Us the Living" which has a very socialist type society (when Heinlein was an American Socialist; yes, you read right).

Derogatory to women? Funny. Have you ever read “Delilah and the Space Rigger” and “The Menace from Earth”? Despite being a man, I liked Maureen Johnson better than his regular heroes. I also prefer Mannie over his other male protagonists. I really don't think people are being fair here. Like ignoring all the times in his stories where your so called "competent man" archetype got his bacon saved by an even more competent woman. Heinlein was one of the first writers in his genre to include strong, complex female characters with actual depth in central roles rather than just bystanders or satellites to a more "competent man". Read Chapter 5 of Mendlesohn’s book if you think was anti-women or some other related bullshit. I’m not saying he was perfect, but he was a lot better than most of the crap being written at the time regarding women (vide quotes above).

And while I'm at it; Heinlein didn't invent the "competent man" trope either. This stuff has been around for literally centuries. Heinlein wasn't perfect, but he was one of the first writers to actually push back against that trope, and thereby laid the groundwork for others to continue pushing back. So how about a little credit where credit is due, eh?

 What I really like about Heinlein is that, even when I disagree with him I still find it interesting to read his opinions and come out of it with a different perspective or a few extra thoughts to chew on. He's never dull or simplistic. It is inexplicable that his legacy and character have come under attack lately, to the point where he has become one of the most misunderstood and maligned SF author in recent years, coming in a close second to Orson Scott Card. Sadly, the 'snowflake' generation has been conditioned to dismiss Heinlein as a 'fascist' based purely on criticism of “Starship Troopers”, most of which was derived from that ridiculous and quirky movie adaptation and NOT the actual text!

Heinlein never intended to present the militaristic democratic government depicted in the novel as a utopia, merely as a more effective form of government to the universal representative democracy in its current form (which has its own numerous & unique faults) and more importantly, one that is unique and relative to the setting of the book. Ultimately people lose sight of the overarching goal of the book which is analogous to the struggles fought during the Cold War; the conflict between Communism & Democratic Capitalism and the ideological struggle between collectivism and individualism. Critics and sci-fi fans also conveniently forget the time period when the book was written, during the aftermath of the Korean War which saw massive numbers of poorly equipped Communist solders confronting the numerically inferior but qualitatively superior Democratic forces of NATO, all done under the specter of possible nuclear annihilation.

So he made Mary Sue stories for nerds and boy scouts that wanted to feel empowered? Well, he knew his market if he got so many fans. At least he didn't exploit his fans like Ron L. Hubbard, and I hope he didn't share the beliefs of Orson Scott Card who I abhor.

I'm not sure when people decided that any militarily run society is fascist, especially given that Heinlein’s heyday was during the Eisenhower administration, most of the complaints I see directed at it are more from later period and post-Vietnam-war anti-military culture. Most people are idiotic, brainwashed sheep. Look at how degenerate society is today to see how far out we are from any sense of normalcy.

The cool thing about Heinlein has always been that even in his worst works, and believe me there are some real stinkers, he's still easy and enjoyable to read. The man just had a way with words that kept you interested even if the material was rubbish. And when that writing met material that was also good, you get Hugo and Nebula awards like “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.”

R. I.P. R.A.H.  Robert Heinlein is basically me; I am fascist, supporter of rights, and democratic dictatorships. You made me question my own beliefs with your body of work. Mendlesohn wrote a biography of sorts, but unlike Patterson’s volume 1 and Volume 2, she also gave us a balanced approach to Heinlein’s tropes: Feminism, Fascism, etc.

I can never fully grok.

Geiger Counters: "Between Planets" by Robert A. Heinlein

(My own 1996 edition)

It’s been a few years since I read this one for the first time, but I'm quite sure that one of the first SF books I ever read was "Between Planets". Why do I know this? Because I didn't know what a Geiger counter was when I first read it.  It seems quite strange by today’s standards to remember the pre-Internet Universe of the 80s where I might be interested in what a Geiger counter was and had no practical way to find out! I could have searched in an encyclopedia the next time I was in the library, but I was too young to think that, and I'd have slipped my mind anyway. In the early 80s, as a teenager I gobbled up his stuff like manna from the skies. I just wanted to be a part of the Lazarus Long family, and have some hot chick offer herself to me for “Many Hours of Pleasure…” I also thought Valentine Michael Smith had the dream life! Literally tons of dough sitting around the house, and women who were so into sex they'd starting 'doing it' right on the living room couch in front of everyone who happened to be there. Who wouldn't want that? I sure did! And being more than a little nerdy at the time, I found myself captivated by giant Rolling Roads, Star Beasts, Martians, Waldos, and larger-than-life magnates who gambled it all to go to the Moon to wreak havoc. I read and re-read many of his books well into my 20s and 30s, so entranced by those aspects (I still do as you can see by reading the reviews I wrote in 2018 and now 2019).  Heinlein is usually bashed to the extent that people are bashing Shakespeare when they point out that “The Merchant of Venice” is anti-Semitic or that “The Taming of the Shrew” is misogynistic. If that is fair cultural criticism, so is talking about Heinlein's “weird” women issues which is also nonsense (vide “The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein" by Farah Mendlesohn for a good analysis on Heinlein’s Women).

Cliched SF: "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman

I remember when I read Haldeman's "The Forever War"; it was considered a critique of "Starship Troopers".  I have heard an anecdote that Haldeman attended an event where he was going to be on a panel with Heinlein and was dreading the meeting, fearing Heinlein would take him to task.  Instead, Heinlein thought Haldeman's book was a great read and take on that theme, much to Haldeman's relief.  I don't think Heinlein thought "Troopers" was a bible for creating a utopia, but he was laying down some philosophical markers with it.

It's nothing of the sort (an utopia that is).

I already wrote a review of sorts of “Starship Troopers” per se. This a review of “The Forever War” using “Starship Troopers” as counterpoint.

I've read through “Starship Troopers” a few times, and to clarify: technically in his vision of the future the world IS NOT ruled necessarily by military veterans; it is in fact a world where only people who served AT LEAST two years in service to the government: this service could be the military, it could be labor such as mining, it could be scientific test subjects, or any other service deemed significant by the government (which is democratic).  Heck they even say in the book that a chance to serve is a RIGHT, so technically someone could roll into the recruitment office in a wheel chair with both lets missing, one hand and blind in one eye and as long as the person can understand his responsibilities, the government is required to come up with some kind of job for that person to do for two years, even licking envelopes at the post office!

Also: the protagonist is even TOLD OUTRIGHT in officer training school that being a veteran DOES NOT make you smarter or more disciplined than non-veterans, it is established that they keep their system (which AGAIN IS NOT a military dictatorship but a highly centralized republic) simply because it works.  The military dictatorships of Hitler and his cronies have NOTHING to do with the world of “Starship Troopers”, because they ARE NOT a dictatorship!

It's kind of ironic that even knowing Heinlein's intention, I've always read “Starship Troopers” as an anti-utopia, as a picture of a fascist state, something to avoid and abhor.

We should say that a history of military dictators debunks Heinlein's message is completely incorrect. Firstly in “Starship Troopers” they don't have the right to vote while they're in the service meaning even a long time general didn't have the right to control civilian society. There really is no comparison to a dictatorship because the problem with dictatorships isn't that individuals are innately evil but rather that it's an unbalanced and unchecked system. Also even though the book seems to push for military intervention and war it's important to remember that the governing body is made of individuals who understand the gravity of war and military engagement better than anyone else.

As a guy who never did military service, I don't think Heinlein's ideas about public service were too far off.  If you're invested in society, you're much more likely to take a keen interest in what politicians do.  (That's definitely something to consider in America where less than half the population votes; the same happens in Portugal: in the last May Elections for the European Parliament around 70% didn’t vote; I know, I know, the weather was terrific as it usually is at this time of the year).   I do have a beef with his notion that veterans as a whole would make a government brisk and orderly like a military organization.  Those types of military organizations, despite desperate PR from the military worldwide say, do not exist.  Only fake veterans and general officers believe they do.

I might add that Heinlein never said in “Starship Troopers” that violence was the preferred way to resolve problems. He denounced a Pollyanna sentiment current then and now that "violence never solves anything."  And cites historical fact to back to back it.  Certainly as a Naval academy guy he was OK with it.  But he never said he preferred it.  Also, while the state in “Starship Troopers” was clearly authoritarian and militaristic.  But it wasn't, near as I could tell, fascist.  There was no dictator, Committee of Public Safety or God Emperor Figure to pledge allegiance too.

I'll go to bat for Heinlein's book but not for Haldeman's. And I think MOST people who read it and analyzed it (ironically including the military) underestimate Heinlein as a writer and as a thinker. A good chunk of that book was written AS SATIRE. It intentionally goes past the point of reason and shows its failings time and again to demonstrate the absurdity of an absolutist position. The movie was actually a great representation of the book in that it made the cheesy militaristic propaganda satire even more apparent so a wider audience could "get it." And if people think the movie is being serious then...they need to have their head examined.

I don't think, for example, that one has to be an "apologist" to feel he makes some valid points in Starship Troopers. And the political failings of militaristic dictatorships does NOTHING to subvert Heinlein's assertion that veterans can act from a point of view of service -- HE was talking about people who VOLUNTARILY placed themselves at the service of the state, NOT draftees who did NOT choose. Finally, why, oh why, would you use an image from that horrible movie version of “Starship Troopers”?   The armor didn't look like that, the bugs didn't look like that, etc. I always appreciated Heinlein's logic even while recognizing it's practical limitations (people are not logical and when they are they are rarely happy about it) in the real world. He was writing fiction after all. Did he really intend these stories to be statements about the world around him or were they simply stories for their time?

I see the parallels to the cold war (and even WWII) in “Starship Troopers” but really never considered that saying something like "Any breed which stops its own increase gets crowded out..." was at all the same as saying "Any group of anatomically and culturally similar people that stop their own increase...". For now at least, it seems morally OK (even right) to be a humanist and exercise our privilege over other animals and life on the planet. We make them our tools, playthings, and food without any regrets at all. If chimpanzees became powerful enough to be our enemies, would we really have any compunction against killing them? How long would it really take for us to see them as people? Then again the lines between species is oft blurred. Hardly anyone ever gets this right: In "Starship Troopers" military service is not the only way to get a vote. It's service of ANY sort, military or non-military. You volunteer to serve, and the state MUST accept your service, no matter what you are capable of, and you must accept the service offered once you have volunteered. You might be sent to do medical research, or might be sent to build infrastructure in the wilderness, or if you are healthy, young and they need soldiers at that moment, well, you probably will get sent to the military. But it isn't "serve in the military or you can't vote"!

What about "The Forever War"? It pales in comparison. I like the concept but it sounds like it was an utter failure. Several of the concepts seemed neat to me. Like even the idea of a future where homosexuality is the norm; it would be interesting to see a straight character deal with that. But then to make the entire population into some halfhearted cliché.... It was this clichéd, and then to have a character undergo treatment to be straight in the end like it was some kind of happy ending didn't sit right with me at all. But the concepts were excellent. In a way that makes it even worse because it could have been great. It just didn't do it for me. I’ve got another bone to pick with the story; I will say it comes off as a little misogynistic as there's a law that states the female soldiers have to screw the men so that they can let off steam, but that's off-set by the fact that in terms of ability, intellect, and overall development the women are portrayed as equals to the men.  

Non-Hubris SF: "Have Space Suit-Will Travel" by Robert A. Heinlein

(My own edition))

I feel like there is a weird bias when analyzing Heinlein’s work and this book in particular.

I never really got that the Competent Man in Heinlein books was presented as the norm. It was always the protagonist or the protagonist's mentor, characters who can be expected to be exceptional in some way. There were always people beyond reclamation, but Jubal and Lazarus always tried to elevate people around them. They thought everyone should be competent while knowing not everyone was and also that some were determined to not be competent.

I am one of those neckbeards that took that message but not in the way some people might suggest. I set out from a very young age to have the broadest set of skills and knowledge I could acquire while also acquiring sufficient depth on a few of them to be able to have a career. While this has resulted in more hobbies and unfinished projects than I can count, the unexpected benefits have more than paid off in both reduced cost of living by being able to make and maintain a lot of my own stuff myself and also through finding novel solutions by bringing unusual experience to problem solving in my various jobs. Additionally, I never got the general disrespect of academia Heinlein’s books have. I got the disrespect of excessive academia, totally divorced from practicality. But there was clear respect for people who had to be specialized to the exclusion of general competence when it was clear that was necessary to apply sufficient brain-power to the problem being considered. There wasn't time for such people to develop general competence. Those people were to be funded and protected, not disrespected.

Almost no Greek character is free of hubris. Odysseus got cursed by Poseidon all because he bragged to the blinded Cyclops and told him his real name. Theseus got locked in Hell for trying to kidnap Persephone. Perseus was an idiot to agree to hunt Medusa in the first place and had to be helped out through divine intervention or he never could have done it. Heinlein is just carrying the torch so to speak.

If you want to know the more idealistic side of Heinlein’s ‘competent man’ in his young-adult stories, track down this one and ‘Citizen of the Galaxy’. They’re probably two of his best YA novels and can show how these ideas play out.

Maybe I am alone in this.

SF = Speculative Fiction.

Emotional Disconnect: "Friday" by Robert A. Heinlein

(My edition)

"Friday" is typical of some of Heinlein's style used in some of his not so successful books. Heinlein certainly likes his archetypes, as he should. Jubal Harshaw in “Stranger in a Strange Land,” for example, is just another Boss, a mysterious ultra-rich, cynical genius and Mike is the super-powered innocent growing into his own. I appreciate the feelings more when they are mixed with cunning. Friday was extremely intelligent, but her thoughts, while calculated, were contrived. Her mind had the same feel as the rest of her "just-in-time" powers, which is exactly what deadened her internal conflict for me. Her flip-flops between acting like an alien observer to silly humans, and like a human longing to fit in. So, she's a lot like nerds in 80s sitcoms. The problem was her emotional disconnect as an observer is so pronounced that she basically stops appearing human for small pockets of time. When she was raped early in the story, she was able to brush it off with (again, convenient) "mind control" techniques. She didn't walk away from the situation traumatized; although she did have a nearly-murderous grudge.

My point is that even Friday's psychological state is ultimately indestructible, which hurt the only real conflict that seemed to matter in the story. Even the alien mindset thing can be done well if it has an impact on other characters (Dr. Manhattan is a good example again, with whether he's too alienated to care if humanity ends being a big question throughout). I guess Heinlein had to be aware that the character is indestructible to do anything interesting with them; if they're constantly trying to fake the audience out with the character not really being indestructible, they might not even realize what kind of character they've written themselves.

What supports my point of view, by the way, is that in the end, Friday finds "home" but notice that her tension is actually unresolved, because her locus of emotional control is still exterior, rather than one of self-acceptance and "self-belonging." She depends on others for kittens and cuddles, much as she relied on Boss all the way though. She presents the image of a strong, independent woman, but never quite embodies it, despite being in God Mode.  

Calvinistic Heinlein (NOT!): "The Classical Years of Robert A. Heinlein" by George Edgar Slusser

Published 1977 (re-edition 2012).

"Heinlein is a writer who represents a certain strain in our culture, a kind of secular Calvinist vision of the world of the elect and the damned.”

From “The Classics Years of Robert A. Heinlein” by George Edgar Slusser

“Heinlein rarely discussed his own stories at all except in shoptalk with another writer – but he made an exception here. In response to a question about “Coventry” and the “Calvinist” reading that had been advanced by George Edgar Slusser, he hardly needed to think about the problem. Stover and Slusser were both mistaken: they had taken different gambits written into the story that misdirected their thinking.”

From “Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: 1948-1988. The Man Who Learned Better” by William H. Patterson, Jr.

I was not convinced by Slusser's circular arguments. What I needed was a balanced and objective view, one that would put Heinlein's strengths and many weaknesses into a rounded view, namely is supposed Calvinism. I did not find it here. Philip K. Dick was the only writer to “suffer” a Calvinistic canonization, where every word he ever wrote seemed (seems?) to be treated as sacred writ (e.g., his religious visions are still taken seriously in this day and age). As for Heinlein, I still think the so-called solipsism of his latter novels is much more pronounced than his supposed TULIP-Calvinism.

Appreneurship: "Everything You Need to Make a Killer App" by Kerry Butters, John Waldron, Matt Whetton

Published March, 2015

If you start having the following symptoms that means you're coming down with a case of Appreneurship: You can’t stop thinking about it as you fall asleep at night; your mind comes back to it when you know you should be concentrating on your day-job; you get distracted watching Blade Runner on TV.

As soon as the idea to create an app pops up in your mind, there's no letting go until you build it. If you haven't got any idea how to get started, this book is for you:

Research

Planning an App

Business Plan

Working out the costs

Outsourcing Development

Building the App (essential tools to go about the business of creating Apps)

In-App Advertising and monetization

Supporting and Updating the App

Resources available on the Internet (e.g., AppTrace, etc)

It covers all the App markets available (Apple AppStore, Google Play Store, Blackberry, Amazon AppStore, and Windows Store). As everything worth doing in life, it pays off to be prepared...

The most important titbit of the book showed up regarding the use Eclipse when developing for the Google Play Store: “Many people say that it’s easy to code for iOS than it is for Android purely because Google’s IDE is [ ] embarrassingly bad. Slow, clunky, counterintuitive when not outright baffling, poorly laid out, needlessly complex, it’s just a mess”. My thoughts exactly. Maybe Android Studio will be a turnaround. I’m not sure. I haven’t used it yet.

As someone who has done some research regarding App Building, I’ve come across a lot of the so-called Sites where it’s advertised that we can put an App out in the market in just a few minutes without having to use any kind of coding skills… a few examples: iBuildApp, Appypie, AppsBuilder, etc. Forget about them if one wants to produce nice-looking Apps. Quoting Heinlein’s TANSTAAFL (There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch), don’t expect free tools to do the work for you. Anything that takes away my ability to create custom code is unlikely to be a good thing. I already knew this, but the book’s authors emphasized this fact in very strong terms. In the age of “everything-goes”, it’s always very refreshing when someone advocates the fact that hard word always pays off in the long run. If you’re in the business of wanting to make money as an App Builder, taking shortcuts is not the answer. Moreover when using this free App Builders available on the internet, don’t expect to be able to provide the App with a robust Security layer. For me this fact alone is enough to put me off using these free tools.

The only thing missing in this book is a template for producing a working and salable Business Plan to allow you to pitch the idea to potential investors. If you intend to develop the App on your spare time, this template might be waived. Even then I’d advise you to use some sort of Simple Business Plan, to allow you to jot down what you need and the costs of your Development Process.

"Robert A. Heinlein, Volume 2: In Dialogue with His Century: 1948-1988: The Man Who Learned Better" by William H. Patterson Jr.

Disclaimer: I was recruited into my professional career by reading Heinlein in my formative years, especially the juveniles. I didn’t even pretend to be unbiased when writing this. So read on at your own peril.    

When modern SF began, there were two kinds of SF writers: those who broke into print at the top of their powers, like Burroughs and Van Vogt, and those whose later work showed significant improvement. In spite of Heinlein’s early reputation, his writing grew steadily in skill and power, particularly in stories at the longer lengths. Heinlein’s early stories were better than those of a beginner, perhaps because he was 32 when he started, but they were appealing more for their philosophy, toughness, and ability to evoke societies economically than their narrative skills. This is not to say that Heinlein did not publish significant fiction in his early years. He soon was producing short stories of revolutionary insight and developing artfulness: “Coventry”, “The Roads Must Roll…”, “The Long Watch”, “Solution Unsatisfactory”, “The Man Who Traveled In Elephants”. I still remember my first reaction when I read “The Puppet Masters” (first in Portuguese, and later on in English):”Oh, no! not the parasitic aliens again!” And then my surprise faded into admiration at the way Heinlein had rejuvenated that ancient idea. Heinlein had a talent to rehash old ideas and making them new again: solipsism, time paradox, immortality, superman, you name it. His skill made the parasitic aliens the reader’s nightmare as well.

In Heinlein’s body of work I always came across a great deal of process. I always sensed that Heinlein himself was fascinated by the way things were done and had one hell of a kick by describing it (eg, the way spaceships fly, the way revolutions are made, the way society works). Process makes fascinating reading when it’s properly handled, ie, when it’s implied rather than lecture about (eg, in the short story “Universe” the process by which reality becomes myth is implied by the way the reality of the self-contained spaceship is translated into religious imagery). Is “The Puppet Masters” just an adventure novel? Not by a long shot. It’s also aBildungsroman. The main character’s competence evolves throughout the novel.

 (my own Heinlein personal library at home)

I’ve seen and read lots of Heinlein bashing regarding the competence (or lack of it) issue. It just seems elitist and is sometimes condemned .by people who are committed to democracy and a belief in the collective wisdom of the people under any circumstances. My reading of this issue is that many fail to see that Heinlein’s worlds are worlds in crises. Civilization are threatened, and competence is the single important quality. What would be the qualities Heinlein would value in a world without crises? It’s anybody’s guess. It’s not in Heinlein’s scope. 

I haven’t read Heinlein in a long time. When I was actively reading everything I could lay my hands on about him, I started to get the feeling that the more I looked into his work, the more difficult he was to pin down. After reading more than 1300 pages (2 volumes) of his biography, I can surely understand why that is. 

Patterson’s 2-volume take on Heinlein is not top-notch, but to dismiss it as a failed biography – because literary critique and close reading are missing, because of its open fandomness, and so forth – would be to deny by omission the translucent, effortless ephiphanousness of both books, which resides less in its nature as biography than in the fact that it reads as a kind of elated fannish elegy regarding Heinlein. As a fan myself this is the book that I’d have liked (almost) to have written.

Bottom-line: If you are an Heinlein fan read the 2 volumes. I won’t promise you’ll get an unbiased account of Heinlein’s life; if you are not an Heinlein fan, read it anyway. You’ll get to hear the Old Man’s voice through numerous letters. That’s a real treat all by itself.

NB: In own “my personal” Heinlein library I always pretend that the books after “Time Enough for Love” (including “The Number of the Beast”) were never published, and go re-read again “Citizen of the Galaxy”(my personal favourite), “The Past through Tomorrow”, ”Have Space – Will Travel”, “Double Star”, “The Star Beast”, “Red Planet” (uncut edition), “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”…

Review of the first volume.

NB: SF = Speculative Fiction

"Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1 (1907-1948): Learning Curve" by William H. Patterson Jr.

For the complete Patterson review of the 2-volumes biography, see review.

I’ve selected a few texts in direct speech, to illustrate some of his ideas, which I think worth retaining, because they help us understand the man as well as the writer (many more could have been extracted).

Volume 1:

1. “How long this racket has been going on? And why didn’t anybody tell me about it sooner?” (when Heinlein made the first sale to Campbell: “Life-Line”)
2. “I have been writing the Horatio Alger books of this generation, always with the same strongly moral purpose that runs through every line of the Alger books (which strongly influenced me;  I read them all):

• “Honesty is the best policy.”
• “Hard work is rewarded.”
• “There is no easy road to success.”
• “Courage above all.”
• “Studying hard pays off, in happiness as well as in money.”
• “Stand on you own feet.”
• “Don’t ever be bullied.”
• “Take your medicine.”
• “The world always has a place for a man who works, but none for the lazy.”

These are the things that the Alger books said to me, in the idiom suited to my generation; I believed them when I read them, I believe them now, and I have tried to say them to a younger generation which I believe has been shamefully neglected by many of the elders responsible of its moral training.” (now we understand where the “competence” theme comes from…)

Volume 2:

1. Heinlein had two ambitious in life: to go to the moon and to meet Dorothy Lamour.
2. “Let me take time to make it clear that I regard McCarthy as a revolting son of a bitch, with no regard for truth, justice, nor civil rights – also that I think his purposes were demagogic and personally ambitious, not patriotic. All clear?”
3. “This genre is not a sub-genre of adventure fiction (even though many of the tales in it are adventurous)… This field is concerned with new Ideas, new possibilities, new ways of looking at things… which is precisely why it is so attractive to young people and so little read by older people, ie, read only by those who have kept their minds young. Now if a story does not take the cultural framework we live in, stretch it, twist it, turn it upside down and examine it for leaks, rearrange the parts and see how they would relate in a new arrangement – in short, explore possibilities and play games with ideas – it is not really a story of this genre at all but merely a western translated into the wider open spaces of the stars.”
4. “Speculative fiction is much more realistic than most historical and contemporary scene fiction [mainstream] and is superior to them both.”
5. “One is the notion that knowledge is worth acquiring, all knowledge, and that a solid ground in mathematics provides one with the essential language of many of the most important forms of knowledge. The third theme is that, while it is desirable to live peaceably, there are things worth fighting for and values worth dying for – and that it is far better for a man to die under circumstances that call for such sacrifice. The fourth theme is that individual human freedoms are of basic value, without which mankind is less than human.”
6. “Some critics say that my stories always contain a wise and crusty old man who is my own concept of myself. Not true. They are all different and they are not self-portraits; there are many men who indeed lived and who were my mentors – and now they are all gone to whatever Valhalla there may be for such men…”
7. “If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you” (Don Marquis)