Does science fiction predict the future or does the future seek to emulate the art of its past?
Good science fiction tries to extrapolate a plausible future based on present knowledge and playing the "what if" scenario. That's why Bova's Grand Tour/Asteroid Wars series is so good, not only for the science angle, but also the social background he gave his characters. It's also why Margaret Atwood's novel
The Handmaid's Tale is so unsettling. There is absolutely nothing in that novel that couldn't happen if, for example, the Tea Party were to take over in the U.S. Now it's obvious that the character of Serena Joy was based on Tammy Faye Bakker, but she could just as easily be any number of right-wing fundamentalist women currently in the public spotlight, pushing religious fundamentalism and how a woman's place is really in the home, having babies and supporting her husband, and adhering to the right brand of Christianity.
As for emulating the art of the past... well, we have some kind of Star Trek communicator now - though obviously smart phones are still not quite smart enough to allow us to be beamed up to the International Space Station. We don't have replicators or transporters or holodecks, but those things are being worked on.
Hmmm, are we sure Heinlein wrote this? Doesn't sound like it has enough libertarian erotica to be one of his.
His earlier works didn't have as much creepy-incest kind of stuff. Most of his earlier novels were straightforward adventure stories (albeit with some characters standing in for Heinlein in making sure the reader knew his political stance at the time the book was published), and his short stories explored some interesting themes. One of them is a rather famous story called "Life-Line" in which a man invents a machine that can tell to the minute when a person will die. When the machine is proven to be 100% reliable, the life/health insurance industries collapse.
I remember reading the story referenced by the OP. It's in the anthology
The Menace From Earth.
Stranger in a Strange Land was an eye opening book that I would recommend to anyone. No idea of Heinlein was creepy, but he was definitely an interesting guy with interesting ideas. I wish I could write half as well as him.
Interesting thing about that novel: The version we're all familiar with is not the version Heinlein wanted to publish. There's another edition now, that finally was published (it was considered too risque and edgy even for the "New Wave" SF of the 1960s).
The character of Jubal Harshaw was eventually incorporated into the Lazarus Long series (also as a minor character).
I think that speaks more about the class and the sorts of people who were in it moreso than the quality of the book, really, imo.
I don't read science fiction as a prediction of the future. I read it to hear interesting stories about interesting characters. That's why the book appealed to me, even if parts of it are a bit odd and socially and culturally it might now be a bit behind the times in some ways.
Well, a lot of the science in the earlier Heinlein novels is definitely out of date.
Space Cadet was one of my favorite Heinlein novels for a long time, but now that we know what Venus is really like, it's a bit hard to get through that part of the book that takes place there. And so many Heinlein stories are situated on colonies on Jupiter's moons... which was fine for that time, but now that we've sent probes out there and have photographic and other evidence for what those places are really like, there aren't going to be any farming colonies on Ganymede.
Citizen of the Galaxy might still be okay, though; it's been ages since I read it but since most of it takes place out of the solar system, maybe current science hasn't caught up to it yet.
Really ? You read Stranger in a Strange Land and you didn't get the feeling that it was written by a creepy dude ?
It's the first and only Heinlein book I read, and it didn't leave me with a desire to read more of his work.
Some of his short stories are definitely worth the time to read. They're not all "creepy". Remember that his career lasted for decades and he was married at least twice. The stuff that bothered me most was in the later Lazarus Long books - in particular,
Time Enough For Love and
To Sail Beyond the Sunset. Damn creepy stuff in those books, with Lazarus Long and his mother, Maureen.
But the Heinlein book I can recommend is
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. There's nothing I'd consider creepy in that.
I definitely remember thinking that the author is a bit out there. But I thought the same thing about Arthur C. Clarke and his portrayals of an 80 year old man having sexual intercourse with an 8 year old... or whatever the hell the age difference was in RAMA. It was something like that. I found it quite a bit unnerving in the way it was brought up and discussed. Some of the passages Isaac Asimov has written involving sex and gender evoked similar responses from me, although I can't really remember at all what he wrote about and why I found it .. odd.
Stranger in a Strange land on the other hand didn't evoke those sorts of response from me. I just remember it being about a person who doesn't belong and has completely different views on sexuality and just about anything you can imagine. Like I said I can't remember many of the details, but it's probably the reason I don't remember thinking it to be too odd - that was sort of the premise of the book to begin with. Meanwhile RAMA was a story about a bunch of astronauts exploring a giant spaceship type thing. You don't expect creepy sex stuff to show up there, so it weirds you out more when it shows up.
There was one aspect of Asimov that was, in his own words, a "dirty old man" - some of the things he wrote were rather off-color, but that didn't extend to either his science fiction or his essays. If you ever want to tackle some quite literally heavy reading, Asimov's autobiography takes up three large volumes. Of course most of it has to do with his writing and how it took years for him to become confident enough of his ability to earn a living writing, to quit his day job (which was teaching chemistry in a university), but he's fairly candid about his own failings in some aspects of his life, as well.
