Talk:Robert A. Heinlein/Archive 4

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ad-hoc, but internally-consistent

Oops -- I inadvertently hit return before I could finish entering the edit summary on this reversion. I thought I should explain here in more detail as a matter of courtesy. I reverted "an add-hoc, but internally-consistent" to "fairly consistent." (1) The future history really is not terribly consistent. (2) "Add-hoc" is spelled "ad hoc," and words ending in "-ly" aren't hypehenated. (3) "Ad hoc" wouldn't make sense here.--24.52.254.62 03:43, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I can't believe I typed "add-hoc". Stupid typo. I don't feel really strongly about it, but here's what I was thinking:

• "ad-hoc". By ad-hoc I meant that he didn't sit down and draft the chart as a finished blueprint in 1939 prior to starting "Life-Line". James Gifford says "The Future History chart was initially created after the first eight stories were drafted." (New Heinlein Opus List).
• "internally consistent" versus "fairly consistent". I have a low tolerance for wishy-washy terms like "fairly". I guess you can make a case for "not terribly consistent" based on his shifting dates (e.g. Life-Line shifted from 1939 (original publication) to 1951 (book versions). But from a narrative point of view, they hang together. But I'm open to argument. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 04:04, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I would go with the "internally consistent" wording (in the forced choice) and drop the "ad hoc" wording. However, "internally consistent" seems a bit awkward in this context. I think it should be taken as a given that Heinlein's FH chart was internally consistent, since it would have been useless even for him if it was not. I agree that words like "fairly" are at best weasel words. By the way, ad hoc has no hyphen and can be italicized since it is from Latin, but it has become common place in English so it does not need to be italicized. In what way do you think the FH chart is not consistent? (Not considering differences between various versions.) Hu 04:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course the chart is internally consistent, but it's equally obvious that he deviated from it freely in his later books. For instance, we have technologies like the star gates of Tunnel in the Sky and the FTL telepathy of Time for the Stars, which don't occur in any other books.--24.52.254.62 22:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Ahh, I think I see the source of the confusion here. The Future History is only a portion of Heinlein's body of work; none of the juveniles are part of it. I don't think there are any substantial inconsistencies in the books and stories that are specifically included in the Future History; do you see any? (Aside from that fact that he went back to a few stories when they were collected in book form and made minor changes to dates.) -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 22:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

The Future History article already contains a discussion about how some novels, including some of the juveniles, sort of fit into the category, but not exactly. It's just not a cleanly defined set of stories.--24.52.254.62 22:46, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a fair amount of original research in our current Future History article; I've been meaning to clean it up for a while now (see Talk:Future History). In any event, the Future History specifically refers to only the stories shown on the chart. James Gifford also provides a list here. While it might be possible to fit other Heinlein stories into the Future History to a lesser or greater extent, they are not part of it, and they can't be considered in any discussion about how internally consistent Heinlein was with canonical Future History stories. So...considering only the canonical Future History stories, do you see substantial inconsistencies? -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 22:59, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I just checked again...Future_History#Other_Future_Histories doesn't claim that any of the juveniles are part of the Future History; only that it's possible to fit them into a future history, "unrelated to the main Future History." -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 23:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm...well, Gifford's list is interesting, but it's essentially just a listing of the table of contents of The Past Through Tomorrow, plus a very small number of additions. And note that Gifford clearly points out the vagueness of the boundary between the future history stories and everything else, in his discussion of Time Enough for Love. I would suggest that the most productive course right now would be to try to put the Future History article on more solid ground, and then maybe revisit the main RAH article and see if it reads like a substantially correct summary of that. The Gifford FAQ entry is a good start on making the Future History article more solidly based on verifiable sources, but I bet there's more print and online criticism that could be used as sources.--24.52.254.62 04:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

You've said "the boundary is vague" and that the future history is only "fairly consistent", and you've suggested that some of the juveniles should be considered to be part of the future history. Do you have an authoritative source who says anything about the juveniles being part of the future history? Can you clarify exactly where you see the vagueness, and precisely where it's only "fairly" consistent? I wrote up a complete list of the stories that make up the Future History, with commentary, and noting the very few gray areas, on Talk:Future History. Maybe the best approach would be for you to point out on that page where you disagree with the list I've presented? -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 05:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Are we trying to articulate the ways that the Future History is not entirely consistent, or how it evolved over the decades? I can see how "ad hoc" is tempting, since the FH does not seem to have been conceived as FH from the start and seems a bit improvised at first--but once the idea was established, RAH did plan stories in that context, and it isn't so ad hoc any more. And "internally consistent" implies a comparison with some outside standard--we might say that a paranoid's delusions are internally consistent even though they don't match our perception of the world. But any competent fiction is internally consistent--and it's one of the hallmarks of good SF or (especially) fantasy, which has to make sense in its own terms even if it is counterfactual. Maybe what we want to point to is that the FH series evolved and changed in response to real history (which overtook some of the stories) and RAH's own interests--and that it eventually morphed into the "World as Myth" notion. Of course, it's hard to boil that down to a three- or four-word phrase. RLetson 21:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I've attempted to describe these ideas in a short paragraph, without weasel words.--24.52.254.62 22:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I've posted about this on rec.arts.sf.written under the subject heading "definition of Heinlein's Future History" to see if anyone can lead us to any verifiable sources.--24.52.254.62 04:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Good idea; you might also consider asking on alt.fan.heinlein. Please feel free to include everything I've said here and on Talk:Future History. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 04:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Minor Correction On Future History?

I have altered the line: His full future history is compiled in two volumes: The Past Through Tomorrow and Orphans of the Sky.

This is incorrect. The novels Methuselah's Chilren and Time Enough for Love are both also Future History stories. While Time Enough for Love is sometimes considered part of the World as Myth stories, it takes place entirely within the Future History and contains no references to the World as Myth. I have updated the article to reflect this.Filksinger 17:04, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Since Methuselah's Children is included in The Past Through Tomorrow, perhaps it should be removed from this para? I'm not doing it because I'd like to get agreement before taking action.--Sturgeonslawyer 21:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

When I checked, I found lists of the stories in The Past Through Tomorrow that did not include Methuselah's Children. While I remembered that it had been included, I was sufficiently vague on the subject that I let myself be convinced that it was not included. I see no problem with removing it.Filksinger 16:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I've done a bunch of edits on this topic. The Future History discussion was duplicated in two places, and had picked up a bunch of cruft. There's no way we can list every work that fits into Future History, because it's a very vaguely defined category with fuzzy boundaries.--24.52.254.62 22:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

re: "...very vaguely defined category with fuzzy boundaries."

See comments, links & citations in the previous topic. There are only a few stories where the exact boundaries (i.e. inclusion/exclusion in Future History and the exact demarcation line between Future History and World as Myth) are open to interpretation. I think I've listed them all in Talk:Future History. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 04:07, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

This is true. There have also been some edits completely removing this section, with objections that the complete list cannot be readily included, or even agreed upon.

This is fine by me, as my objection to the original passage was that it claimed to be complete when it definitely left out works that are generally agreed to belong. If it had said that most of the Future History was contained within those books, I wouldn't have edited it.

While I do think that a clear statement that the core stories can be found in the four books mentioned might be useful, the information is contained at the bottom of the Future History page, as well as a comment at the top of the page that most of the stories are found in The Past Through Tomorrow, and need not be repeated here.Filksinger 16:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite of Future History

I just took a shot at rewriting the Future History article. I moved everything that appeared to be original research to Talk:Future History. I'm open to comments, criticism, advice, abuse, whatever. Let me know what you think. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 04:27, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I approve of what you have done. Hu 07:11, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I've done some more edits to that article, trying to stick closely to verifiable statements cited to Heinlein heavies like Patterson and Gifford. I suggest we stop discussing this here, and discuss on that article's talk page.--24.52.254.62 16:02, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I consider both Patterson and Gifford to be authoritative, as they both have access to the UCSC archives. Your edits look good so far; I've responded there. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 17:40, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

On reading these three sections of Talk, it seems to me that we should be making a distinction (which I do not see that we are) between stories which are part of the Future History -- stories actually listed on the chart -- and stories which are merely consistent with the Future History -- ones which contain the same characters or are set in the same fictons...
--Baylink 15:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Starship Troopers

I removed a line that stated Starship Troopers was written in responce to the US's end to nuclear testing. There was a link to a biography but within the biography it never stated he wrote it in protest. In fact it the article it doesn't even say the US stop testing nukes. It only states the following:

"...a full-page ad appeared in the local newspaper, sponsored by the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, urging the U.S. to suspend nuclear testing unilaterally. Outraged by what they considered a major blunder in the Cold War's international brinksmanship, the Heinleins jointly prepared a responsive full-page counter-ad, whose text Heinlein preserved in Expanded Universe as "Who Are the Heirs of Patrick Henry," and encouraged others around the country to do the same...Following the Patrick Henry campaign, he went back to writing, but not to The Heretic. Instead, he wrote Starship Troopers, with a strong anti-communist message, and shocked the science fiction community silly."

To me it seems the article implies he wrote the book to go against communism and not the US's stance to end Nuclear testing which never happened: Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_States#Nuclear_testing Dominic 16:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

(Small housekeeping note: Talk page postings always go on the bottom, so they read in sequential order from top to bottom.)

The reference in the Nuclear testing section is here (the moratorium starting November 1958):

Between July 16, 1945, and September 23, 1992, the United States maintained a program of vigorous nuclear testing, with the exception of a moratorium between November 1958 and September 1961.

Heinlein describes the connection in detail in the material surrounding Who Are the Heirs of Patrick Henry? in Expanded Universe. The "Patrick Henry" article was written as an explicit attempt to convince President Eisenhowser to not implement that moratorium. In the afterword to the article, he describes how he spent every waking hour on this grassroots lobbying campaign for several weeks, until the fight was lost. Then he immediately stopped work on Stranger in a Strange Land and wrote Starship Troopers. On page 209 of Grumbles from the Grave, Virginia Heinlein reports the aftermath of the cessation of nuclear testing like this:

"The President then signed an executive order suspending all testing without requiring mutual inspection.

"Robert had been working on Stranger in a Strange Land. He set that aside and started a new book--Starship Troopers. Both books were directly affected by this try at political action--Starship Troopers most directly...."

The connection between the suspension of nuclear testing and Starship Troopers is well documented. I've reinstated that reference to the article. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 17:22, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Jim Douglas is correct.--24.52.254.62 17:46, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Changed "through military service" to "through public service", as the text itself and also Heinlein make explicit that the service in NOT neccessarily military. Changed by Tom Perkins at tdperk@hotmail.com

^^^Could you cite a specific place in the book where it states "through public (Federal, government, civil, whatever) service?" Chapter and section, please, no need for page numbers as there are so many editions. I know that Heinlein always said that it was his intent that the franchise be given to anyone in Federal or civil service, but, iirc, the book never says this. And if it doesn't say this, no matter what Heinlein intended, we must state that the text only says "through military service." Thanks. Sir Rhosis 19:41, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to see a quote on this, rather than a cite (so many different printings). As I recall, Fleet Sergeant Ho, when he's trying to dissuade the boys from signing up, gives non-military examples. For example, the quadriplegic who signs up will be given some work he can do, even if it is pushing a bean from one side of the table to the other with his nose. And Johnny's friend, Karl (or Carl?) is sent to work in the Pluto lab (where he later dies when the Bugs bomb it). I had the impression from what Ho said that the work was guaranteed unpleasant, likely dangerous, but not necessarily military in nature. The franchise is not given out lightly in this society and it means much more than it does in ours.--Wehwalt 21:09, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Gifford has written an entire paper on The Nature Of Federal Service in Starship Troopers; he concludes (regretfully) that no matter whan Heinlein *said* about what he meant FS to be about, the fiction doesn't support it. Having read the paper, I must say I have to agree with his arguments.
--Baylink 16:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Clifford Geary

I have created an article about Clifford Geary, illustrator of most of Heinlein's juveniles. Hu 11:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks good! Coincidentally, I just started this stub article: User:Jim Douglas/Heinlein juveniles. It seems like there should be enough to say about the juveniles to justify an article. The "Heinlein's Children" link at the bottom mentions Geary several times. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 15:51, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the juveniles are significant enough to deserve their own article. There is quite a bit of print criticism on them, too (Franklin, Panshin). Starship Troopers, which Heinlein considered a juvenile, is an FA. It would be interesting to have something on the extent to which they form a consistent, separately defined universe alongside of the Future History series.--24.52.254.62 18:13, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The article is barely a stub, but I went ahead and moved it to Heinlein juveniles to open it up to editing by anyone who's interested. I'll go back (soon) and flesh out the non-Scribner's sections if someone else doesn't get there first. I was going to add that he considered a full scouting collection at one time; he had enough Puddin' stories planned (but never written) to create a collection; and Podkayne was Puddin's direct literary descendent (see Expanded Universe). Interestingly, while Heinlein apparently did not consider Podkayne to be a juvenile novel, Virginia Heinlein referred to it as a juvenile in Grumbles from the Grave -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 18:24, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I also added preceded by and succeeded by references to each of the 12 Scribner's juvenile infoboxes (based on publication date). -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 18:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

(I moved a new discussion about whether these links should be included to a new topic at the bottom of the page.) -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 16:18, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Good. Thank you for creating the Juveniles article. And good work on the infoboxes. I wonder about removing the English language tag out of the box (have tested it), since it seems redundant and ends up being clutter, but I don't mind either way. Hu 22:15, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Specifying "Language: English" on the English-language Wikipedia seems somewhat redundant to me too. Is there some standard that we're supposed to include the language (even though English can be logically inferred)? I notice that it seems to be specified everywhere: Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, Dune (novel), Foundation (novel), etc. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 22:25, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I haven't read this book myself, but Heinlein's Children: The Juveniles looks like it might be interesting. The introduction is available here -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 22:40, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Heinlein's Children: The Juveniles by Joseph T. Major (Advent, ISBN 0-911682-34-1) is a pretty complete account of the books--basically a set of summaries-with-comments. Not academic scolarship, but exhaustive and thoughtful. I'd say it belongs in the References lists here and in the "Heinlein Juveniles" article. RLetson 17:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I ordered it on Saturday; I probably won't have it for at least a week. I didn't want to add it to the references without first reviewing it and including something from it in the article. Did you want to go ahead and do that? -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 17:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Off The Main Sequence: The Other Science Fiction Stories Of Robert A. Heinlein

• Added a short article for Off the Main Sequence (2005 collection) -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 22:19, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Influence

There was a paragraph in the Influence section that talked about his influence on specific writers. That paragraph always had problems with veering towards being an incoherent list of authors influenced by Heinlein. Most recently, it named only two writers, John Varley and Stephen King. It seems very doubtlful to me that those two writers are more important than any others influenced by Heinlein, or that his influence on them was particularly strong. I've rewritten the paragraph so it makes a more general case, while sticking to verifiable sources.--24.52.254.62 17:38, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Good change; it improves the article. We might also add Requiem as a reference; it includes several first-person testimonials about Heinlein's influence. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 18:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

While it may not be necessary to name any particular writers influenced by RAH (paragraph 3 of this section is fine as it stands for this degree of detail), I'd point out that Varley is indeed specifically and strongly influenced by the Old Man, to the tune of at least four novels in the last 14 years directly inspired by him. And while the RAH influence is widely distributed across post-WWII SF, it's especially strong in the work of Joe Haldeman, Allen Steele, John Barnes, and Michael Flynn, all of whom have, like Varley, written novels directly indebted to RAH. Then there's Spider Robinson, of course, but Variable Star is a special case. RLetson 15:51, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. Disagree with this change. The "incoherent list" label by the anon is about right - some really were completely non-notable, but deleting the likes of John Varley is a bit silly. As RLetson notes, Heinlein is a clear (even name-checked) influence, and Varley is at least a notable author (he's even had a non-RAH-influenced short story/novel filmed - badly!). Omitting such a specific mention in what's actually quite a long section on "influence" is a bit drastic. That said, RAH's influence on Stephen King isn't clear to me at all, so perhaps I'm just blinded by being a fan. Cheers, --Plumbago 16:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Posthumous publications

I reverted a significant expansion of the Posthumous publications section, on the theory that the article is already very long, and there's no reason to include a detailed list of just the books that were published after 1988. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 23:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

That assertion in this section that Robinson "is widely considered to be [Heinlein's] protege" seems a bit much--for one thing, the protegé relationship is generally between living people, at least at the beginning. Spider has a nice story about RAH sending him money when he was broke (if I recall correctly), but I don't think that makes him a protegé. I suggest cutting that line. RLetson 01:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, and done. FWIW, I didn't add it, I just didn't catch it when I made the other change. I'm a little luke-warm about the "mixed reviews" thing too. Does anyone know if it's verifiable? -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 02:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I added mixed reviews, based on having seen them. I could hunt them down for citation, if you like.
--Baylink 16:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I trimmed that section a bit more, and removed the "to mixed reviews" thing. I don't feel really strongly about it, so feel free to reverse me if someone thinks it ought to be there. And (slightly off-topic): Spider repeated that story on Sunday. The story goes that there was a time when Spider was flat broke and didn't know how he was going to pay the rent. Just when he needed it, a check arrived from RAH, equal to precisely the amount of his rent plus $100. He asked Heinlein how he knew (a) that he was broke and (b) the precise amount, but he never got an answer. That's when Heinlein told him "don't pay it back; pay it forward". -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 02:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

In a world where L. Ron Hubbard and V.C. Andrews continue publishing new books years after their respective deaths, I think posthumous publications deserve some comment on exactly how they do or don't fit into the canon of the author's work. It may be argued that the way I did it took up too much space in an already-long article (I have some serious doubts about arbitrary length limits; an article needs to be as long as it needs to be), but the current format, a lightly edited version of what was there before, is pretty incoherent; can we impose some order on it, please?Sturgeonslawyer 21:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't see what is incoherent about the current section. The first paragraph is a bit dense (heavy with information), almost a necessity. Hu 22:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Splitting the article

It's time to split this article up into smaller pieces. It's currently 61k, which is nearly twice the recommended maximum of 31k (Wikipedia:Article size). We need to keep in mind that this article is supposed to be useful and interesting to people who aren't Heinlein fanatics like we are. There's simply way too much here to expect the general reader to wade through. It's a little awkward that this article is already an FA, but that's not really a big deal. By default, the main article would still be an FA, and the sub-articles wouldn't.

I suggest we make the following spin-offs:

Robert A. Heinlein's life

Robert A. Heinlein's writing, 1939-1960

Robert A. Heinlein's writing, 1961-1988

The life/writing split is fairly clean. The splitting of his writing by periods is less clean, but necessary because a monolithic writing article would be about 50k, which is hardly an improvement over 61k. The first period covers essentially all of the writing that is closely tied to the Future History, and essentially all of the juveniles. The ideas, themes, and influence section in the current article presently uses examples freely from both pre- and post-1960, but really all of these ideas found their fullest expression in his post-1960 work; essentially this whole section could go into the post-1960 article, except for the influence subsection, which could remain in the main article. There would be a few awkward places where we're currently making a particular point using, say, one example from a juvenile and one example from a post-1960 novel, but I think that kind of thing can be handled on a case-by-case basis. The Heinlein juveniles article could be linked to from both the life article and the pre-1960 article. Likewise Robert A. Heinlein bibliography can be linked to from all three spin-offs.--24.52.254.62 03:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I hadn't considered it; the article didn't seem overly long to me. It might be time to think about splitting it, but the guideline also says there's no need for haste. If we do split it, I'm opposed to breaking up his writing at some arbitrary line, though. The most interesting thing I took away from For Us, The Living was that the Heinlein of 1938 was writing about the same ideas that he was still writing about 50 years later. Another way of breaking up the article might be to carve out the "themes": Politics, Race, Individualism & self-determination, and Sexual liberation. Breaking them out would enable us to expand on those ideas. For example, just glancing over the Race section, we might mention that Rod Walker was black and that Juan Rico was Filipino, with neither fact highlighted as significant, and how revolutionary that was at the time. Just a thought, anyway. There's no rush; we can spend a week or two mulling over the most logical way to break it up. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 04:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree there's no big rush. A week or two is reasonable. I dislike the idea of splitting the themes and the works into separate articles. The works article would then be "He wrote this. It's a story about a revolution on Venus. Then he wrote this. It's a story about slugs taking over people's minds." A works/themes split would also end up being very uneven. The themes article would be extremely long, and the works one extremely short, and there would be no way to expand the length of the works one, except maybe by putting in plot summaries, or something similarly highschoolish. I agree with you that For Us, The Living is very interesting in showing his early concern with what we think of as his later themes. However, the plain truth is that it was never published, and he also held off on publishing Stranger exactly because he didn't think the world was ready for its themes. The theme of sexual liberation and free love, in particular, is essentially absent from his *published* work from before 1960. Likewise there is no satirical treatment of religion until 1960, whereas after 1960 that was an important, repeating theme. 1960 is basically the year he decided to cut loose and start writing "my own stuff, my own way," and there really is a huge contrast between the pre-1960 stuff and the post-1960 stuff. BTW, the length and the need for a split have been discussed before, but I think the momentum just wasn't there, and/or it may have been around the same time it was up for FA.--24.52.254.62 04:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll read the article through again and think it over. But my main point is that Heinlein didn't change in 1960 -- the world started to catch up to where he'd been all along. And maybe that rejection by Scribner's pushed him abruptly away from Alice Dalgliesh's straightjacket. He didn't choose to not publish For Us, The Living in 1938-39. He submitted it to two different publishers; both rejected it (which is understandable...looking at it simply as fiction, it's not very well written). He would have been happy to publish it if Macmillan or Random House had been willing to buy it. And the ideas that he was writing about in 1938 were exactly the ideas he continued to write about for the rest of his life. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 05:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

A split, in principle, is a good idea, but needs to be carefully approached. Split is not exactly the right concept, though we understand what you mean. When I split off the Robert A. Heinlein bibliography nine months ago, that reduced the article from 61 KB to 51 KB, and now it has grown back to the same size with new material. That was an easy obvious split.

Although there is a change in the nature of the work around 1960, I think that is ultimately arbitrary, since these themes had been hinted at in earlier work (cf. the stripper in "The Year of the Jackpot", and Beyond This Horizon). A separate article could be written around a unified discussion of "Heinlein's themes", but it would have to be carefully written to no be original research (this can be done). The main Heinlein article would not have to be a dull list of themes or stories, but it would take considerable skill in writing (this can also be done). Likewise, Heinlein's life could be the topic of a secondary article.

Ultimately, the result of hiving off secondary articles would allow the main article to do a better job of overview, perspective, and explaining influence on modern culture. For an example with numerous secondary articles, see William Shakespeare. Hu 05:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Hu that a themes/work split would take considerable skill, but I would go futher -- in fact, it would amount to a complete rewrite of the article, and personally I would be daunted by the task of trying to make the works article anything more than a dreary list. I also don't see the point of a themes/work split, because it wouldn't help us in terms of length; the present themes section is something like 50k, which is still too long by almost a factor of two for a single article. I think it's a bit of a red herring to worry about how dramatic the change was between pre-1960 and post-1960. For comparison, History of the United States has a sub-article History of the United States (1789–1849). There wasn't any sudden, dramatic change in 1849 at all; they simply chose a place to make the cut, so that the post-1849 article could focus more on sectionalism and the lead-up to the civil war. It's actually interesting to look at other articles on famous artists, writers, composers, etc., for comparison. One thing that really amazes me is that we have more material on Heinlein than on figures like Jane Austen, J.S. Bach, or Michelangelo! I guess that's just the nature of wikipedia. The only other writer I could find whose article was lengthy enough to require sub-articles was Shakespeare, and that was easy because they simply split it like life/sonnets/plays. --24.52.254.62 22:05, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, here are the approximate current section sizes:

 2,154  rah-header.txt
10,857  rah-life.txt
 7,858  rah-work-early.txt
 7,389  rah-work-mature.txt
27,467  rah-ideas-themes-influence.txt
 7,570  rah-trailer.txt
63,305  rah.txt (Total)

-- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 22:34, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the data! Obviously my seat-of-the-pants estimates were significantly off. Assuming that the trailer part is footnotes that would be proportionately distributed among the other parts if they were separate, a themes and influence article would probably be about 31k, which is right at the suggested upper limit. All I can say is that I still think a works article would be way too dopey and sophomoric to stand on its own, unless someone showed some amazing creativity and skill in writing it -- more creativity and skill than I personally would be confident of mustering. Nobody seems to have objected to the idea that the article is too long, and we all seem to be in agreement that the life article is a natural piece to calve off of this iceberg. Why don't we just do that right now? Then it can have the friendly feeling of a barn-raising, and when we're done we can feel like we accomplished something positive, instead of being at odds with one another and spinning our wheels.--24.52.254.62 02:29, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

What's the rush? :-) The article is 63,000 bytes, give or take. There are bigger articles on Wikipedia, but you're right; that puts it into the "let's think about how we'd subdivide it" range. But let's give other editors a chance to ponder it for a while before we start carving it up. I'm still not sure what the right breakdown might be. FWIW, though, my original thought about the themes articles (which I'm not necessarily proposing, just thinking out loud) was that each of the individual themes (Politics, Race, Individualism & self-determination, and Sexual liberation) could be a separate article; there's certainly enough to say about each of them to fill out an article. But that's just one possibility, and I'd like to hear other opinions and reach a broad consensus before we do anything. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 03:21, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

What's the rush? This has actually been an issue that has been discussed before, and has dragged out for a long time without being dealt with. I think we should really admit that it's a problem, and deal with it, rather than letting it slide as we have before. I don't see any reason to delay in splitting off the bio article, since there seems to be absolutely no controversy that it's a natural thing to do. There are bigger articles on Wikipedia. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Splitting each theme into an individual article might not be a bad idea. One thing I'd worry about is that, e.g., the stuff about Heinlein's attitudes toward homosexuality and women has tended to be a hot button issue that has caused some edit wars; it's easier to keep track of these things if they're not scattered into many different articles. It also occurs to me that we could split off themes into one or more articles, but *not* split off works at all; that would address my concern that a works article would be dreary, and apt to consist of lists and sophomoric plot summaries.--24.52.254.62 21:07, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I missed the earlier discussions; this is the first time it's come up since I've been here. Anyway, only three of us have commented at all, and there hasn't been any consensus about how to start carving it up. I'm not suggesting "let it slide". I'm saying give it a week or two to give more editors time to think about it and for some consensus to develop. (Or as they say in woodworking, "measure twice, cut once"). -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 21:17, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I missed the earlier discussions; this is the first time it's come up since I've been here. It was discussed in March 2005, and again in November 2005. Anyway, only three of us have commented at all... That's to be expected, since we're the three people most active on this article. there hasn't been any consensus about how to start carving it up. I think there *is* a consensus on splitting the life part off, and that's what I'm suggesting we just go ahead and do. I've put in a { { verylong } } template.--24.52.254.62 00:03, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Based on the discussion that's already taken place, I'd like to revise my earlier proposal. I believe we have a consensus on spinning off the following article:

Robert A. Heinlein's life

If no crack appears in the consensus by Wed, Nov. 1, I suggest we go ahead and start creating that sub-article any time after that, with the intention of editing down the main article as soon as the sub-article looks ready. Since the pre-1960/post-1960 proposal appears to have failed to gain a consensus, I propose we instead split off this article:

Themes and ideas in Robert A. Heinlein's writing

I won't propose a date to start doing this yet, because this hasn't been as fully discussed. As part of this, I specifically want to propose that we *not* split off a "Robert A. Heinlein's works" article, both because it wouldn't cut the length much, and because of the doubts I expressed above about the lack of potential for such an article to stand on its own. I also want to remark that splitting off the themes and ideas article would make it a little more obvious to the rest of the world that this material, as it currently exists, is relatively weakly footnoted, and sometimes veers close to original research. That's partly my fault, since I wrote a lot of it (as user bcrowell). Exposing this shortcoming would probably be a good thing, but we'd have to rise to the occasion by making a communal effort to fix it; it's going to take some ingenuity to fix it, because there's very little print criticism on Heinlein's works after about 1970 or 1973.--24.52.254.62 00:26, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Jim Douglas reverted my addition of the verylong template, but I've put it back in. Jim, you've expressed a concern that we might not have gotten participation from everyone in this discussion, so in that case it makes a lot of sense to announce loud and clear that it's under active discussion.--24.52.254.62 05:24, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I won't re-revert it, but I think the "This article is becoming..." box is ugly, and anyone who is likely to contribute to the discussion already has the article on their watch-list. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 06:01, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't mean for this to sound argumentative, but please stop saying there's a consensus about how to start carving up the article; there isn't. Can we just agree for now that the article should probably be subdivided soon, but without attempting to impose a firm deadline on it? I understand that you're frustrated that the discussion has led to nowhere in the past. But it doesn't follow that we need to set an arbitrary deadline of Wednesday before we start firing up the chainsaws. I'd like to let the problem simmer in my head for a few more days without having to worry about coming up with a firm proposal in the next 72 hours. Please? -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 06:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the article is still managable in size. But if it must be split, then separating out the themes and ideas is, IMHO, the way to go.--Wehwalt 15:12, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It occurred to me that "splitting the article" isn't something that needs to happen at a single instant in time. I think the candidates on the table are:

• Heinlein's life (whatever the title might be; this title is comparable to Shakespeare's life)
• Themes in Heinlein's writing (whatever the title might be) (and possibly subdivided further into individual themes)

If there's general agreement that one, or the other, or both of those topics are reasonable candidates for their own articles, then they could be created anytime, without actually removing them from the existing article, just to see how they might work as standalone articles. My only concern is that we not mess with the main article too much until we have a consensus about the sub-articles. I'm not sure how this works, but I think when we break off sub-articles, we also need to keep a summary version of the material in the main article to give some context. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 21:47, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Straw man proposal for Robert A. Heinlein bibliography

This is a straw man proposal for restructuring the Robert A. Heinlein bibliography page:

User talk:Jim Douglas/Robert A. Heinlein bibliography

My thought was that readers who are interested in specific categories of Heinlein's work can go directly to Future History or Heinlein juveniles. Because we have those pages, there's less need to break down the bibliography by categories. This proposal just lists everything he ever published in chronological order. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 03:38, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Scribner's juveniles

(Moved from the Clifford Geary section above):

BTW, I also added preceded by and succeeded by references to each of the 12 Scribner's juvenile infoboxes (based on publication date). -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 18:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

IMO, this use of preceded by and followed by is misleading. A casual reader would almost certainly assume that they referred to prequels and sequels, which these books are not. The closest comparable example I can come up with is Charles Dickens' five "Christmas novels". They also came out yearly, but their articles are not connected in this manner. I strongly urge that the infobox lines be removed. Clarityfiend 08:24, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I could take either side of the argument (include them or exclude them). On balance, I think they're useful in showing the relationship between the Scribner's juveniles, which are often discussed as a group. And they do no harm -- the twelve individual articles don't imply that the books form a traditional series. If there is any potential confusion, we can clarify in the article headers that, while they don't form a traditional series, they are often discussed as a group. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 16:18, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

The sequencing is important. Readers of the encyclopedia may want to see how the ideas and writing developed over time. Also, this type of sequencing is used by most of the music song and album infoboxes: they also have a temporal sequence that usually has no sequel/prequel significance. The exact terminology might be changed, such as "Previous" and "Next". Hu 16:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the reasoning. The sequencing is already completely revealed by the Heinlein novel box at the bottom of the article where the novels are listed in order of publication. The terms "Preceded by" and "Followed by" suggest a series (as do your suggestions, Hu, at least to me), and if not, they're just useless duplication. Finally, if music infoboxes don't use a sensible rule, that doesn't sound like a strong reason; better to get it right.

Is there any way to find out what the originator(s) of the infobox meant? Maybe "Preceded in series by", etc., would have been more clear. Zaslav 20:13, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Any known full-length biography in the works?

I've had a look at the current bibliographic section for the biographical aspects of the article, and it appears there is as yet no in-depth, full-length biography of Robert A. Heinlein. Does anyone posting here know if there is one about to appear — or currently in the works? Joel Russ 00:07, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

This article by Bill Patterson is the best available until his book is published, The Man Who Learned Better: Robert A. Heinlein in Dialogue With His Century.. I wouldn't be surprised to see the book published some time around July 7, 2007, but I don't think the publication date has been announced. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 02:36, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Cutting it by *half* (from ~700k words to ~350k) proved as difficult as you'd think; it did not come out in time for the Centennial, but I believe Bill said it was due by the end of the year.
--Baylink 16:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

contributions to society

There's mention of Heinlein's contributions to language; "grok", "TANSTAAFL", and "waldo", but no mention of inventions inspired by Heinlein, which would ideally include the waldo, and the water bed, to name two. Mikepwnz 17:08, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The waldo is mentioned twice in the article (admittedly as a word, not as an invention) and is linked to. The water bed is mentioned in the first paragraph in the section on "Life", after 1934. 17:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

And, to be clear, Heinlein didn't "inspire" the invention of the waterbed, he *invented* the damned thing.  :-) --Baylink 14:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I love Heinleins work-- but the claim about contributing to the English language is a stretch at best (and should be removed).

No one uses the words 'Grok' or "TANSTAAFL", and 'Waldo' is rarely used and not widely understood as he meant it. These don't rate as real English language contributions because they never came into widespread use. His novels, on the other hand, are works of enormous accomplishment and they will continue to stand the test of time.

Phil

65.100.188.147 03:27, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I have from time to time heard people (not acquaintances) use the word "grok" (infrequently, to be sure), and was thus pleasantly surprised to realize that it hasn't entirely disappeared from cultural memory. Presumably, people are still reading Stranger. Cgingold 13:12, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

"TANSTAAFL" can be heard in any first-level economics class, and I heard "waldo" all the time when I was in FIRST. Mancxvi 15:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I see at least one "I Grok Spock" bumper sticker or pin every day, and I've heard TAANSTAFL used in two economics classes. Waldo is a bit more rare, but I've actually heard auto mechanics (which, to be blunt, aren't the likliest people to read science fiction) refer to them. Just because a word isn't as used as more typical nouns or adjectives doesn't mean they haven't been contributed to our vernacular in a permanent and lasting way; how often do you actually hear "SNAFU" in daily speech? Ayesee 10:44, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the case is that unlike SNAFU, TANSTAAFL is most commonly spelt out word by word, rather than spoken as the abreviation, when given in speech, unlike in text. Grok is definitely out there, as witness the groklaw site for one. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. 22:22, 27 April 2007 (UTC)