Sunday, December 21, 2003

LOST ROBERT HEINLEIN BOOK TO BE PUBLISHED

From CBC News via J. Orlin Grabbe:

The American science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein is known for such classic novels as Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers and The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

A new book reveals that Heinlein, at least early in his life, was a Socred, a believer in the Social Credit movement that came to power in Alberta in 1935.

Heinlein's long-lost first novel, For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Customs, is scheduled for publication in January. It imagines a future America patterned on 1930s Alberta.

Heinlein wrote the novel in the late 1930s. It tells the story of a U.S. Navy officer named Perry Nelson who is killed in a traffic accident and is somehow transported, alive, to the California of 2086.

The book was rejected by a number of publishers, probably because much of the story is actually a series of lectures on how Heinlein felt the future should look. In later works, Heinlein would use fictional characters for the same purpose.


Click here for the rest of the review.

Hmmm. It probably won't be as good as Stranger in a Strange Land or Time Enough for Love, but seeing as how I've long ago read just about every Heinlein book I could get my hands on, I'll probably read this one, too. Here's some information on Social Credit economic philosophy. I'd never heard of it before--it's kind of interesting, albeit supposititious...much like neo-liberalism.

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