Comments on: Scalzi and Heinlein: Together at Last

By: TCO

TCO — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:33:15 +0000

hugs

By: John Scalzi

John Scalzi — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:14:39 +0000

Look, TCO, there’s a pit of rusty tetanus-laden razors over there! Go jump in it!

By: TCO

TCO — Sun, 11 May 2008 05:58:37 +0000

Well, you should have found out. What kind of worker are you. fucking slacker.

By: John Scalzi

John Scalzi — Sun, 11 May 2008 03:06:40 +0000

I’m not sure if they were spec or not. My own speculation is that inasmuch as Heinlein believed in getting paid, he got paid something for the scripts. But that’s only speculation.

By: TCO

TCO — Sun, 11 May 2008 01:19:27 +0000

No insights from reading his scripts as to the Rolling Stones plot? Also, did he write the scripts on spec or get paid regardless of airing?

By: steve davidson

steve davidson — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:53:54 +0000

I think one of the reasons for the lack of specific timeframe was the fact that the authors themselves began to see how far off some of their works had become and started advising the next generation NOT to put down specific dates.

The result is very Heinlienesque: listen to what the old man has to say, do it your own way anyhow and then live with the results.

By: Pengwenn

Pengwenn — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:43:37 +0000

“…they picked their years and guessed what life would be like then and essentially put their chips down. If they were wrong, oh well; they’d try again later. Today’s science fiction writers–and I include myself in this–are a little more cagey about it. Try to get us to put an actual year to our near-future fiction and see how far you get.”

Just curious by how big a definition to ‘near-future’ are you willing to give. 20 years? 50 years? When I read some of the golden age sci fi it seems that all the advances happen with 50 years or less. That, I would consider, ‘near future’ because it would happen in a life time. With sci fi written today societies are set up usually at least 100+ years in the future. Sometimes much more than that. I don’t consider that ‘near future’ because it wouldn’t happen in a lifetime.

Do you think current writers are pushing out the far end of the ‘near future’ further because they’re more aware of science and how long and hard it is to get anything done, i.e. building a moon colony (which is why they might not put a date on things)? Or is this a bias on the reader’s part?

By: John A Arkansawyer

John A Arkansawyer — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:40:50 +0000

Scalzi wisely says over there in his introduction:

I have my quibbles with Golden Age science fiction, much of it relating to the fact that even the progressive views of gender and sexual politics of the time are cringe-inducing now (Heinlein is no exception; he’s progressive enough in Project Moonbase to have a female in charge of the moon mission in 1970, but enough a product of his time to see nothing wrong with having a general threaten to spank said woman if she gets out of line, and have it not quite be a joke).

I think Fritz Lieber does be best of that bunch. Compare his scene with the colonel (a red-headed woman, just like in a Heinlein book, eh? Well...) and the general stuck in the elevator in The Wanderer. A far cry, eh? Okay, not fair. That's 1964 (but so is the underrated and misunderstood Farnham's Freehold). My copy of Conjure Wife (1942, I think) has gone missing, but there I think you have a fair comparison. Of course, the very early Heinlein (or does early just mean pre-Virginia?) is different yet again. I'm not sure but what Heinlein doesn't go backwards on women as he went forward in time.

By: Johnny Carruthers

Johnny Carruthers — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:29:55 +0000

I think Bob Eggleton would say it best: COOOOOL!

Of course, when he says it, it becomes a multi-syllable word.

By: Linkmeister

Linkmeister — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:17:31 +0000

You write about the Golden Age authors, “they picked their years and guessed what life would be like then”

Kinda like the first rule of predictive economics which I read a long time ago: “forecast often.”