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[james_davis_nicoll]

I was going to put a rant here but I think it would be prudent for me to wait a month until the book that triggered it sees print. Even if I friends-lock it, that doesn't mean the publisher might not get wind of my comments and take offense.

So, to fill the time until then:

Is writing Heinlein young adult novel pastiches primarily a male occupation? I can't off-hand think of a female writer who tried her hand at a Heinlein young adult novel, at least not in the centenary wave of Heinlein pastiches.

[This might be a stupid question but if it is mainly a guy subgenre, why would that be?]

In a unrelated comment, metric _or_ American imitation of Imperial, people. Not both or at least not both in the same sentence.

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

A Heinlein young adult novel. The classic examples would be the twelve books that Heinlein wrote for Scribner's between 1947 and 1958.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I've gone back and replaced YA with young adult.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I understood that part. What I meant was "What are the distinguishing characteristics which cause you to count a novel as a Heinlein YA pastiche?".

[dsrtao]

The protagonist is high-school through college-age, intelligent but without much street-sense and possibly woefully uneducated. The adventure will include a trip to a strange new place, involve making a friend or two and one or more con-jobs perpetrated on the protagonist. There will be some growing-up. Familiar figures include a Fool serving as a bad example, a Rich Brat who may also be the Fool, an older tough who may be a con-man but will certainly have a heart of gold and a willingness to show the new kid the ropes, and one or more antagonistic adults. At least once the protagonist will be lost in a strange environment. For maximum Heinlein points, there should be at least one didactic break in which some engineering or astrogation or similar feat is thoroughly explained. At the end, the protagonist should display new confidence and competence in a concrete manner.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Let's see: set in space (and Earth is almost certainly a bad place), told from the point of view of a single protagonist who is under 30 and probably under 20 and the story will have lots of heavy-handed references to Heinlein to make it as clear as possible to the reader who they are trying to emulate. Oddly, there are elements of the originals nobody seems to have picked up on, like how a number of Heinlein young adult books had the pattern of a protagonist, his best friend and an Other (someone from a non-main stream culture or perhaps an alien) as the core group of characters.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Heinlein's YAs were not really formulaic, though they were all set in space and have young male protagonists (Podkayne doesn't count). Otherwise they're really different. The thing that strikes me about their imitators (and yes, all guys, though now I'm suddenly desperately tempted) is that they try to imitate the voice, and mostly can't quite do it.

[redbird]

Heinlein also pointed out, publicly, that the reason a number of his protagonists sounded like Boy Scouts was that the stories in question had been written for Boy's Life, which was (is?) published by the Boy Scout organization.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Not all of Heinlein's books were told from a single point of view, either, which I guess is another element none of the imitators has gotten (I haven't read any of the latter myself). The Rolling Stones has scenes from Hazel's viewpoint, Red Planet has scenes from several people other than the boys, and The Star Beast has scenes from Betty, Lummox, and several of the bureaucrats - the theoretical protagonist probably doesn't even have the majority, although I could be wrong about that.