This spans a range between the happy – and very 50s-typical – Stone Family ( The Rolling Stones) to the family Lazarus Long built for himself in Time Enough for Love, which came out towards the end of Heinlein’s career. Heinlein was very focused on the family, but the family one chooses rather than the family one has.
Heinlein’s heroes are never true loners, but have support from their families and friends.
Although he is often branded an individualist, Heinlein talks often about the need for social support structures – familial, rather than governmental. Farah Mendelsohn seeks to separate the man from monster or myth.Īfter a brief assessment of Heinlein’s life and career, Mendlesohn starts to assess the themes running through Heinlein’s works. Indeed, to sci-fi devotees like me, attacking him can feel a little like treason. Instead, many modern-day critics have judged Heinlein by 21 st century standards and declared him to be sexist, racist and bigoted – while others have been completely uncritical of the man and his works. It is therefore curious that his works been so rarely been given substantial analysis. Heinlein (1907-1988) is one of the founding fathers of modern science-fiction, responsible for such hugely popular and influential works as Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Time Enough for Love, and Starship Troopers. As a historian how could I not be entranced?” (Farah Mendlesohn, introduction) Here was a person sometimes ahead of his time, sometimes crosswise, and, towards the end, in retrenchment.
This was not always (from my 1980s feminist point of view) a good shift, but it was there, and I was fascinated. Were one to include the twenty years previous to that, the word would be ‘dramatically’. “Over a period of twenty years, Heinlein’s attitudes had shifted noticeably. NUTTALL reviews an unusually fair appraisal of a sci-fi pioneer Heinlein, Farah Mendlesohn, Unbound, 2019, hardback £20 CHRISTOPHER G. Starship Troopers The Pleasant Profession of Robert A.
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