Robert Heinlein

Heinlein, Robert Anson Macdonald - hīˈlīn, 1907–88, American science-fiction writer, b. Butler, Mo. His best-known novel, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), concerns a young man raised by Martians who returns to earth. It became a cult classic during the 1960s. Other works include The Green Hills of Earth (1951), a collection of short stories; Double Star (1956) Read More...

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Robert Heinlein

1 .

Classic Cult Fiction: A Companion to Popular Cult Literature (Discussion of Stranger in a Strange Land begins on p. 244)
by Thomas Reed Whissen. 324 pgs.

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Classic Cult Fiction is a history, analysis, and reference guide to books that have become "bibles" to generations of Europeans and Americans over the past 200 years--books like The Catcher in the Rye. Fearlessly taking on "canon formation," Whissen identifies the top 50 classic cult books, first presenting an informed and witty interpretation of the phenomenon and its characteristics with examples from different cultures and periods. The individual works are each discussed relative to time and place, impact, and audience psychology and analyzed in terms of common cult attributes. A chronological listing of cult fiction adds a number of titles not chosen for the top 50.

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Title Page

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Cult Classics

Against Nature (A Rebours)

Animal Farm

Another Roadside Attraction

Axel

Been Down So Long It Looks like Up to Me

The Bell Jar

Brave New World

A Canticle for Leibowitz

The Catcher in the Rye

Catch-22

A Clockwork Orange

The Day of the Locust

Demian

Dune

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

The Fountainhead

Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

The Great Gatsby

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Killer Inside Me

Lady Chatterley's Lover

Lolita

Look Homeward, Angel

Lord of the Flies

The Lord of the Rings

Lost Horizon

Lucky Jim

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

On the Road

The Outsider

The Outsiders

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

René

A Separate Peace

Siddhartha

Slaughterhouse-Five or the Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death

The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden Des Jungen Werthers)

The Stand

Steppenwolf

The Stranger

Stranger in a Strange Land

The Sun Also Rises

The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

This Side of Paradise

Time and Again

Trout Fishing in America

2001: A Space Odyssey

Walden Two

Warlock

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Chronological Listing of Cult Fiction

Works Cited

Bibliography of Primary Works: First and Current Editions

Books for Further Reading

Index

About the Author
2 .

The Way to Ground Zero: The Atomic Bomb in American Science Fiction (Chap. 7 "The Hero and Society: Sturgeon versus Heinlein")
by Martha A. Bartter. 278 pgs.

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Bartter surveys 250 American science-fiction stories, and American SF novels--with occasional overlaps of stories made into episodic novels--that have some relationship, often direct, sometimes marginal, to atomic weapons and their effects. . . . Highly recommended for popular literature collections." Choice

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Title Page

Contents

Acknowledgment

Introduction: The Superman Syndrome

NOTES

CHRONOLOGY: THE ATOMIC BOMB

1: International Waters: Before World War I

2: "I Have Seen the Future": Before World War II

3: Dark Words of Warning

4: Science and Science Fiction

5: A Science Fiction World

PART II: CIRCLING GROUND ZERO

6: The Nature of "Human Nature"

7: The Hero and Society: Sturgeon versus Heinlein

8: Humans and History

PART III: LEAVING GROUND ZERO

9: New Assumptions

Bibliography

Index

About the Author
3 .

Into Darkness Peering: Race and Color in the Fantastic (Chap. 6 "'You Don't Know What You Are Talking About'": Robert A. Heinlein and the Racism of American Science Fiction)
by Elisabeth Anne Leonard. 198 pgs.

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Unlike many classic works of fiction, literature of the fantastic enjoys mass popularity. Because the fantastic is so much a part of popular culture, fantasy literature can represent or address the racial attitudes of its audience. Representations of race in the fantastic provide a measure of the concern the culture has for racial matters. If a work is racist, whether consciously or not, it may perpetuate racist attitudes unless it is carefully examined. At the same time, literature of the fantastic is able to present possible worlds rather than real ones. It is thus a literature of possibility, in which racial matters may be addressed and exposed, so that readers may become more conscious of the evils of racist attitudes. This volume explores the significance of race and color in the works of a wide range of authors, including Octavia Butler, Robert Heinlein, Stephen King, and Robert Silverberg.

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Recent Titles in Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy

Contents

Acknowledgments

1: Introduction: "Into Darkness Peering"-- Race and Color in the Fantastic

2: Mixed Genres and True Heritages: from Trollope's Ralph the Heir to Delany's Dhalgren

3: Octavia E. Butler: Parables of Race and Difference

4: Exploring Color Coding at the Beginning and End of the Twentieth Century in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

5: Race and Color Coding in Leslie F. Stone's "The Human Pets of Mars": Reflections for the Repertoire of the Multicultural Classroom

6: "You Don't Know What You Are Talking About": Robert A. Heinlein and the Racism of American Science Fiction

7: Race and Subjectivity in Science Fiction: Deterritorializing the Self/Other Dichotomy

8: The Excesses of Cyberpunk: Why No One Mentions Race in Cyberspace

9: Creole Identity Politics, Race, and Star Trek: Voyager

10: Reclaiming the Invisible World: Maryse Condý's I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem

11: Reading King Darkly: Issues of Race in Stephen King's Novels

12: Enlightening the Alien Savages: Colonialism in the Novels of Robert Silverberg

13: "Differences Make Me Curious": Race, Sexuality, and Class in The Chronicles of Tornor

Selected Bibliography

Index

About the Contributors
4 .

Storm Warnings: Science Fiction Confronts the Future ("Knowing the Unknown: Heinlein, Lem, and the Future" begins on p. 55)
by George E. Slusser, Colin Greenland, Eric S. Rabkin. 284 pgs.

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Introduction: Science Fiction Confronts the Future

Part 1 -: Originating the Future

Storm Warnings and Dead Zones: Imagination and the Future

Origins of Futuristic Fiction: Felix Bodin's Novel of the Future

Anticipating the Past: the Time Riddle in Science Fiction

The Thing of Shapes to Come: Science Fiction as Anatomy of the Future

Knowing the Unknown: Heinlein, Lem, and the Future

Reactionary Utopias

Media, Messages, and Myths: Three Fictionists for the Near Future

Part 2 -: Orwell: an Interim Report

Coming Up on 1984

O'Brien's Interim Report

Images of Nineteen Eighty-Four: Fiction and Prediction

Orwell and the Uses of the Future

One Man's Tomorrow is Another's Today: the Reader's World and Its Impact on Nineteen Eighty-Four

Big Brother Antichrist: Orwell, Apocalypse, and Overpopulation

Variations on Newspeak: The Open Question of Nineteen Eighty-Four

Part 3 -: Alienation, Prognostication, and Apocalypse

Aliens for the Alienated

News Vs. Fiction: Reflections on Prognostication

Boring Dates: Reflections on the Apocalypse Game

Notes Biographical Notes Index

Notes

Biographical Notes

Index
5 .

Odd Genre: A Study in Imagination and Evolution (Includes discussion of Robert Heinlein in multiple chapters)
by John J. Pierce. 222 pgs.

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This book provides a detailed study of the relationship between science fiction and other genres. After discussing the problems inherent in classifying works according to genre, Pierce notes how science fiction sometimes incorporates plots from other literary forms. He then explores the relationship between science fiction and related genres, such as fantastic romances and techno-thrillers. The book next examines those science fiction writers who have successfully written in other literary forms, as well as authors active in other genres who have turned to science fiction to treat particular themes. Pierce also discusses the literary and stylistic aspects of science fiction. Throughout the book, Pierce's coverage is encyclopedic in nature. He provides examples from numerous works, and the volume closes with a detailed bibliography.

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Title Page

Contributions to the Study Of Science Fiction and Fantasy

Contents

Preface

Part I: The Context of Science Fiction

1: Genre and Genrefication

2: The Strange and the Familiar

Part II: The Plot's the Thing

3: Boy Meets Girl

4: Science Fiction Eyes

5: Coming of Age

6: Generations

7: Working It Out

Part III: Borderlines

8: Here's Adventure, Here's Romance

9: Larger Than Life

10: The Horror, the Horror

11: The View from a Distant Star

12: The Way We Read Today

Part IV: Crossover Dreams

13: Escape from Science Fiction

14: Escape to Science Fiction

Part V: The Act of SF Creation

15: Story

16: Style

17: Substance

18: Scope

19: Synergy

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author
6 .

The Connecticut Yankee in the Twentieth Century: Travel to the Past in Science Fiction (Includes discussion of Robert Heinlein in multiple chapters)
by Bud Foote. 214 pgs.

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The first examples of travel to the past appear early in the 19th century, but it was not until the publication of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court that we see a hero taking advantage of a combination of hindsight and advances in technology to build an empire in the past. Concentrating on travel to the past, this study details, both in Twain's seminal work and in its science fiction successors, the various roles played by the traveller to the past--nostalgic, tourist, imperialist, Oedipal hero and existential isolate--and attempts to relate these roles both to the rest of Twain's work and to the world-view of contemporary America.

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Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy

CONTENTS

PREFACE

Chapter 1 Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Chapter 2 Time Travel: Definitions, Problems, Rules, Limits

Chapter 3 Children of the Yankee: the Nostalgics

Chapter 4 Children of the Yankee: the Innocents Abroad

SUMMARY

Chapter 5 Children of the Yankee: Cecil Rhodes and Company

Chapter 6 Children of the Yankee: Dear Old Dad and His Girl

Chapter 7 Children of the Yankee: These Curious Strangers

SUMMARY

Chapter 8 Stepchildren of the Yankee

Chapter 9 of Time and the River

WORKS CITED

Index

About the Author
7 .

Coordinates: Placing Science Fiction and Fantasy ("Autoplastic and Alloplastic Adaptations in Science Fiction: 'Waldo' and 'Desertion'")
by George E. Slusser, Eric S. Rabkin, Robert Scholes. 210 pgs.

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Contents

Introduction

The Criticism of Science Fiction

The Descent of Fantasy

How New Is New?

Jules Verne: Journey to the Center of Science Fiction

Manifest Destiny: Science Fiction and Classical Form

"All You Have to Do Is Know What You Want": Individual Expectations in Triton

Autoplastic and Alloplastic Adaptations in Science Fiction: "Waldo" and "Desertion"

Science Fiction for the Age of Inflation: Reading Atlas Shrugged in the 1980s

Fahrenheit 451 and the "Cubby-Hole Editors" of Ballantine Books

Rider Haggard's Heart of Darkness

She in Herland: Feminism as Fantasy

Death and the Mirror: Existential Fantasy

Notes

Biographical Notes

Index
8 .

When World Views Collide: A Study in Imagination and Evolution (Discussion of Robert Heinlein begins on p. 71)
by John J. Pierce. 246 pgs.

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Science fiction has evolved and diverged in many ways and moods. When World Views Collide is the third and final volume in a history of the genre that began with Foundations of Science Fiction and continued in Great Themes of Science Fiction. The conflicts in science fiction are conflicts about world views, which Pierce defines as fundamental beliefs about the nature of man, the universe, and man's place in the universe. Pierce presents each world view in science fiction on its own terms, as expressed in the works of its partisans. This final volume of the trilogy thus examines science fiction as a way of defining and delimiting humanity and human values, which may well be the most important aspect of the genre today.

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Title Page

Recent Titles in Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy

Copyright Acknowledgments

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

1 A Tale of Two Wellsians

2 Among The Anti-Wellsians

3 The Men of Feeling

4 Darwinians--Social And Otherwise

5 The Literary Reformation

6 Angry Young Men--And Women

7 For the Good of The Cause

8 From Left Field--And Right

9 The Synthetists

EPILOGUE

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author
9 .

Speaking Science Fiction: Dialogues and Interpretations ("Corporatism and Corporate Ethos in Robert Heinlein's 'The Roads Must Roll'" begins on p. 144)
by Andy Sawyer, David Seed. 248 pgs.

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This wide-ranging volume explores the various dialogues that flourish between different aspects of science fiction: academics and fans, writers and readers; ideological stances and national styles; different interpretations of the genre; and how language and �1voices�2 are used in constructing SF. Introduced by the acclaimed novelist Brian W. Aldiss, the essays range from studies of writers such as Robert A. Heinlein, who are considered as the "heart" of the genre, to more contemporary writers such as Jack Womack and J. G. Ballard.

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Speaking Science Fiction: Introduction

Who Speaks Science Fiction?

Science Fiction Dialogues

Notes

Speaking of Homeplace, Speaking from Someplace

Speaking Science Fiction—out of Anxiety?

Science Fiction as Language: Postmodernism and Mainstream: Some Reflections

Notes

‘fantastic Dialogues’: Critical Stories about Feminism and Science Fiction

Notes

Vicissitudes of the Voice, Speaking Science Fiction

Notes

‘a Language of the Future’: Discursive Constructions of the Subject in a Clockwork Orange and Random Acts of Senseless Violence

Notes

Speaking the Body: the Embodiment of ‘feminist’ Cyberpunk

Notes

Bodies That Speak Science Fiction: Stelarc— Performance Artist ‘becoming Posthuman’

Notes

Science Fiction and the Gender of Knowledge

Notes

Corporatism and the Corporate Ethos in Robert Heinlein's ‘the Roads Must Roll’

Notes

Convention and Displacement: Narrator, Narratee, and Virtual Reader in Science Fiction

Notes

Aphasia and Mother Tongue: Themes of Language Creation and Silence in Women's Science Fiction

Notes

‘my Particular Virus’: (re-)reading Jack Womack's Dryco Chronicles

Notes

Aliens in the Fourth Dimension

Notes

Freefall in Inner Space: from Crash to Crash Technology

Notes

Notes on Contributors

Index
10 .

The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (Includes discussion of Robert Heinlein in multiple chapters)
by Edward James, Farah Mendlesohn. 295 pgs.

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Science fiction is at the intersection of numerous fields. It is literature which draws on popular culture, and engages in speculation about science, history, and all varieties of social relations. This volume brings together essays by scholars and practitioners of science fiction, which look at the genre from different angles. It examines science fiction from Thomas More to the present day; and introduces important critical approaches (including Marxism, postmodernism, feminism and queer theory).

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Title Page

Contents

Contributors

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Chronology

Farah Mendlesohn: Introduction: Reading Science Fiction

Notes

1: The History

1: Science Fiction Before the Genre

2: The Magazine Era: 1926–1960

3: New Wave and Backwash: 1960–1980

Notes

4: Science Fiction from 1980 to the Present

5: Film and Television

6: Science Fiction and Its Editors

2: Critical Approaches

7: Marxist Theory and Science Fiction

Notes

8: Feminist Theory and Science Fiction

Notes

9: Postmodernism and Science Fiction

Notes

10: Science Fiction and Queer Theory

Notes

3: Sub-Genres and Themes

11: The Icons of Science Fiction

12: Science Fiction and the Life Sciences

13: Hard Science Fiction

Notes

14: Space Opera

Notes

15: Alternate History

16: Utopias and Anti-Utopias

Notes

17: Politics and Science Fiction

18: Gender in Science Fiction

Notes

19: Race and Ethnicity in Science Fiction

Notes

20: Religion and Science Fiction

Further Reading

Index
11 .

Intersections: Fantasy and Science Fiction (Includes discussion of Robert Heinlein in multiple chapters)
by Eric S. Rabkin, George E. Slusser. 256 pgs.

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Contents

Introduction: Toward a Theory Of Interaction

Part I Discriminations

Boiling Roses: Thoughts on Science Fantasy

Parallel Universes: Fantasy or Science Fiction?

High Tech and High Sorcery: Some Discriminations Between Science Fiction and Fantasy

Science Fiction and the Semiotics Of Realism

Filling the Niche: Fantasy and Science Fiction In Contemporary Horror

Fantasy and Science Fiction: A Writer's View

Part 2: Gestations

The Gestation of Genres: Literature, Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction, Fantasy . . .

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky: Science Fiction And Philosophy in the History Of Soviet Space Exploration

Victorian Urban Gothic: the First Modern Fantastic Literature

Jewels of Wonder, Instruments of Delight: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Science Fantasy as Vision-Inducing Works

The Tooth That Gnaws: Reflections On Time Travel

Frames in Search of a Genre

Part 3: Fields

The and in Fantasy and Science Fiction

Homecomings: Fantasy and Horror

Science Fantasy and Myth

Gravity's Rainbow: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Mythology Kathryn Hume

Science Fiction: Going Around In Generic Circles

Notes

Biographical Notes

Index

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