Quote:
Originally Posted by RickyMaveety
Maybe it's a chick thing. But, I really honestly thought they were so awful, I wished I could get my money back. I felt like I had wasted the time I spent reading them ... that sort of awful.
And, I know that authors write for the money ... even the greats. But, it just bothers me to see a great author turn out dreck just because people could make money on the dreck.
However ... life being what it is .... I suppose I'll just have to get used to it and learn to shut up.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
A lot of this does seem to break down along gender lines.
A female writer I corresponded with on another forum once commented "Heinlein is a sexist. He thinks women are superior." I think she was right, but she was also a little unhappy with some of the reasons RAH seemed to feel women were superior.
I was less pleased with later works than earlier ones, but I saw it as part of the process. Heinlein was raised in the Bible Belt portion of the midwest, and a lot of his work can be read as him systematically examining the assumptions he was raised with, and asking "Does this make sense?" The answer was often "No", though his reactions didn't always hold up under scrutiny. For example, there are other reasons besides recessives and genetic defects for incest taboos.
I kept reading despite quibbles because Heinlein was still reaching for new things and attempting to grow as a writer, even at the end. I don't think he found what he was reaching for, but the fact that he was reaching counts for a lot. I'd rather read an interesting failure than a boring success when an author is simply turning out one more of a proven formula.
I wasn't referring to why RAH wrote it: I was talking about why editors bought it.
By the time of the later books, Heinlein was financially secure. He would certainly want to make money, since he was a selling pro, but he didn't have to write to survive.
An example in a different context, take Isaac Asimov. Isaac had to write. Even when he no longer needed to sell regularly to get money, he wrote. I heard a story years back that his wife complained because he took a typewriter when they went on vacation. If he didn't write every day, he was uncomfortable and unhappy.
No, no. You're welcome to express the opinion, and you have valid reasons for feeling that way. This is intensely subjective. The fact that I don't necessarily agree doesn't make you wrong.
One of the reasons I like places like this is precisely the disagreements. I'm delighted when someone can express a view of a book I didn't like that gives me a different perspective, and a handle by which I can successfully grab it. "Hmmm. I didn't think of it that way. You're right!"
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Dennis
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Yeah, I don't think I phrased that very well. What I meant to say was that I hate to see a great author turn out dreck because he's not doing very well physically/mentally and the editors/publishers just want to make money off the dreck, so they go ahead and publish it. Not a comment on why RAH wrote it as much as a comment on why it was published as it was.
Nekokami mentioned the two books with which I was probably the most disappointed:
The Cat Who Walked Through Walls and
To Sail Beyond the Sunset. It got to the point where everytime those oversexed twins showed up ... I just started skipping pages.
I guess those are the equivalent for me of the Pope telling Michaelangelo "Just hurry up and finish the damn ceiling. I don't care what it looks like! We've got a line of tourists out here who are willing to pay good money to see it." I'll admit, I'm scrambling cultural references and timelines to make a point.
Yeah, I like this forum too. If only because much of the time I run across people whose perspective is very narrow. They can't think outside the box, and frankly don't ever want to. Some of them are very nice people, but they are not people who are going to give you a lively debate ... about anything. And, they have no clue when I say the best thing about a good argument is that it makes you
think about your own position ... you have to if you are going to defend it. Sadly, all to often these are prople that consider "thinking" to be blasphemy of the highest order.