I first became aware of just how thoroughly I had boxed myself in when editors of my soi disant adult books slarted asking me to trim them down to suit my juvenile market. At that time I had to comply. But now I would like to find out if I can write about adult matters for adults, and get such writing published.
However, I have no desire to write "mainstream" stories such as The Catcher in the Rye, By Love Possessed, Pryton Place, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, Dark-nexx at Noon, or On the Road. Whether these books are good or bad, they each represent a type which has been written more than enough; there is no point in my adding more to such categories-I want to do my own stuif, my own way.
Perhaps I will flop at it. I don"t know. But such success u I have had has come from being original, not from writing "safe" stuff-in pulps, in movies, in slicks, in juveniles. In pulp SF I moved at once to the top of the Held by writing about sociology, s.e.x, politics, and religion at u time (1939) when those subjects were all taboo. l.lcr I cracked the slicks with science fiction when it wns taken for granted that SF was pulp and nothing but pulp. You will recall that my first juvenile was considered an experiment by the publisher-and a rather risky one. I have never written "what was being written"-nor do I want to do so now. Oh, I suppose that, if it became financially necessary, I could imitate my own earlier work and do it well enough to sell. But I don"t want to. I hope this new and different book sells. But, whether it does or not, I want my next book to be still different-neither an imitation of The Man from Mars, nor a careful "mixture as before" in imitation of my juveniles and my quasi-juveniles published as soi disant adult SF books. I"ve got a lot of things I"d like to write about; none of them fits this pattern.
October 14, 1960: Lurton Bla.s.singame to Robert A. Heinlein Dear Water-Brother, I greatly admire your courage and also your intellectual virility that enables you to open up new areas of the literary globe.
October 21, 1960: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame In the first place, I think Putnam"s offer is one of the most generous I have ever seen; it is all loaded in my favor. Will you please tell them so?
Cutting can always be done, even though there is al: ways the chance of literary anemia therefrom. But the changes required are another matter-not because I don"t wish to make them . . . but because I don"t see how to make them. This story is Cabellesque satire on religion and s.e.x, it is not science fiction by any stretch of the imagination. If I cut out religion and s.e.x, I am very much afraid that I will end with a nonalcoholic martini.
I know the story is shocking-and I know of a dozen places where I could make the s.e.x a little less overt, a bit more offstage, by changing only a few words. (Such as: "h.e.l.l, she didn"t even have the homegrown fig leaf!") (Slightly less flavor, too; but if we must, we must.) But I don"t see how to take out the s.e.x and religion. If I do, there isn"t any story left.
This story is supposed to be a completely free-wheeling look at contemporary human culture from the nonhuman viewpoint of the Man from Mars (in the sense of the philosophical cliche). Under it, I take nothing for granted and am free to lambaste anything from the Girl Scouts and Mother"s Apple Pie to the idea of patriotism. No sacred cows of any sort, no bows and graceful compliments to the royal box-that is the whole idea of the framework.
But, in addition to a double dozen of minor satirical slants, the two major things which I am attacking are the two biggest, fattest sacred cows of all, the two that every writer is supposed to give at least lip service to: the implicit a.s.sumptions of our Western culture concerning religion and concerning s.e.x.
Concerning religion, our primary Western cultural a.s.sumption is the notion of a personal G.o.d. You are permitted to argue every aspect of religion but that one. If you do, you are a double-plus ungood crime-thinker.
Concerning s.e.x, our primary cultural a.s.sumption is that monogamy is the only acceptable pattern. A writer is permitted to write endlessly about rape, incest, adultery, and major perversion . . . provided he suggests that all of these things are always sinful or at least a social mistake-and must be paid for, either publicly or in remorse. (The thing the censors had against Lady Chatterley and her lover were not their rather tedious monosyllables, but the fact that they liked adultery-and got away with it- and lived happily ever after.) The whole deal is something like Communist "criticism" . . . anything and any comrade may be criticized (at least theoretically) under Communism provided you do not criticize the basic Marxist a.s.sumptions.
So ... using the freedom of the mythical man from Mure ... I have undertaken to criticize and examine dis- respectfully the two untouchables: monotheism and monogamy.
My book says: a personal G.o.d is unprovable, most unlikely, and all contemporary theology is superst.i.tious twaddle insulting to a mature mind. But atheism and "scientific humanism" are the same sort of piffle in mirror image, and just as repugnant. Agnosticism is intellectually more acceptable but only in that it pleads ignorance, utter intellectual bankruptcy, and gives up. All the other religions, elsewhere and in the past, whether monotheistic, polytheistic, or other, are just as silly, and the very notion of "worship" is intellectually on all fours with a jungle savage"s appeasing of Mumbo Jumbo. (In pa.s.sing, I note that Christianity is a polytheism, not a monotheism as claimed-the rabbis are right on that point-and that its most holy ceremony is ritualistic cannibalism, right straight out of the smoky caves of our dim past. They ought to lynch me.) But I don"t offer a solution because there isn"t any, not to an intellectually honest man. That pantheistic, mystical "Thou art G.o.d!" chorus that runs through the book is not offered as a creed but as an existentialist a.s.sumption of personal responsibility, devoid of all G.o.dding. It says, "Don"t appeal for mercy to G.o.d the Father up in the sky, little man, because he"s not at home and never was at home, and couldn"t care less. What you do with yourself, whether you are happy or unhappy-live or die-is strictly your business and the universe doesn"t care. In fact you may be the universe and the only cause of all your troubles. But, at best, the most you can hope for is comradeship with comrades no more divine (or just as divine) as you are. So quit sniveling and face up to it-"Thou art G.o.d!"
Concerning s.e.x, my book says: s.e.x is a h.e.l.l of a lot of fun, not shameful in any aspect, and not a bit sacred. Monogamy is merely a social pattern useful to certain structures of society-but it is strictly a pragmatic matter, unconnected with sin ... and a myriad other pat- terns are possible and some of them can be, under appropriate circ.u.mstances, both more efficient and more happy-making. In fact, monogamy"s sole virtue is that it provides a formula defining who has to support the offspring . . . and if another formula takes care of that practical aspect, it is seven-to-two that it will probably work better for humans, who usually are unhappy as h.e.l.l if they try to practice monogamy by the written rules.
The question now is not whether the ideas above are true, or just twaddle-the question is whether or not there will be any book left if I cut them out. I hardly think there will be. Not even the mild thread of action-adventure, because all of the action is instigated by these heretical ideas. All of it.
Mr. Cady"s wish that I eliminate the first "miracle," the disappearances on pp. 123-124, causes almost as much literary difficulty. Certainly, I can rewrite that scene, exactly as he suggested ... but where does that leave me? That scene establishes all the other miracles in the story, of which there are dozens. Now I will stipulate that "miracles" are bad copy-but if I eliminate them, I must throw away the last 700 pages of the ms.- i.e., write an entirely different story. Miracles are the "convincer" throughout. Without them the Man from Mars cannot recruit Harshaw, Ben, Patty, Dr. Nelson, BOI even Jill-n.o.body! No story.
(I thought I had picked a comparatively slide-down-eay miracle, in that I picked one which has a theoretical mathematical inherent possibility and then established its rationale later in Harshaw"s study. But I"m afraid this one U like atomic power: no one but professional dreamers could believe in it until it happened. I might add that if I had trapped out that miracle with fake electronic gadg-flry I could have "disappeared" an elephant without a *quawk.) All I can see to do now is to accept Mr. Cady"s most (mile offer to hold off six months while we see if some other publisher will take it without changes, or with changes I think I can make.
But I shan"t be surprised if n.o.body wants it. For the first time in my life I indulged in the luxury of writing without one eye on the taboos, the market, etc, I will be unsurprised and only moderately unhappy if it turns out that the result is unsalable.
If it can"t be sold more or less as it is, then I will make a mighty effort to satisfy Mr. Cady"s requirements. I don"t see how, but I will certainly try. Probably I would then make a trip to New York to have one or several story conferences with him, if he will spare me the time, since he must have some idea of how he thinks this story can be salvaged-and I"m afraid that I don"t.
The contract offered is gratifyingly satisfactory. But I want one change. I won"t take one-half on signing, one-half on approval of ms.; they must delay the entire advance until I submit an approved ma.n.u.script. It is unfair to them to tie up $1,500 in a story which may turn out to be unpublishable. I don"t care if this is the practice of the trade and that lots of authors do it; I disagree with the guild on this and think that it is a greedy habit that writers should forgo if they ever expect to be treated like business men and not children.
Please extend my warm thanks to Mr. Cady for his care and thoughtfulness. He must be a number one person- I look forward to meeting him someday.
October 31, 1960: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I have thought about your suggested changes in The Man from Mars. I see your point in each case and do not object to making the changes ... but it seems to me that I should leave the present form untouched until I start to revise and cut to suit the ideas of some particular publisher. If I do it for Putnam"s, then the horrendous job of meeting Mr. Cady"s [of Putnam] requirements will au- tomatically include all the changes you mention-in fact, most of the book will be changed beyond recognition.
But I still have a faint hope that some publisher will risk it without such drastic changes and cutting.
December 4, 1960: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame Lurton, I do not think I have told you what a wonderful job I think you have done in placing this ms. I wrote the thing with my eye intentionally not on the market. For twenty years I have always had one eye on the market with the other on the copy in this mill (yes, even when I disagreed with editors or producers). But I knew that I could never get away from slick hack work, slanted at a market, unless I cut loose and ignored the market . . . and I did want to write at least one story in which I spoke freely, ignoring the length, taboos, etc.
When I finished it and reread it, I did not see how in h.e.l.l you could ever sell it, and neither did Ginny. But you did. Thank you.
If this one is successful, I may try to write some more, free-wheeling stories. If it flops, perhaps I will go back to doing the sort of thing I know how to tailor to the market.
linuary 27, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame ... I told you about a week ago that I had finished the basic cutting on Man from Mars. In the meantime, I have hud a squad of high school girls count the ma.n.u.script, word by word, and totted up the results on an adding machine. The ma.n.u.script is now 160,083 words-and I mn tempted to type those excess eighty-three words on a poKicard ...
I urn a bit disappointed as my estimates as I went along Imd led me to believe that I would finish up at around 155.000 words and then I could even sweat off most or all of another 5,000 words and turn it over to Putnam"s Ml 150.000, which I know would please them better. But I don"t see any possibility of that now; the story is now as tight as a wedge in a green stump and, short of completely recasting it and rewriting it, I can"t get it much tighter. I have rewritten and cut drastically in the middle part where Mr. Minton [at Putnam"s] felt it was slow, and I have cut every word, every sentence, every paragraph which I felt could be spared in the beginning and the ending. As it is, it is cut too much in parts-the style is rather "telegraphese," somewhat jerky-and I could very handily use a couple of thousand words of "lubrication," words put back in to make the style more graceful and readable.
The truth is that it is the most complex story I have ever written, a full biography from birth to death, with the most complex plot and with the largest number of fully drawn characters. It needs to be told at the length of Anthony Adverse (which ran 575,000 words!): I am surprised that I have managed to sweat it down to 160,000.
My typist is now completing the third quarter of the ms. She is able to work for me only evenings and weekends; if her health holds up, I expect that she will finish about 12 to 15 February. In the meantime, I will work on further cutting and revision and should be able to eliminate a few words-more than a thousand but less than five thousand. If my typist finishes on time I will expect to deliver the ma.n.u.script to you by Monday the 20th of February (I doubt if you will want to reread it, but you may want to see how I have revised the s.e.x scene that you were bothered about). That will give Putnam"s in excess of three weeks more margin on production time in order to publish on or before the Science Fiction Convention in Seattle 2-4 September 1961. Or they can, if they wish, use the three weeks to read it and bung it back to me for revision of anything they don"t like-and still keep their production schedule. I can"t do extensive cutting in that time but I can certainly revise a scene or two, if needed.
March 17, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I "ve just been talking to Mr. Cady at Putnam"s. He tells me that Doubleday wants to issue my s.e.x and Jesus book us a SF book club choice and as an alternate for some other non-SF book club. Little as I like the Doubleday SF book club, I enthusiastically okayed this plan as it makes almost certain that Putnam"s will make their nut and a bit of profit even if the trade edition doesn"t do very well-which has been my princ.i.p.al worry. However, Mr. Cady seems to think that these book club sales will materially enhance the trade book sales-also, he teems to have great confidence in the book (more than I have)-I hope he"s right.
This change in plans will result, he tells me, in the book being sold by Doubleday as their June offering, with trade book publication as soon as possible, probably early July.
The final t.i.tle will be set on Monday afternoon (Cady will phone me) and, Lurton, you are invited and urged to suggest t.i.tles-direct to him is simplest. (I a.s.sume that this letter will reach you in the early Monday mail.) The t.i.tles now in the running are: The Heretic The Sound of His Wings (which has an SF tie-in through my "Future History" chart without being tagged as "science fiction" in the minds of the general public. All of these t.i.tles have been picked to permit the book to be sold as a mainstream novel, "Philosophical Fantasy" or some such.) A Sparrow Falls Born Unto Trouble (Job 5:7) That Forbidden Tree (Milton) Of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:17) EDITOR"S NOTE: At this date, no one recalls just who came up with the Stranger in a Strange Land t.i.tle.
CHAPTER XV.
ECHOES FROM STRANGER.
EDITOR "s NOTE: Putnam "s sales on Stranger were not very Hood during the first year after publication. It went immediately into the book club edition, a two-year contract, and there was a second two-year book club contract. In the second year following publication, it was out in a paperback edition from Avon. Sales went from humdrum to medium to spectacular. This book turned out to be a "sleeper. " Only word-of-mouth advertising could have accounted for this. At this time, it has been in trade edition for many years, still selling enough copies to make it worthwhile for the publisher to keep it in print. And it still flls merrily in the paperback edition, which is now with 4< p="">
October 9, 1966: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame Herewith is ---"s letter to you re dramatizing Stranger. I have no idea what is proper and reasonable in this matter and will continue to leave it entirely up to your judgment. But I"m beginning to think that additional rights to Stranger, such as stage, TV, and movies, might someday be worth something-possibly through Ned Brown, possibly through other channels. The fan mail on this book has been steadily increasing instead of decreasing and it clearly is enjoying quite a lot of word-of-mouth advertising. I recently learned that it was considered the "New Testament"-and compulsory reading-of a far-out cult called "Kerista." (Kee-mf!) I don"t know exactly what "Kerista" is, but its L.A. chapter offered me a $100 fee to speak. (I turned them down.) And just this past week I was amazed to discover a full-page and very laudatory review of Stranger in (swelp me!) a slick nudist magazine-with the review featured on the cover . . . And there is an organization in the mountain states called "Serendipity, Inc.," which has as its serious purpose the granting of scholarships-but which has taken over "water sharing" and other phrases from the book as lodge slogans, sorta. Or something. And there is this new magazine of criticism, GROK-l have not seen it yet but it is advertised in the Village Voice. And almost daily I am getting letters from people who insist on looking at me as some sort of a spiritual adviser. (I fight shy of them!) All in all, the ripples are spreading amazingly-and Cady may be right in thinking that the book could be exploited in other media. (I"ll settle for cash at the bedside; I want no part of the cults.) November 6, 1966: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I think I mentioned to you that the Esalen Inst.i.tute wants me to lead a seminar late in June on "Religion in the s.p.a.ce Age," along with Alan Watts, the Zen Buddhist writer, and an Episcopalian priest. It takes just one weekend, and the place (Big Sur) is near here, and the fee ($500) is satisfactory. Nevertheless I probably will not accept, as I do not see how I could take part without mortally offending both the priest and the Zen Buddhist. I"ll negotiate it directly by telephone to the director, as I am reluctant to state my real misgivings bluntly in a letter.
December 22, 1966: Lurton Bla.s.singame to Virginia Heinlein . . . and to receive the Grok b.u.t.tons. Might be news release to give additional stimulus to book.
April 15, 1967: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame More about Stranger- My brother Rex queried the shopkeeper from whom he had purchased several sorts of Stranger b.u.t.tons, was told: "There are about a dozen different suppliers." He went on to say that one of them was a girl who was working her way through college making these b.u.t.tons (no doubt other sorts than Stranger b.u.t.tons).
This afternoon (now Sunday evening) a sculptor, --- of Los Gatos, called on us-to. show us a figure he had just completed in bronze of the death of the Martian named Smith. He asked permission to bring it over at once as he was taking it to his agent in San Francisco in negotiating a commission for an heroic-size crucifixion job for a church. (--- is a successful sculptor, not a starving artist.) But [he] wanted me to see it first.
A young woman who came with him asked me where I had gotten the word grok- no, she had not read the book, had not been able to lay hands on a copy [my emphasis added] . . . but that she knew what it meant as "everybody uses it now."
January 26, 1967: Lurton Bla.s.singame to Robert A. Heinlein Checking on Grok magazine.
February 28, 1967: Lurton Bla.s.singame to Robert A. Heinlein In the 2/19 issue of the New York Times Book Review, there is an article you may want to see-"Where the Action Is." It mention(s) Stranger and Grok. Reference seems responsible for stirring Hollywood interest. Another call asking if Stranger rights available.
March 14, 1967: Lurton Bla.s.singame to Robert A. Heinlein Have two issues of Grok.
April 28, 1968: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I enclose a clipping sent to me from Toronto-please return for my Stranger file. "Fair Use" of course-but that book must have made a wide impression if a telephone company in Canada makes this use of a neologism from it. (And when I think how Putnam continues to refuse to reissue a hardcover of it, I get so annoyed I need a Miltown. d.a.m.n it, they should at least arrange a Grosset and Dunlap reprint; I get regular inquiries about where to buy it in hardcover. He"s missing a lot of library sales, too.) May 23, 1968: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame Since I sent you that Canadian telephone ad I have run into three more uses of grok-one in a short story in Playboy, simply as a part of dialog with no explanation, same for a poem, and a report of a shop in Florida: "We Grok Bookshop." Oh, well, while it doesn"t pay royalties, it does interest me to see this neologism spread. But the darnedest thing so far is an announcement in the UCLA Daily Bruin concerning "Experimental College Cla.s.ses-Spring 1968" with one course billed as "J. D. Salinger, Robt. Heinlein, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Other Personal Gurus-"!!! And I"m such a square I don"t even know who the third guru is. Nor does Ginny. However, I"m new to the guru business.
January 23, 1967: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame Did I tell you that [Dr.] Jack Williamson is using Stranger as a study text in his cla.s.s in SF at U of E. New Mexico? Quote: "I"m launching new courses in linguistics and modern grammar and another in the factual literature of science. ... (in my SF cla.s.s) and we are now reading Stranger in a Strange Land. I was a little afraid lhat some of my students might not be sufficiently sophisticated for it, but the response so far is good-some cla.s.s members feel that it is more successful than Huxley"s Brave New World, which we have just finished."
Did I mention in some other letter that Stanford now offers a course in SF? Apparently SF is beginning to be accepted as a respectable genre of serious literature. It is u pleasant feeling-but I have to keep reminding myself that seeing my name in print is nothing; it is seeing it on a check that counts. It is still the clown business; the object is to entertain the cash customer-I shall simply have to try harder than ever.
February 3, 1967: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame Did I give you the impression that the princ.i.p.al interest in Stranger was from teenagers? It may be, but I hope not and do not think so. I might be forced to drink hemlock for "teaching that the worse is the better part and corrupting the youth of the land." Stranger is definitely an adult book, and the comments in it on both s.e.x and religion are such that I think it would be imprudent to attempt any sort of publicity which attempts to tie this book with teenagers.
Lurton, I myself am not the least afraid of corrupting the teenagers of this country; it can"t be done. They are far more sophisticated, as a group, than are their parents. They take up in junior high school smoking, drinking, f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o, c.u.n.n.i.l.i.n.g.u.s, and soixante-neuf, and move on to coition, marijuana, and goof b.a.l.l.s during senior high school, then get the Pill and join the New Left when they enter college-or at the very least are exposed to these things at these ages and sometimes earlier. Plus LSD and other drugs if they wish. Shock them or corrupt them- impossible! If they refrain, it is voluntary, not because they haven"t been exposed.
But their parents rarely know this-parents are always certain that it is the wild, beat crowd on the other side of town, not their little darlings! So, while I do not think Stranger can corrupt any reader, no matter how young-on the contrary I think it is a highly moral book-I think also that it would be impolitic to exploit it as a book for teenagers.
November 17, 1967: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame I finally heard from the University of Wisconsin . . . This was the bid I heard about through --- and concerning which I phoned you. I am about to turn it down-regretfully, since Oshkosh is so close by. But what they want me to do is lecture about Stfanger in a Strange Land. I decided years ago never to discuss my own works on a platform . . . and I think the pragmatic reasons behind this decision apply especially strongly to Stranger. A writer looks pretty durn silly "explaining" his stories. He said what he had to say in the ms.-or should have. Stranger is a fairy tale; if it amuses the reader, he has received what he paid for. If he gets something more out of it, that"s a free bonus. But I"m durned if I"ll "explain" it.
(I wonder if John Barth ever "explains" Giles Goat Boy? If he does, I"ll bet he has his forked tongue in both cheeks and intentionally leaves the listener more bemused than ever. I was much impressed and enormously amused by Giles, and now I want to obtain and read and keep all his other fictional works-now that I can afford things other than building materials. On the other hand, Earth"s fiction is not for Ginny; she lives life in simple declarative sentences with no veiled allusions, and she wants her fiction the same way.) I am turning down the bid from Cornell; I turned down one yesterday from U of California; and I am turning down as they come in numerous lesser bids mostly from high schools here and there. Quite aside from the nuisance of speaking in public, this is not a year when I want to cope extemporaneously with the questions period which usually follows a platform talk-undeclared wars, race riots, the drop-out generation, etc., are all matters I prefer not to deal with orally and in public; I find these matters extremely complex and am not sure of the wisdom of my opinions.
But I did find it expedient to accept an invitation for March 30 for the Monterey Bay Area Libraries Book Festival; librarians are a special category. I feel that I have lo do it once, for the local libraries-then next time I can point out that I already have, and sorry, but this year I"m tied up. I waived their fee, however, as I prefer doing it free to accepting a small fee ($50)-so that I can continue lo tell others that sure, I speak in public-but I"m a pro and my fees are horrendously high.
January 7, 1970: Virginia Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame Some weeks ago, a fan letter came in from the jail in Independence, California. In a burst of generosity, Robert tried to do something about this girl who"d written him. It turned out that she was one of the Manson family. So if we"re knifed in our beds like Sharon Tate, it"s because of three letters from members of the family. Just tell the police. I"m leaving these notices everywhere I can, in hopes of preventing anything from happening.
PLAYBOY INTERVIEW.
January 16, 1970: Virginia Heinlein and Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame Will you also please tell Mr. [Hugh] Hefner that the only reason Robert agreed to be interviewed was not publicity for himself, but the offer of a forum to boost the s.p.a.ce program. Publication of this interview in an early issue might have helped. As it is, the s.p.a.ce program is in ruins, and Hefner is attempting to make something of what might have been by the use of Stranger and the Manson case. We will not go along with this. He has not bought himself a tame rabbit by that contribution to the Ed White Memorial Fund. He can take his [magazine] and stuff it, having first folded it until it is all corners. Under no condition will we make any public statement about the Manson case and Stranger. We consider Mr. Hefner"s suggestion very much out of line and an invasion of our privacy. It is not a matter of reluctance to discuss Robert"s work, but a downright refusal to do so, which has been a policy of his for a very long time.
November 10, 1970: Virginia Heinlein to Lurton Bla.s.singame Believe this if you can-Stranger is on the Women"s Lib reading list!
May 4, 1971: Lurton Bla.s.singame to Virginia Heinlein Doesn"t think anything can be done about the Valentine Smith company. Wishes they would put their letterhead and all press releases that they"re using name "from the character created by Robert A. Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land.""
EDITOR"S NOTE: In 1971, a fan group that based many of its philosophies on Stranger in a Strange Land wrote to Heinlein asking permission to use material from the book. Permission was not granted. Later, a member of that group wrote to Heinlein asking why he was unsympathetic to its aims. Here is his reply.
January 20, 1972: Robert A. Heinlein to a Reader Facts: 1. The last time I was present at any organized SF fandom meeting was at Seattle in 1961 plus a very brief appearance at Chicago in 1962 to accept the Hugo for Stranger-brief because I showed up at the last minute, having been busy at NASA Houston on some writing for the Gemini program. Stranger was published in 1961. If Ihcre were any "nests" or such by Labor Day 1962, I was unaware of them. My contact with organized fandom Rlncc that day has been zero.
2. Before 1962 my contact with organized fandom was llighl I went several times to meetings of the LASFS [Los Angeles Science Fiction Society] in 1939-40 and went to the convention in 1940 or "41. Check: 1941, at Denver, as I recall now that I was in the east at that time in 1940. After 1940 the next contact that I recall was (I believe) in 1958-a meeting in Newark-then again at Chicago in 1960, to receive a Hugo. I think that sums up the total of my contacts with organized fandom, although I may have forgotten some casual appearance, as the period spans thirty-three years and I kept no records on it. But I am certain that my last appearance at a meeting was ten years ago.
3. Contacts with individuals, fans of SF who may or may not have been part of organized fandom: There have been many of these, by letter, in my home, in other people"s homes, or elsewhere. There have been more fan contacts in the past than in recent years, because of pressure of work and loss of time caused by illness. In many cases I do not know whether a stranger I have met (in person or by letter.) is or is not a member of organized fandom. In some cases I"ve learned it later (too late!) through learning that a private letter of mine has been published in one of those fan magazines, or have found that casual, social remarks have been treated, without my consent or review, as an "interview" and published in a garbled form. . . .
4. As a result of the above we have become somewhat more cautious in recent years in our social contacts and in the letters we write, especially as the pressure from strangers has become much greater. I have to live behind a locked gate and with an unlisted phone to get any work done at all-and this is a h.e.l.l of a note as my wife and I are by nature quite gregarious and social. Mrs. Heinlein usually answers and signs all of the mail, which tends to discourage the incipient "pen pals" who would, if allowed, take up all my time and leave none for writing. A rare exception, such as your letter, I answer myself. We necessarily find our social life among people who don"t read science fiction.
5. All of the above adds up to this: There are very, very few people in organized fandom who know anything at all about me in the sense of knowing me personally or in being privy to my private opinions, tastes, or habits. My published works are widespread and anyone can read them. The public facts about my life are in several reference books in most public libraries. But a member of science fiction fandom is most unlikely to know any more about me than you do, and if he claims otherwise, he is almost certainly talking through his hat.
6. But I am repeatedly amazed at the number of people who claim to be "experts" on me. (One of them even wrote an entire book about me. I have never met him in my life.) 7. I have never expressed "antagonism" or hostility to "nests" or "water-brotherhoods." This is sheer fabrication. I would like to throw such a lie into the teeth of anyone saying so, if I knew who he was.
8. On the contrary, a number of "nests" have indeed gotten into contact with me. I have treated them with politeness. I have standing invitations to visit them. I think I am on good terms with every such organization which has taken the trouble to get into touch with me. If you have any specific data to the contrary, I would like lo hear it, in detail. (But I have no way to deal with malicious allegations from faceless, nameless strangers.) Stranger. It is a work of fiction in parable form. It is not a "put-on" unless you choose to cla.s.sify every work of fiction as such. Who are these persons who allege this?
I would like an opportunity to face up to one or more of ihcm ... as this allegation has come back to me often enough to cause me to think that someone has been prcading it systematically and possibly with malice. But lie allegation always reaches me at least secondhand and "*ever with the name of the person. Will you tell me where nu got this allegation? I would like to track down this "Scarlet Pimpernel" and get him to hold still long nbugh to ask him what he is up to and why.
Now, for some background on Stranger and my stories in general: I write for the following reasons- 1. To support myself and my family; 2. To entertain my readers; 3. And, if possible, to cause my readers to think. The first two of these reasons are indispensable, and < p="">
I have always had to work for a living, for myself and now for my dependents, and I come from a poor, country family-root, hog, or die. I have worked at many things, but I discovered, somewhat by accident, that I could produce a salable commodity-entertainment in the form of fiction. I don"t know why I have this talent; no other membef of my family or relatives seems to have it. But I got into it for a reason that many writers have-it was what I could do at the time, i.e., I have been ill for long periods throughout my life, and writing is something a person can do when he is not physically able to take a 9-to-5 job. (Someday I would like to find time to do an essay on this. The cases range from blind Homer to consumptive R. L. Stevenson and are much more numerous than English professors seem to be aware of.) But if a writer does not entertain his readers, all he is producing is paper dirty on one side. I must always bear in mind that my prospective reader could spend his recreation money on beer rather than on my stories; I have to be aware every minute that I am competing for beer money-and that the customer does not have to buy. If I produced, let us say, potatoes or beef, I could be sure that my product had some value in the market. But a story that the customers do not enjoy reading is worth nothing.
So, when anyone asks me why I write, if it is a quick answer, standing up, I simply say, "For money." Any other short answer is dishonest-and any writer who forgets that his prime purpose is to w.a.n.gle, say 95 cents out of a customer who need not buy at all simply does not get published. He is not a writer; he just thinks he is.
(Oh, surely, one hears a lot of c.r.a.p about "art" and "self-expression," and "duty to mankind"-but when it comes down to the crunch, there your book is, on the newsstands, along with hundreds of others with just as pretty covers-and the customer does not have to buy. If a writer fails to entertain, he fails to put food on the table-and there is no unemployment insurance for freelance writers.) (Even a wealthy writer has this necessity to be entertaining. Oh, he could indulge in vanity publication at his own expense-but who reads a vanity publication? One"s mother, maybe.) That covers the first two reasons: I write for money because I have a household to support and in order to earn that money I must entertain the reader.
The third reason is more complex. A writer can afford to indulge in it only if he clears the first two hurdles. I have written almost every sort of thing-filler paragraphs, motion picture and TV scripts, poetry, technical reports, popular journalistic nonfiction, detective stories, love stories, adventure stories, etc.-and I have been paid for 99% of what I have written.
But most of the categories above bored me. I had enough skill to make them pay but I really did not enjoy the work. I found that what Idid enjoy and did best was speculative fiction. I do not think that this is just a happy coincidence; I suspect that, with most people, the work they do best is the work they enjoy.
By the time I wrote Stranger I had enough skill in how to entertain a reader and a solid enough commercial market to risk taking a flyer, a fantasy speculation a bit farther out than I had usually done in the past. My agent was not sure of it, neither was my wife, nor my publisher, but I felt sure that I would sell at least well enough that the publisher would not lose money on it-would "make his nut."
I was right; it did catch hold. Its entertainment values were sufficient to carry the parable, even if it was read Mrictly for entertainment.
But I thought that the parables in it would take hold, lot), at least for some readers. They did. Some readers (many, I would say) have told me that they have read this fantasy three, four, five or more times-in which case, it can"t be the story line; there is no element of surprise left in the story line in a work of fiction read over and over again; it has to be something more.
Well, what was I trying to say in it?
I was asking questions.
I was not giving answers. I was trying to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines. In consequence, each reader gets something different out of that book because he himself supplies the answers.
If I managed to shake him loose from some prejudice, preconception, or unexamined a.s.sumption, that was all I intended to do. A rational human being does not need answers, spoon-fed to him on "faith"; he needs questions to worry over-serious ones. The quality of the answers then depends on him . . . and he may revise those answers several times in the course of a long life, (hopefully) getting a little closer to the truth each time. But I would never undertake to be a "Prophet," handing out neatly packaged answers to lazy minds.
(For some of the more important unanswered questions in Stranger see chapter 33, especially page 344 of the hardcover, the paragraph starting: "All names belong in the hat, Ben.") Starship Troopers is loaded with unanswered questions, too. Many people rejected that book with a cliche- "fascist," or "militaristic." They can"t read or won"t read; it is neither. It is a dead serious (but incomplete) inquiry into why men fight. Since men do fight, it is a question well worth asking.
My latest book, / Will Fear No Evil, is even more loaded with serious, unanswered questions-perhaps too laden; the story line sags a little. But the questions are dead serious-because, if they remain unanswered, we wind up dead. It does not affect me personally too much, at least not in this life, as I will probably be dead before the present trends converge in major catastrophe. Nevertheless, I worry about them. I think we are in a real bind . . . and that the answers are not to be found in simplistic "nature communes," nor in "Zero Population Growth," which does not embrace the entire globe.
There may be no answers fully satisfactory . . . and even incomplete answers will be very difficult.
I find that I have written an essay to myself rather than a letter. Forgive me-perhaps I have reached the age at which one maunders. But I hope I have convinced you that Stranger is dead serious ... as questions. Serious, nontrivial questions, on which a man might spend a lifetime. (And I almost have.) But anyone who takes that book as answers is cheating himself. It is an invitation to think-not to believe. Anyone who takes it as a license to screw as he pleases is taking a risk; Mrs. Grundy is not dead. Or any other sharp affront to the contemporary culture done publicly-there are stern warnings in it about the dangers involved. Certainly "Do as thou wilt is the whole of the Law" is correct when looked at properly-in fact, it is a law of nature, not an injunction, nor a permission. But it is necessary to remember that it applies to everyone- including lynch mobs. The Universe is what it is, and it never forgives mistakes-not even ignorant ones ...
AFTERWORD.
Before the cut version of / Will Fear No Evil was ready for publication, Robert was taken ill. For two years he was laid up with various illnesses and operations. At last, in 1972, he was well enough and very eager to begin writing again.
His next book was Time Enough for Love.
In addition to changes in the times and customs, Robert now had a reputation that allowed him to do such books as he preferred to do. It is possible that, at least in part, Stranger had had some effects upon the s.e.xual revolution of the sixties and seventies. It was in tune with the moods of the times. So his publishers did not object to the length of Time Enough for Love, and one thing I found curious-there was no objection at all to the incest scenes. Not even reviewers mentioned it.
The following two years were mostly taken up with study of advances in physical and biological sciences. How could one write science fiction without keeping up with what was being discovered in those fields? These studies were undertaken for two articles for the Britan-nica Compton Yearbook: "Dirac, Antimatter and You," and "Are you a "Rare Blood." "
Another serious illness occurred in 1978. Following hi recuperation from that, Robert went to his computer *nd wrote The Number of the Beast. Aside from a very few flags on the copy-edited ma.n.u.script, he was asked to cut by 2,000 words (!) out of an estimated 200,000 worth. That was, of course, an easy task.
Expanded Universe followed, at the behest of James Baen. To our surprise, this book generated far more mail than any other book Robert had ever written. For two years, I was tied to the computer answering the fan mail which resulted from its publication.
In 1981, at seventy-four years of age, Robert decided that he would no longer do any of the special little tasks which being a well-known writer entails: no more speeches (even to librarians), no more appearances at conventions-his health would not permit the pressure. He would simply write the books he wanted to write.