Have you read...can you recommend...

[Inanna]

I love Clarke. I haven't read Heinlein. (Makes note)


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[Frelga]

I generally like the first 80% of a Heinlein book. The last 20% makes me feel that my decision to not do drugs was probably the correct life choice.

Although The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is excellent and a must read.

I probably should try reading Clarke in English.

[JewelSong]

I loved Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land." I always liked Asimov's short stories best.


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[Alatar]

Stranger in a Strange Land is wonderful, but I personally loved Starship Troopers. For a novel written in 1959 it is startlingly imaginative. The movie is campy fun, but the novel was awesome. However, it is a product of its time and its writers' politics and beliefs! All soldiers are men, pilots are women, and the last voice a soldier hears before dropping into battle is that of a woman. A soldier who lets down his squad is publicly flogged. Still, the description of orbital drops of soldiers in powered exoskeletons is way ahead of its time.

[Primula Baggins]

Starship Troopers was the first Heinlein I read, at 8, and I loved it. The politics went whoosh over my head; it was just a thrilling story. And girls got to be space pilots!

I recommend Heinlein's books from the 1950s that were aimed at teenagers. They're almost all great stories and highly entertaining. His politics didn't influence them as much, his views on women's roles were actually pretty progressive for the 1950s (not saying much there, maybe, but there are some interesting female characters), and his, um, unusual ideas about sex weren't in them because they couldn't be. I do also think The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is great. The 3 million inhabitants of the Moon fight a revolutionary war against Earth in 2076.

Favorites of the "juveniles" (they'd be called YA now, but they're longer and more entertaining for my money): Red Planet, The Rolling Stones, Tunnel in the Sky, Star Beast, Between Planets, Citizen of the Galaxy, Farmer in the Sky, and (the best!) Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. I have no idea how many times I've read them all. Not for years now, but maybe I'll start through again for weekend reading.

[Alatar]

I'm sure there must be a decent Kindle Anthology!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Stranger in a Strange Land is the only Heinlein that I was able to get into, but it is one of my favorites.

[Maria]

I think I've read everything by Heinlein. He was my favorite author for ages. I like the juvvies. I like the adult novels. I wasn't too crazy about his posthumous publication, "Grumbles from the Grave"... but I was still pretty upset about his death at the time.

I went to see the Starship Troopers movie in theaters when it came out. I literally came out crying, I was so disappointed. It was heresy! That's when I learned not to be optimistic about book to movie conversions.

I found out years later that they'd already written the script for the movie, when someone pointed out that the premise was too close to Starship Troopers and they might be sued. So they bought the rights and changed the movie a bit to be able to claim it was actually Starship Troopers.

I haven't read much of Clarke. His novels didn't grab me the same way.

[Primula Baggins]

I'm sure there must be a decent Kindle Anthology!

You'd think, but his estate doesn't seem to be very aware of things like that. Last time I looked, they weren't even all available on Kindle, and they were priced right up there with much newer books.

I actually wonder who the estate is now. I believe his widow has died, and they never had any children.

[Frelga]

Speaking of Caves of Steel, here's a link to the scans of the original 1953 Galaxy Magazine with the illustrated story.

https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine-1953-10

[Jude]

The perils of library reservations: two books came in at the same time - Leviathan Wakes, which I reserved months ago, and Prelude to Foundation, which I reserved last week.

Gotta get busy...

[Lalaith]

#nerdproblems

The struggle is real.

[Jude]

Nerd world problems?

I sense a meme coming on.

[Jude]

Has anyone read The Last Kingdom series by Bernard Cornwell, and is it any good?

[Inanna]

Stranger in a Strange Land is the only Heinlein that I was able to get into, but it is one of my favorites.

I just got into line for this one at eNYPL. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is available only as an audiobook.

"The Red Planet" is available - any opinion on that.

[Primula Baggins]

Written for teenagers in the 1950s, but great good fun. I highly recommend it. A quick, fun read and a legitimate classic of mid-century SF.

[Dave_LF]

I evidently read a lot of obscure books in my youth because I've never once had success with this, but I'm going to try again.

There's a book set during a war that feels Napoleonic in my memory, but it could be anything that involves bayonets and cannons. There's a thief going though the bodies at night after a battle looking for things to steal. He finds a pocketwatch. Then the supposed corpse wakes up; he believes the thief is a good Samaritan who just saved his life. He's an rich man or aristocrat of some sort, and chooses to take this "savior" on as a servant or assistant out of gratitude. This misunderstanding and the watch are important plots points going forward.

Anyone?

[Primula Baggins]

No bells rang here.

[Impenitent]

Sorry Dave, total mystery to me.

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[Teremia]

Dave, a tiny little bell rang in my memory, reading your description--but the memory bell didn't ring long enough or close enough to summon a title yet. Let me see if "not thinking about it" gets me closer...