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MicaelS

(8,747 posts)
Mon Mar 11, 2019, 05:10 PM Mar 2019

A New Robert A. Heinlein Book to be Published.

https://www.arcmanormagazines.com/six-six-six

Phoenix Pick recently announced that, working with the Heinlein Prize Trust, they have been able to reconstruct the complete text of an unpublished novel written by Robert A. Heinlein.

Heinlein wrote this as an alternate text for THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST. This text of approximately 185,000 words largely mirrors the first third of the published text, but then deviates completely with an entirely different story-line and ending.

The alternate text, especially the ending, is much more in line with traditional Heinlein books, and moves away from many of the controversial aspects of the published THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST.

There has been speculation over the years about a possible alternate text, and the reason it was written, particularly since one book is not just a redo of the other ─ these are two completely different books.​


Really looking forward to this. Beast started out great, but then went sideways. I was enthralled with it when it first came out. But then realized it was pretty bad, though it did set things up for the last few books he wrote after Friday.
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TlalocW

(15,358 posts)
1. I've enjoyed some of Heinlein's work
Mon Mar 11, 2019, 05:47 PM
Mar 2019

There's nothing like a strange, futuristic setting where libertarianism works.

TlalocW

rsdsharp

(9,035 posts)
2. Heinlein originally wrote Number of the Beast before his carotid bypass.
Mon Mar 11, 2019, 05:56 PM
Mar 2019

He called it Panki-Barsoom Number of the Beast. His (third) wife, Virginia, was his sounding board. She thought it "perfectly competent yard goods, [but] just not a Heinlein novel," and reluctantly advised against publication. Heinlein himself later called it "worse than bad. . . It was mediocre." After his bypass he went back to work, and what was published was the end result. William H. Patterson, Robert Heinlein in Dialogue With His Century, volume 2, the Man Who Learned Better, pages 393-407. I'm guessing this "new" novel is the first draft.

Heinlein kept ALL of his drafts, and frankly, I'm surprised this wasn't published earlier. At one point after his death, Ginny was publishing everything but old grocery lists, including his 1950s travelogue Tramp Royale for which he was unable to find a publisher during his lifetime.

MicaelS

(8,747 posts)
4. Do you think Ginny was as RW...
Mon Mar 11, 2019, 06:03 PM
Mar 2019

As others have often claimed she was? Do you think this was caused Heinlein;'s right turn?

rsdsharp

(9,035 posts)
9. In a word, yes, although it's probably more complicated than that.
Tue Mar 12, 2019, 11:08 AM
Mar 2019

Heinlein's politics generally reflected those of his wife at the time. He was married briefly right after graduating from Annapolis, they rarely lived together, and divorced in less than a year, so that really doesn't count. His second wife, Leslyn, was very liberal, both politically and sexually. Shortly after their marriage in 1932, he was medically retired from the navy, and they largely lived on his small retirement pension until he began publishing science fiction in 1939.

Both she and RAH were active in Upton Sinclair's 1934 campaign for California governor -- the EPIC campaign (End Poverty in California). It was in essence, socialism. His first novel was about a guy who woke up in the future where everyone has a guaranteed income. It didn't sell, and he withdrew it from the market, despite his rule that you must keep material on the market until it is sold. Near the end of his life he tried to destroy all copies. One remained in the UCSC archives after both he and Ginny died, was discovered and published. I've read it; it's not up to Heinlein's standards. He was not allowed back in the navy during WWII because he had written a letter to the editor espousing liberal positions and signed it Robert A. Heinlein, Lt. USN (ret.)

Heinlein had strongly supported FDR until he read an article after the war that Roosevelt had allowed, even plotted, to let Pearl Harbor happen. He advocated world control of atomic weapons, but then decried Eisenhower over limiting nuclear testing. He wrote an article called the Sons of Patrick Henry on the subject, and spent months trying to gin up a campaign in opposition to Eisenhower's decision. By 1964 he and Ginny were very active in supporting Goldwater. The longer he was married to Ginny (and they were married more than 40 years), the farther right he went. He claimed he always remained a classic liberal, and that both sides moved farther away from him, and that may have been true in his mind, but he admitted that Ginny "re-educated" him on economics.

I've always wondered what his politics would have been if Leslyn's alcoholism hadn't caused the divorce in 1947.

MicaelS

(8,747 posts)
12. I read just yesterday that Leslyn and Robert's
Tue Mar 12, 2019, 03:07 PM
Mar 2019

Marriage was an open marriage and both had multiple affairs. He then met Ginny and wanted to turn their marriage into a triune. Leslyn said no, and that was the cause of the difference.

rsdsharp

(9,035 posts)
13. William Patterson discusses this near the end of the first volume of his two-part RAH bio
Tue Mar 12, 2019, 03:40 PM
Mar 2019

and in Appendix 2 to volume 2. The marriage was open from the start (in fact Leslyn had an affair with L. Ron Hubbard, among others). Both of the Heinleins met Ginny in Philadelphia when they were working as civilian contractors during the war. Ginny was in the Navy at the time. After they returned to California Leslyn began to drink. She hid bottles all over the house, and began throwing herself at men while drunk.

According to an excerpt of a letter in Appendix 2 Heinlein had wanted to move Ginny into their home in the summer of 1947, Leslyn refused at first, and then relented. Heinlein and Ginny had an affair in the Heinlein house during that period (she had been a virgin at the start of it), but she subsequently moved out, because of Leslyn's attitude. Leslyn's drinking worsened, and that is what really led to the breakup. During the separation, and even after the divorce, Leslyn wrote numerous poison pen letters to mutual friends regarding Heinlein. Most of those friends sided with Robert.

rsdsharp

(9,035 posts)
16. You're welcome. I'm obviously a Heinlein freak.
Wed Mar 13, 2019, 10:34 AM
Mar 2019

Patterson's two volume biography, the only authorized biography of Heinlein, is well worth the read. Ginny asked him to write it, and gave him total access to the archives at UCSC. A small portion of Heinlein's correspondence which appears in the bio had previously been published in Grumbles from the Grave.

MicaelS

(8,747 posts)
17. I will have to read that.
Wed Mar 13, 2019, 03:43 PM
Mar 2019

Have you read the The Robert Heinlein Interview and Other Heinleiniana by Schuman?

What do you think of that?

I have ordered all three via Inter Library Loan from the Ft Worth Public Library.

First Speaker

(4,858 posts)
5. Thank you. This makes my day...
Mon Mar 11, 2019, 06:31 PM
Mar 2019

...as a true-blue RAH fan, I'm looking forward to this. I rather like ...BEAST, if only because of its weird, Dickian-like vibes. But I admittedly thought it wandered off-point too much. If this is more like "regular" Heinlein, I can't wait...

OriginalGeek

(12,132 posts)
6. I'm pretty sure I've read all his books
Mon Mar 11, 2019, 09:20 PM
Mar 2019

But that was so long ago I barely remember most of them. Beast is one I barely remember so this ought to be fun.

First Speaker

(4,858 posts)
7. They're very much worth re-reading...
Mon Mar 11, 2019, 11:19 PM
Mar 2019

...especially *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress*, both for its Libertarian ideology--whatever you think of it, RAH is 1000% more plausible than Ayn Rand--and its sheer sweep of story; *Beyond This Horizon*, for its vital future utopia and its bizarre, but oddly plausible, combination of extreme socialism and extreme capitalism; *The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag*, which out-Dicks Philip K Dick regarding what-is-reality and has a great mid-20th century noirish feel; and *Revolt in 2100*, written in 1940, which predicts our era uncannily well, and posits a religious dictatorship that came to the US...in the election of 2016. I kid you not.

First Speaker

(4,858 posts)
10. I may be the only one in America who likes *Go Set a Watchman*...
Tue Mar 12, 2019, 11:35 AM
Mar 2019

...even though it wasn't quite posthumous. But everyone is seeing it thru the lens of *...Mockingbird*--and of course it suffers in comparison. But if the first novel had never existed, and *Watchman* had been published as planned in the 50s, it would have an honorable place in the long tradition of Southern coming-of-age novels. It's really not bad.

Dave Starsky

(5,914 posts)
11. That was actually the first example that I thought of.
Tue Mar 12, 2019, 11:46 AM
Mar 2019

I never read it, but my dad did. He, like a lot of people, didn't care for it.

Actually, your post about Southern coming-of-age novels reminded me of A Confederacy of Dunces, which came out 11 years after John Kennedy Toole died. That one may actually BE an exception, but it's sort of a special case, because he really didn't have a body of pre-mortem work to begin with.

First Speaker

(4,858 posts)
14. I might also mention *The Silmarillion*...
Tue Mar 12, 2019, 03:49 PM
Mar 2019

...whether or not this is a "good novel", or even a novel at all, can be debated. But there isn't anything quite like it. This is Tolkien's *Finnegan's Wake*, one might say, if *The Hobbit* is regarded as his *Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man*, and *Lord of the Rings* seen as his *Ulysses*. This comparison isn't as absurd as might be thought--his background and Joyce's aren't all that dissimilar. I would bet on Tolkien's work lasting longer than Joyce's...

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