Quote:
Originally Posted by barryem
I think at some point Heinlein must have gotten old and had to rely on sexual fantasies and his books became heavily influenced by them. I think that was first true in "Time Enough for Love", even though that was an excellent book, maybe his best. By the time he wrote "Friday" I think maybe that was about all he had left.
It wasn't a bad book but I don't think Heinlein was really the same by then. I didn't read any of his later books. That's okay though. He wrote enough really good books before he got strange. 
Barry |
I thought RAH started down that route back in the 60's with "
Stranger in a Strange Land". Then we move on to
Farnham's Freehold. Perhaps it started even earlier in
Starship Troopers -- there seemed to be quite a bit of concern about the difference between the sexes. Hmmm... what was that quote about wart hogs? "
No doubt a gentleman wart hog feels the same way about a lady wart hog—but, if so, both of us are very sincere."
"
That's what a sexual union should be. But that's what I slowly grokked it rarely was. Instead it was indifference and acts mechanically performed and rape and seduction as a game no better than roulette but less honest and prostitution and celibacy by choice and by no choice and fear and guilt and hatred and violence and children brought up to think that sex was 'bad' and 'shameful' and 'animal' and something to be hidden and always distrusted. This lovely perfect thing, male-femaleness, turned upside down and inside out and made horrible" -- Michael Valentine Smith,
Stranger in a Strange Land