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Title: For Us, The Living : A Comedy of Customs by Robert A. Heinlein, Robert James, Spider Robinson ISBN: 0-7432-5998-X Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (18 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Novelized philosophy
Comment: This book was a quick and entertaining read. I quite enjoy philosophy communicated through a novel (rather than an essay), for example the novels by Ayn Rand, Orwell or Huxley. As any other philosophical book, expect many points where you'll disagree or feel that the author is missing the point.
Some reviews say that the title "For us, the living" is a wink to "We, the living" but I didn't find much similarity. Ayn Rand's book is fiercely anti-communist while Heinlein's proposals are rather socialistic (capitalism with extremely strong state intervention in the economy, like the Western European social democrats). The style is quite different too, the only similarity would be that both authors are using novels as a tool for philosophy (even in this respect, this book would be closer to The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged)
If you like "social" and "philosophical" science fiction and don't mind some imperfection of a "beginner's novel" you'll enjoy this book. If you're looking for "action" and "story" or you think that novelized philosophy books are "boring lectures", you'd better skip this book.
Rating: 3
Summary: Interesting for Heinlein fans tracing the Master's work
Comment: When Perry Nelson's car careens over a cliff in 1939, he doesn't expect more than a few seconds of life. Yet he comes to himself in a blizzard, and is helped to safety by a beautiful and talented woman. He soon learns that the year is 2086, and he is in an America which has eliminated poverty, and where each citizen is free to act as he likes, so long as he does no harm to another. He adapts readily to the society, but has difficulty overcoming his 1939 values . . .
Written in 1939 and never published, this was Heinlein's first novel. In the model of Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward", it was unpublished for a good reason--it really isn't that great, and bogs down readily in political and economic discussion. Still, it is worth buying for the Heinlein fan.
Why? Not because of its readibility, but because one can trace so many concepts Heinlein would later develop so brilliantly. The "may I do you a service" society of "Methuselah's Children"--the "roads" of "The Roads Must Roll"--even the roots of the story of "The Man Too Lazy to Fail" from "Time Enough for Love"--all may be found here. Nehemiah Scudder is described. You never know when you will meet the seed of something Heinlein would later use. A character makes an economic statement--and you remember that Dr. Chan, in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" said almost the same thing.
You get a slice of the early Heinlein, as he morphed from naval officer (not coincidentally, Perry's 1939 job) to SF master.
Recommended for the Heinlein fan, but not for someone seeking their first taste of the Master.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Heinlein Manifesto
Comment: For Us, the Living was the first novel written by Heinlein, but remained unpublished during his lifetime. It is reminiscent of Nowlan's Armageddon 2419 A.D. in its plot, with the hero losing consciousness and awaking decades later. In this case, Perry Nelson blacks out following a fall in 1939 and awakens in 2186. He finds himself is a society that corresponds to his own in many way, yet is strangely different.
In 1919, the year that Armageddon 2419 A.D. was published, science fiction was a medium for technological ideas and adventure. By 1939, however, the field was changing to portray the effects of technology on people rather than describing the technology itself. This trend was started primarily by the stories of Don A. Stuart -- John W. Campbell's alter ego -- and became even more influential when Campbell became the editor of Astounding magazine.
In this novel, the author presents a utopian future that is quite different from 1939, including many technological and social changes. His presentation fits right into the new approach to science fiction emerging at Astounding and elsewhere. However, the novel itself didn't sell, primarily because it lacks adventure and excitement. Nonetheless, a number of shorter works incorporating these ideas were sold to the SF magazines and later became the basis of his Future History series.
The author developed an action-oriented style in these tales. He also created a new type of science fiction story: portrayal of the workplaces of the future. In The Roads Must Roll, the author wrote of the men who built and maintained the passenger-carrying conveyor belts of the future. In The Green Hills of Earth, he wrote of the jetmen who kept the engines running on the interplanetary ships. In many ways, he became his character Rhysling, but in prose rather than poem. He was also the Kipling of his generation in more than one respect.
This novel portrays a time when spaceflight is just beginning to develop. In Requiem (1940), the author presents a view of a time when moonflight is common (and introduces D.H. Harriman). The author retroactively describes the development of moonflight in The Man Who Sold the Moon (1950).
After writing this novel, the author only wrote for the magazines for several years, although many of the short stories and serials were later published as books. Rocket Ship Galileo, his first novel published orginally as a book, came out in 1947 as a juvenile and was followed in the next year by Space Cadet. However, 1948 also saw the original book publication of an adult SF novel, Beyond This Horizon.
Rocket Ship Galileo is not a Future History story, but contains an alternate history of the first moonflight. As did The Man Who Sold the Moon, it takes place in a time when orbital flight is routine. It also introduces the nuclear propulsion used in the later juveniles.
Beyond This Horizon is a post-utopian novel and thus is a kind of sequel to For Us, the Living. It contains further technological and social changes. It also features a man from the past, although as a minor character. However, it mostly portrays the utopia from the point of view of contemporary characters and it contains plenty of adventure and excitement as well. Overall, it shows how far the author advanced in his craftsmanship in less than a decade.
Highly recommended for Heinlein fans and for anyone else who is interested in the history of science fiction.
-Arthur W. Jordin
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Title: The Robert Heinlein Interview and Other Heinleiniana by J. Neil Schulman, Brad Linaweaver ISBN: 1584450150 Publisher: Pulpless.Com Pub. Date: 31 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Counterfeit Heinlein by Laurence M. Janifer ISBN: 1587153440 Publisher: Wildside Press Pub. Date: January, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Callahan's Con by Spider Robinson ISBN: 0765302705 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 02 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein by Robert A. Heinlein ISBN: 0312875576 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 17 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Requiem : and Tributes to the Grand Master by Robert A. Heinlein ISBN: 0812513916 Publisher: Tor Science Fiction Pub. Date: 15 August, 1994 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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