Without the tunes to drive my pace, I revert to slogging along at what feels like a snail’s pace. Thirty-six minutes on what is often a thirty-three minute walk. The workout isn’t as good, but perhaps it’s for the better.
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“There could be so much more” …and there will be so much more!
I never thought about how hard it would be to go through old work. I’m so glad that I don’t have that sort of task to take on. It might make my stomach upset, too, if I had to look at my early abilities in the face. Of course, it is only you who sees where you have come from where you were. You are the one who looks at what you lacked. The rest of us celebrate that you started out so good and that you kept going and getting better.
I read Heinlein. He went bonkers in the end in my opinion, but he sure was good and prolific. He is on my list of to be read again some day. It would be interesting to find his first book or more likely, short story, and see how it was. I’ve already ready your books more times than I have any one of his; so put that in your pipe and smoke it. LOL
I’ve have trouble sorting that out, as I’ve re-read all of his books and shorts several times. You might be surprised. First published short: “Life-Line”, first published novel: Rocket Ship Galileo. Note: his last published – “For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs” was actually the first written – and while it shows in the writing, it also shows that a lot of the later concepts that people found so wacky were on his mind to begin with. Polyamory, negative income tax, the proper relationship of the government to its citizens – *AND* of citizens to citizens, including such things as paparazzi.
Heinlein was very much a *commercial* writer. He did not start out writing to put over a message, but simply to make money. That he *DID* put over so many wonderful messages is gravy. His idea was that if the customer/reader says “I don’t understand”, it’s the writer’s fault, not the readers – though he didn’t suffer fools gladly, either. Part of the change in his style came from moving away from writing books aimed at the juvenile/YA market, and part came from the change in society that he was writing for – what would have been shocking and debauched in his earliest works would have gotten yawns by the time he wrote Stranger and Farnham’s Freehold. I’m not sure how much of his stuff you have read, but I think you’d find much to enjoy in re-reading Space Cadet and Beyond Planets again, if you haven’t already.
Thanks, Tara Li. You do seem to know Heinlein much better than I do. I think I read around 10 books. I remember Stranger very well and liked it. I remember The Number of the Beast somewhat and found it very confusing and just weird. That is when I decided not to read more. I found “Between Planets” which I think you meant. I’ve added those on my list of ones I want to get to.
Wikipedia’s bibliography has them broken down fairly well – Early, Middle, and Later. Most of the early novels are Juvenile/Young Adult. (And yes, it was Between Planets. I often recommend Beyond This Horizon for other reasons, and my fingers got confused.)
Number of the Beast was more or less the culmination of a series – and at the same time, a radical departure into experimentation with viewpoint. If you’d only read that, without reading most of the previous Future History group of stories and novels, then confusing would be the least I would call it. It, and “I Will Fear No Evil” are probably the worst for new readers – IWFNE in part because Heinlein was extremely ill at the time in a very subtle manner due to heart blockages, and could not give the novel a proper pre-editing before handing it over to the publisher.
Heinlein, like Ayn Rand, can be a very polarizing author at times. It’s surprising how many people complain about his misogyny, not facing the fact that in general, his female leads were frighteningly competent, and his wife was amazingly accomplished.
I find it interesting the way you see the development of your writing in the stories. Perhaps I am simply a bad reader, but overall, I rather like the simplicity of Double Share and Half Share. They greatly remind me – and this is probably why I dove into them so strongly – of Heinlein’s juveniles, or Clarke’s Childhood’s End. Perhaps I am a Shaker at heart, preferring simplicity, elegance, and solid workmanship to the fancy frills and fripperies. That’s what I saw in the first three books.
And there’s nothing saying that at some point, when you’re out of ideas for new stories (yeah, like that’ll ever happen – damn plot bunnies breed like … well, like rabbits) you can always take a cue from Star Trek and do Quarter Share: The Reboot.
It would be interesting to read the first half of the Share series from the perspective of one of the McKendrick officers, maybe Mr. Maxwell, or Mr. Von Ickles.