h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's only a matter of time before we have The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Psychoanalysis, by John Cleese.

I must thak the Towelmaster for inadvertently transporting me to this forum.
I have a passion for SF and Fantasy novels, my favorite author of SF is Robert A Heinlein, his earlier novels, almost all geared to teenagers, as at the time that he was writing them, they were the only ones reading them, remember its only 30 years since we landed on the moon, and to adults then SF was shear fantasy, maybe It still is, we still have not constructed a permanent orbital space/lunar station, and no contact of the 3rd kind.
But I digress, I have always found Heinleins work to be, for lack of a better word, human. He uses his books in a future tense to explain the absurdities of our own time. they are all well written, unlike my own style. His "stranger in a strangeland, and Time Enough For Love" are classics.
They can take a hundred pages to get into, but I like that, as I have found that an author that takes time to set up his 'scene', makes a great book.
You know the books that for the firat 1/4 leave you bewildered, and then It all starts to come together. I have always found them the best.
Interesting to note that many SF writers, promonentley Asimov, Clark, and Heinlein, all have been, for lack of a better word, Astro/physisiscts( I don't think I spelt that right, but it looks good), maybe not 'qualified', but they have all been asked to help at NASA.
These men have done there most to make tomorrow today, not only in their writings but their actions.
By the way I highly recommend the early Asimov 'Robot' series.
For those fantasy readers, my top authors are Tolkien and David Eddings. I have read the Eddings series' "The Belgariad, and Mallorean" every year for the past 5. Thoroughly enjoyable escapism, great characters.

I know Asimov was a chemist - he once submitted a spoof paper on "the endochronic properties of resublimated thiotimoline" and wrote a series of science books for children. NASA? Not sure.

Heinlein's was orginally a naval man, but was invalided out due to tuberculosis. He studied physics and maths at UCLA. I believe that Clarke was originally a physicist. He is sometimes credited with being the original source of the idea of communications satellites.

I like Arthur C Clarke's world view:
1) when a distinguished and elderly scientist says something is possible, he is almost certainly correct; when he says something is impossible he is very probably wrong

2) the only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little past them

3) any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Especially 3

Yeah but number three has been quoted so many times that you tend to think 'oh there he is again...'. I mean no disrespect to Arthur C. Clarke whatsoever(FAR from it) but nothing much has changed :

Asimov was a professor of Chemistry and two other disciplines I forget.
Mr. Clarke has several doctorates comparable to Isaac.
Larry Niven is a trained mathematician(maybe more I don't know)
Jerry Pournelle was the head of the NASA-department of life-sciences(or something like that) when they landed the first men on the moon...

And the list goes on(Take Daniel Keyes for instance).

I think that this is because it takes quite some intelligence to write good SciFi. Especially if you want a scientifically consistent story(to me that's one of the basics of good SF, if you can't do it write Fantasy - there's more freedom there).

TM.


BTW Obscure, how can I Inadvertently send you to a forum ? Would be nice to know....

And don't forget Sir Fred Hoyle, who I believe wrote SF while holding the post of Astronomer Royal.


OK, now help me with a memory from childhood. I have a dim memory of a children's SF series which included a character called Sergei, and much flying around in space ships. I'm trying to remember more, but does this ring any bells?

It was probably a mistake, but the first Heinlein book I read was 'The Number of the Beast' which I thought was appalling, probably because it required you to have already read several of his other books. It's slightly put me off wanting to read his other work.

Every rockmusician, painter, writer has his/her peak. Heinlein will always be immortal for his masterpieces : Stranger in a strange land and The moon is a harsh mistress...

Oh, right. Not an easy one, that. Go and get "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" from the library, and I think you'll find that suddenly you like Heinlein after all

Famous Heinlein things: Inventor of the phrase TANSTAAFL - see http://www.h2g2.com/A168572

Cartoon? The Stetsons?

Do you mean 'The Jetsons'?

Yeah he should have written more bookd with Professor Bernardo de la Paz so what does he do ? I can't give away the plot here but it was a shame...

Also included in that list is my favourite:

4)Arthur C. Clarke's 69th Law: Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.

Fruitbat.

PS: Clarke was (I forgot which kind of) a scientist who was instrumental in contributing the the radar-effort during the WW2, later he postulated telecommunications satellites in 1945/6 (opinions vary about the date) in an electronics magazine called "Wireless World".

Also remember to include Greg Bear (I think he's the one) who's an astrophysicist, and Kim Stanley Robinson (I've forgotten what he does). Also Gregory Benford....and Hal Clement (science-teacher)

You have to respect someone who doesn't pander to the mania for sequels, though.

Absolutely !

To answer your first question TM, I clicked on your icon, to see what you have been upto, and saw this forum on your page, nuf said.
I hear you others, I was lucky, the first heinlein book I was given was "time enough for love', and, after advice, followed that up with 'stranger in a strange land', so many of his characters fell into place.
Since then it has always been a comfort to come across an 'old' character, even if the context is completely different, those charaters have remained 'in character'.
As I mentioned before, most of his books were written in an age when the only people buying them were in their teens, and the content is therefore, for lack of a better word, simplistic. But I still find them entertaining, and, when you read between the lines, more adult then they at first appear.
To use an analogy, have you seen any of the 'animaniacs' cartoons, from Warner brothers, If you have you will know what I mean by saying, its 'supposed to be for children' but if the children get half of the gags I would be suppprised, as It is obviously written for adult audieces to enjoy as well, probably more in fact.

I like Time Enough For Love very much, although I don't think it's as significant as some of his other work. But then books aren't about significance they're about entertainment, which TEFL certainly is

Ah yes, some of his work does try and get as many of his characters in as possible, but then he's not the only one to do this how about Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion stuff that can get much more confusing in characters coming and going about the multiverse in his books.
As for Heinlein I think that one of my favourites must be Job: A comedy of justice, a simple tale of boy meets girl, boy loses girl and then chases round through eternity (heven, hell, valhalla) to try and find her again. Quite an amusing poke at religion and the idea of a single god (hope I've not offended anyone with that comment)

Oh yes I also meant to add that Friday is also a nice entertaining book having recently read it.

one of my favs.

He can squeeze as many characters in as he likes, I don't care

The only thing I find a tad irritating about Heinlein is that, faced with a fourth-order discontinuity in the space-time continuum (or a second-level dragon, or a mutant dog caused by accidental bombardment with high-energy perplexons), one of the party always just hapens to have a PhD in *exactly* that kind of thing....