Robert Heinlein - Differing Views

 I do not buy Heinlein as a fascist. A provocateur, yes. 

I read some of him during prison, but my readings go back decades before that. The first novel I read was Stranger in a Strange Land, in my high school senior English. Between then and my mid-thirties I also managed to read The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers, Friday, Methuselah's Children, and The Cat Who Walked Through Walls. There was also a collection of his Future History stories. 

I did enjoy the later novels - not something I expect to find much support for - there was a playfulness to him. Perhaps sci-fi readers were not ready for literary fun.

There is a discussion in the first video of stories that I have not read. Therefore, not much to comment on there, but to say that the dictatorship Heinlein foresaw was a theocratic one. Decades before Margaret Atwood, by the way.

 

 Make up your own mind. 

More troublesome is Heinlein's prose. I am not so sure that it will stand today - he retains more of the pulps than does Asimov. See what you think.

sch 11/25