One of those little tid bits one stumbles over

While doing some background reading on Apeman, Spaceman I found this:

It was a mention in Stover's unpublished biography of Heinlein [he had originally been authorized to write a definitive Heinlein biography, but later had a falling-out with Heinlein's widow] that led researcher Robert James to discover the hitherto-unpublished Heinlein novel For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs.

I'd be very interested in seeing Stover's book. It could hardly be worse than the authorized biography and its slapdash approach to history.

This bit

He published a criticism of Heinlein in 1987 when the book was actually read it was shown that he had made mistakes in every part of the book.

has the grammatically mangled whiff of offended Heinlein fan about it.

The referenced essay is here.


People may recall its author from such Ansible entries as

Outraged Letters. James Gifford, author of the Heinlein companion shortlisted for a Hugo as Best Related Book, applauded the winner with good grace but later issued a polemic [since withdrawn – DRL] about the transferable-vote process: 'I won the first, second and third rounds of voting by a significant margin. That the fourth and fifth rounds were allowed to determine this award is a travesty. In this case, the elaborate and complex vote analysis method obscured the winner instead of clarifying the results. When there is significant and spirited voting in a category, determining the winner by highly "cooked" totals is wrong, no matter how right it may be for sparser and highly mixed voting. For 700 votes, a simple plurality should be enough to show the voters's preference. A plurality that persists through three of five evaluation steps is not ambiguous, and to corrupt that result by "overcooking" the votes until a different winner is determined is – I'm sorry for the repetition – a travesty.

Apeman, Spaceman

SPOILERS

Well, this could have been worse. I'd be a little curious to see Requires Only That You Hate's reaction to it but really, I don't think this is as button-mashy as a lot of 1968 SF. Heck, it's not even as dubious as late 1970s Analog
( Read more... )

Open to suggestion

What panel topics would induce you to watch if I was one of the panelists?

I've suggested one on space colonization with me, Charles Stross and a couple of Space Colony True Believers, as well as something related to my f/m posts.

Immortal Confusion

Immortal ConFusion 2013 is a Science-Fiction convention in Metro Detroit. It will run for the 39th time on the weekend of Jan. 18-20, 2013.