Tuesday, April 24, 2018

BFOO Ahead, with Robert Heinlein

Reading Robert A. Heinlein’s “The Green Hills of Earth” kinda hits you with something: Whereas other science fiction writers are getting all philosophical on us and asking the Big Questions, Heinlein is busy answering the little questions.

Will settlements on the Moon and other planets develop their own cultures? You bet they will. And those visiting Earth from these other worlds will feel it.

Will kids wander off on the Moon and get lost? Duh.

Will these settlements be utopias, or will they have their own madmen? Do we even need to ask the question?

Heinlein is an eye-opener. Especially for a schlub like me who has written one speculative fiction novel that needs some brushing up.

Blinding flash of the obvious ahead: There’s such a variety of published matter out there. Who would have thought simple things like this would get ink (of course, this was in the era of pulp magazines and such, long gone now). And yet what Heinlein wrote certainly has a point: The normalcy of life here on Earth would follow mankind out into the solar system. Kudos to him for writing them down.

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