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Originally Posted by sufue
What is the deal with the alternate endings for Heinlein titles?
A few pages back in this thread, Podkayne of Mars is indicated as having alternate endings. Now the blurb for the coming release (two posts up) of Red Planet says the same thing - it has had its original ending restored.
Were these originally written for adults, and then given "nicer" endings for kids, or something?
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Wikipedia says both were rewritten at the publisher's insistence.
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In Heinlein's original ending, Podkayne is killed. This did not please his publisher, who demanded and got a rewrite over the author's bitter objections. In a letter to Lurton Blassingame, his literary agent, Heinlein complained that it would be like "revising Romeo and Juliet to let the young lovers live happily ever after." He also declared that changing the end "isn't real life, because in real life, not everything ends happily."
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As with Podkayne of Mars, there are two versions of the ending. As originally written (and published much later) it is made clear that Willis will not emerge as an adult for forty years. This was edited and changed by Heinlein's publishers, as was a discussion early in the novel in which MacRae expresses strong support for adults and older children being free to carry handguns, and opposition to any government which would restrict that.
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