Stranger in a Strange Land coming to TV

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I just figured that the I, Robot movie was a cheesy piece of crap action flick who's scriptwriter and producer didn't care about Asimov. I felt bad for Alex Proyas, a director I otherwise respect.



I dunno about that. The stuff I mentioned was from various interviews with Paul Verhoeven.

I guess he never actually read the book then. Other than Heinlein's take on military service needed to get the vote, it was a pretty much a SF variation of the US experience in WW II, i.e. surprise attack and island hoping in the Pacific.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I guess he never actually read the book then. Other than Heinlein's take on military service needed to get the vote, it was a pretty much a SF variation of the US experience in WW II, i.e. surprise attack and island hoping in the Pacific.

I read an article which said that he read the first two chapters of the book, found it "too difficult", and had one of his minions read it and then tell him the outline of the story.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by HarryT

"Stranger" is a 16h audiobook, so that probably gives a rough indication of how long a TV series you'd need to include all of what's in the book. How long is a typical TV series in the US? 6h? 8h? In the UK a 1h timeslot on commercial TV is about 48m of programme, because of commercial breaks. I think it's rather less than that in the US, isn't it?

I'd assumed they would do their usual 3 x 2 hour miniseries (Dune, Ascension, Riverworld, Childhoods End etc).

Happy to be wrong of course.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'm assuming there's some reason they label his earlier works "juveniles" ?

The only ones referred to as "juveniles" are those that were explicitly written for what would now be called the YA market:

Rocket Ship Galileo, 1947
Space Cadet, 1948
Red Planet, 1949
Farmer in the Sky, 1950
Between Planets, 1951
The Rolling Stones aka Space Family Stone, 1952
Starman Jones, 1953
The Star Beast, 1954
Tunnel in the Sky, 1955
Time for the Stars, 1956
Citizen of the Galaxy, 1957
Have Space Suit—Will Travel, 1958

Some also include Starship Troopers and Podkayne of Mars.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The only ones referred to as "juveniles" are those that were explicitly written for what would now be called the YA market:

Rocket Ship Galileo, 1947
Space Cadet, 1948
Red Planet, 1949
Farmer in the Sky, 1950
Between Planets, 1951
The Rolling Stones aka Space Family Stone, 1952
Starman Jones, 1953
The Star Beast, 1954
Tunnel in the Sky, 1955
Time for the Stars, 1956
Citizen of the Galaxy, 1957
Have Space Suit—Will Travel, 1958

Some also include Starship Troopers and Podkayne of Mars.

Thanks. I see what caused my confusion. Wikipedia has the novels divided into Early, Middle and Late; with the Scribner's "juveniles" denoted with asterisks. I was assuming all of the early novels were considered part of his "juvenile" series.

I didn't attempt to read Starship Troopers until after I was in my thirties. I just don't think it held up very well (despite its groundbreaking technological "predictions" at the time. It seemed very "Boys Life"-ish to me. Perhaps if I'd read it at an impressionable age, I'd feel differently about it (and his Early novels in general).

[Greg Anos]

The best way to analyse Heinlein's works are to divide them by market.

The Campbell Era - 1939 to 1945

The "Slicks" era - 1946 to 1953

The Scribner's Juveniles era - 1947 to 1959 (Starship Troopers is part of the Scribner's Era, it was written for them, but Scribner's bounced it.)

The "Big Novel" era - 1961 to 1988

Yes, there are flyers- oddities that don't fit the era, but this is a good way to look at his works.

Each era had different editorial requirements, and each had a different tone. To each their own taste.

[GrannyGrump]

I do love Heinlein, including the juveniles.
But was I the only one to find the rather intense incest theme off-putting in "To Sail Beyond the Sunset"? I know, I know --- consenting adults and all that, but a few mid-teenager's encounters with their elders seemed to fall under his umbrella. (He had written about incest in several earlier works, but not to the extent of this one...)

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

I do love Heinlein, including the juveniles.
But was I the only one to find the rather intense incest theme off-putting in "To Sail Beyond the Sunset"? I know, I know --- consenting adults and all that, but a few mid-teenager's encounters with their elders seemed to fall under his umbrella. (He had written about incest in several earlier works, but not to the extent of this one...)

Time enough for Love also had a rather obvious incest theme (him and his mother). Let's just say that a psychiatrist would have a field day with many of his later novels.

[GrannyGrump]

Especially when you consider how he had often written disparagingly about clueless and simpering whimpering mothers (I am thinking of some of the juveniles here, such as "Space Cadet" and "Time for the Stars"). Must have been a whee! of a midlife crisis that turned him around...

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

Especially when you consider how he had often written disparagingly about clueless and simpering whimpering mothers (I am thinking of some of the juveniles here, such as "Space Cadet" and "Time for the Stars"). Must have been a whee! of a midlife crisis that turned him around...

Or a lack of editorial control in his later years. By the time of Stranger, he was making the current equivalent of a $200,000 USD from residual royalties. He felt he could write whatever he wanted to, thereafter.

Seriously, if you want to look at the man behind the books, read Patterson's 2 volume biography. Also read For Us, The Living, which had no editor, and was written on spec (and didn't sell) in 1938.

[DiapDealer]

I don't know that one can accurately claim that incest was the theme of Time Enough for Love. It played a role, to be sure, but it's not as if it was the driving force behind the entire narrative. For those who found it distasteful or shocking, it's likely that that's just what they recall most vividly.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

Especially when you consider how he had often written disparagingly about clueless and simpering whimpering mothers (I am thinking of some of the juveniles here, such as "Space Cadet" and "Time for the Stars"). Must have been a whee! of a midlife crisis that turned him around...

If I recall correctly, he had some sort illness that some say changed him.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I don't know that one can accurately claim that incest was the theme of Time Enough for Love. It played a role, to be sure, but it's not as if it was the driving force behind the entire narrative. For those who found it distasteful or shocking, it's likely that that's just what they recall most vividly.

A theme doesn't have to be the driving force behind the entire narrative. Many works have multiple themes. It didn't offend me, I simply noted that the element was there in Time Enough For Love, as well.

Time Enough for Love was the last Heinlein book (chronologically) the I bought way back when.

[BenG]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

If I recall correctly, he had some sort illness that some say changed him.

I liked most of his work up until 1973 when a series of health problems (peritonitis, a mini-stroke, and heart bypass surgery) resulted in him not publishing anything for seven years. It seems to me that his 1980s books were not as good as his earlier work.
Time Enough For Love was the last book I really liked.

[fjtorres]

An author's importance, especially in a field like SF, is not determined solely by their popularity with readers. (Something anybody familiar with classics is familiar with.) Their role in the history of the field at the time and their influence over other authors is at least as important as whether or not the masses liked his works at a particular time. Many a popular author fades in significance while "lesser" authors endure through the decades or even centuries.

Heinlein, Clark, and Asimov stand among the greatest of the field in the 20th because they each in one way or another molded it into what it is today. Asimov brought in cold rationalism, Clarke brought in discipline and scientific rigor (even when extrapolating), and Heinlein brought in narrative sophistication. Whatever you may think of the man and his politics none of his stories was ever simple, much less simplistic.

To appreciate his importance, try reading stories from before he exploded on the scene (ASIMOV'S BEFORE THE GOLDEN AGE is a good anthology for this) and then read THE ROADS MUST ROLL. In a field dominated by high concept and straight forward (sic) narratives he brought in an unreliable narrator. He met the requirements of the market and then hit the reader with a reveal that flipped the reader's perception of good guys and bad guys, dropping the reader into a world where simple black and white, good vs evil, didn't work. His worlds more often than not are, like the real world, complex messes of conflicting agendas. That was new. Also new was the fact that his stories filled out a common multigenerational timeline, his Future History. And how often do we see that today? All over.

Heinlein was, like ERB, a successful commercial writer who wrote to the norms of the market and submitted to the demands of the establishment. Judging him solely by today's mores misses the point that if he didn't fit the market he wouldn't have been published at all. But for all that he still pushed the envelope here and there. Early on, in small ways. Later, as he grew more powerful, in bigger ways. Eventually, he became too big to edit and lost his discipline but still...

It is not surprising that STARSHIP TROOPERS bounced. At the height of the McCarthy era he wrote of a filipino boy from a unified Earth with a government headquartered in Buenos Aires? Not Washington or Chicago? No way was the establishment of the day going to be comfortable with that.

Or how about the political undertones of THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS where a group of disaffected "third world rabble" types replay the American "Revolution" on the moon against an oppressive first world regime, right around thectime when "liberation movements" sprinkled the planet.

Look closely at STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND and look past the sex and you see a question of the role of religion in societies. Or how his focus on cannibalism might be taken as a metaphor that for societies and cultures to evolve they need to eat their past and move on, not embalm it and worship it. (Think of the "atheist" soviets and Lenin.)

There is subtlety and slyness in Heinlein as he fought the establishment which was lost once he won his war. He literally became just a bit too big.

(By the way, the Big Three aren't the only writers that molded the field. There's several unappreciated masters from the 30's to the 50's and 60's that rank just behind them that don't get their due. Whole other rant, though.)