NonStop Chatter

I read over on Slashdot that UC Santa Cruz is going to be putting all of Robert Heinlein’s archives online.

The first collection released includes 106,000 pages, consisting of Heinlein’s complete manuscripts - including files of all his published works, notes, research, early drafts and edits of manuscripts. The documents offer a window into Heinlein’s creative process and provide background and context for his work.

That’s going to be pretty impressive for fans. However, they’re not available for free, and I suspect much of this will be more of interest to researchers.

I’m a Heinlein fan from way back. I see his books differently than when I was younger, and don’t enjoy them all. Some just don’t have the same quality as others. But he did a lot to establish science fiction as a legitimate genre, and the science in his stories can be quite deeply buried.

And I’ll never forget the college roommate I had who didn’t understand why I loved science fiction. She was quite the naive sort, but had heard of Stranger in a Strange Land, and wanted to read it so that she could understand my interest. Those of you who have read that may be laughing at her already.

I didn’t let her read Stranger.

Instead, I gave her a much, much tamer book, StarBridge. It was hilarious. She was completely and utterly shocked that there could be sex in science fiction. Can you picture if she had read Stranger?

Could’ve been fun.

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