For the Heinlein fans,

[SeaCat]

For the Heinlein fans out there. I just came across a book of his I have never seen before. It's called "For us, the living" and is supposed to be his lost first novel. (Printed by Pocket Books.) Don't ask me yet how it is because I just picked it up about an hour ago. I'll let you know what I think of it.

Cat

 

[cantdog]

How that Lincoln guy ever composed a speech consisting of so many book titles strung together...

 

[fifty5]

For the Heinlein fans out there. I just came across a book of his I have never seen before. It's called "For us, the living" and is supposed to be his lost first novel. (Printed by Pocket Books.) Don't ask me yet how it is because I just picked it up about an hour ago. I'll let you know what I think of it.

Cat

Wait a while...

Heinlein books are on my chrissy prezzie list.

Eff

 

[gauchecritic]

How that Lincoln guy ever composed a speech consisting of so many book titles strung together...

Shakespear made a living out of it using aphorisms and one liners.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Excerpt from
The finding and publishing of "For Us, the Living"
by Deb Houdek Rule


"For Us, the Living" was written by Heinlein about 1938-9, before he wrote his first sf short, "Lifeline." The novel, "For Us, the Living," was deemed unpublishable, mainly for the racy content. So racy is/was the content that in the 1930s the book could not even have been legally shipped through the US mail! For this reason, after a few publisher rejections, the novel was tabled by Heinlein, but the content was mined for his later stories and novels. . . It's important to point out that according to those favored few who have thus far read this long lost Heinlein novel, it did not go unpublished because it was bad--they say it's quite good, though clearly a first novel by the author (it has a two and a half page footnote!). It was unpublished because the mores and culture of the time would not allow it.



Link

 

[SeaCat]

This sounds almost like the Foreward by Spider Robinson, although he went into greater detail. (One warning, he does slip in a political barb, but you'll have had to have read some Heinlein to get the reference.)

Cat

 

[Seattle Zack]

I met Heinlein once, while I was driving a cab in Santa Cruz during my college days. Picked up these two journalists (at the Holiday Inn of all places) and drove them up into the hills of Scotts Valley. Only as we were arriving at the appointed residence did they inform me who they were interviewing .. I asked (quite politely, I thought, although I was ready to beg) to come up to the house and meet him.

It was a weird geodisic dome where he lived, never got inside, but I did meet him and shake his hand. One of the highlights of my life. He was very noncommittal regarding my effusive praise (so I guess he wouldn't have signed my copy of Stranger in a Strange Land if I'd had it in the cab after all).

 

[fifty5]

I met Heinlein once ...
He was very noncommittal regarding my effusive praise (so I guess he wouldn't have signed my copy of Stranger in a Strange Land if I'd had it in the cab after all).

I expect he must have had a lot of that!

Thanks for the story - and congratulations.

Eff