R.I.P. R.A.H.

May 8, 2001 1:45 PM

R.I.P. R.A.H.
posted by baylink (9 comments total)

13 years ago today.

My first was _Have Space Suit, Will Travel_, at age 6.
posted by baylink at 1:45 PM on May 8, 2001

Ghod what a wretched job they did filming Starship Troopers. What a disappointment.
posted by jfuller at 1:59 PM on May 8, 2001

I'm currently reading Dangerous Visions, but Stranger in a Strange Land is in my queue.
posted by john at 2:16 PM on May 8, 2001

I've loved this site for years. Gifford has done an excellent job.

Time Enough For Love will always be my favorite.

I found Heinlein via a very beaten copy of Rocket Ship Galileo while I was in grade school. After reading everything of his I could get my hands on I still wanted more.
posted by y6y6y6 at 2:36 PM on May 8, 2001

Stranger in a Strange Land had a pretty profound influence on my life, so much so that when I saw there was a MeFi user with the username "jbelshaw", the first thing I thought was, "That must be Jubal Harshaw shortened, what a great idea..."

Then I noticed it had an "e" not an "a" -- but I'm a moron, so what would you expect?
posted by MarkAnd at 2:40 PM on May 8, 2001

Have Space Suit, Will Travel was my first too. My first real novel in fact, which is probably why I cosy up to pulp Sci-fi now.

Actually I quite liked 'Starship Troopers'. For all the wrong reasons. Sometimes a film must breath independently from the book.
posted by feelinglistless at 3:39 PM on May 8, 2001

I read The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress during my senior year in high school and liked it quite a bit. Then I followed it with a half-dozen other Heinlein titles (among them Friday which I thought was OK and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls which sucked) and decided I had already read the only thing of his that I was going to enjoy, so I stopped.

Then a couple of years ago I read Stranger in a Strange Land, which reaffirmed this decision. Man, what a load of hooey that book contains. Although if i were still a young man, and if it were still the 1960s, I might have liked it a good deal more.
posted by kindall at 4:16 PM on May 8, 2001

Stranger in a Strange Land was my first too. Time Enough for Love soon became my favorite book. It's amazing how many ideas Heinlein could pack into one story, and equally amazing how he made them stick. Without knowing today was the anniversary, I read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for about the fourth time yesterday.

Anyone looking for R.A.H. resources on the web would do well to check out Quotable Heinlein.

"Kissing girls is a goodness. It beats the hell out of card games." - VMS, Stranger
posted by krakedhalo at 4:17 PM on May 8, 2001

I finished Stranger in a Strange Land last month, my first touch of Mr. Heinlein. I'm sorry Kindall didn't find it to be the great read that it is. Especially considering when it was written. Quite the interesting ride, with what people would call outrageous ideas, but beyond all the religious aspects a great read. Who knows, maybe we are capable of doing the things that Valentine Michael Smith was able to do in this book.

So much we do not know.
posted by physics at 9:16 PM on May 8, 2001