These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Thomas Paine
Author: photog
26MAR2025 – Photo of the Day
To Serve Man. We Need a New Cookbook
All this Heinlein stuff has me thinking about science fiction. And that’s fine by me. The current political theater between the Trump administration and the various judges trying to block his orders isn’t something I want to provide a blow-by-blow description of. Either Trump figures out a way around these obstacles or he fails. Either way I’ll wait till I can see the outcome.
But science fiction is interesting to me. From my way of looking at it, science fiction is the dominant form of storytelling in American society and has been for well over a century. Now this isn’t what literary types believe. But genre fiction is the dominant form of fiction in this country and science fiction is what fueled the imaginations of young people for most of the twentieth century and still does even in these times of moral rot in the arts.
So, this gives me a chance to talk about my ideas about where science fiction should and will go. And I think the current direction of technological progress will provide the impetus for where the stories will go. Currently I don’t think space travel and advances in biology are the topics that garner our attention. Not to say those things won’t continue to interest people. But currently the real impact of technology on our lives is artificial intelligence. But more than just how far AI will go in replacing humans in various aspects of commerce is what this will do to our society. And more specifically how will humans push back on the people running industry who don’t see this as a problem or at least don’t see it as a problem for them.
Because let’s be clear. Automation of all kinds has been changing our world for hundreds of years. An iron foundry displaces ten thousand village blacksmiths. An automobile factory and a gas station in every village eliminates the need for train stations across the country and all the people who worked on them. Every innovation in technology displaces the human beings who supported the previous version of “how things are done.” But this latest innovation wants to replace the most important attribute of a human being; his ability to think. His ability to create intellectual property.
And that’s a revolution. And I think, that’s what science fiction will want to talk about. Of course it’s been talking about that for decades. On the hackiest level, that’s what the Terminator movies are all about. The machines are going to get rid of us. So are the Matrix movies.
But I think more nuanced portrayals of how AI will affect humanity and how humanity can affect the roll out of AI are what is needed and what will be interesting to people. Now far be it from me to denigrate the fine work that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Keanu Reeves have done to enlighten the human population to their imminent danger at the hands of sentient machines. I know that I’m always on the lookout for Austrian bodybuilders sporting gatling guns or déjà vu black cats crossing my path.
But what seems to me to be needed is a way to make AI healthy. Currently, everything about our on-line existence is harmful to us. It’s some combination of anti-social, irritating and stultifying. It’s making our lives worse. And that doesn’t seem to be accidental. It seems to be a feature of the algorithm. It almost seems like an anesthetic meant to keep us groggy and confused.
I think science fiction should be focused on rethinking how this ultimate technology has to be forced to work for the benefit of humans instead of as a rat poison to finish us off. So that’s what I think.
25MAR2025 – Photo of the Day
25MAR2025 – Quote of the Day
In America, the law is king.
Thomas Paine
Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 24MAR2025 – Heinlein Juveniles
Hmm reording in my preference
Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958)
Citizen of the Galaxy (1957)
Starman Jones (1953)
Time for the Stars (1956)
Farmer in the Sky (1950)
Tunnel in the Sky (1955)
The Rolling Stones (1952)
The Star Beast (1954)
Space Cadet (1948)
Rocket Ship Galileo (1947)
Between Planets (1951)
Red Planet (1949)
And yes Space Nazis is silly NOW but it was written in 1947 and so is a reasonable period thing. That said it still is a bit of a loser as a story:-) . Have Space Suit is clearly the best of the best. I read both Between Planets and Red Planet, but other than the Venusian Isaac Newton I remember little. For a Heinlein piece of writing that tells me it was unremarkable (although likely superior to many “Hugo” award winners since the early 2000’s)
As to Starship Troopers that is a special case and I need to recuse myself from that judgement. You see it was the first Heinlein I read when I purchased it for 75 cents at a book fair in 6th grade. So I did read it in the time period for a Juvenile. It certainly has many of the Heinlein juvenile tropes with a just out of teenage protagonist (The literary types if they deigned to read Heinlien might call it a Bildungsroman). There is NO sex and perhaps a little romantic/sexual tension.
One might argue that Starship Troopers being an intentional polemic to duty is of a larger import than the Juveniles, and yet Have Space Suit deals with the complexities of who rules and how they rule with Three Galaxies, Citizen of the Galaxy takes on slavery and the fact of people ignoring it for their own profit, Starman Jones deals with the issues of having cheated to break out of an unfair system and the consequences (admittedlythey DO get Deus ex Machinaed out of the way), I can’t say I wouldn’t give Starship Troopers to a young person (Having myself benifitted from it although the powered armor was more of interest than the politics to a 6th grader). And it sits closer to the Juveniles in style and feel than either Stranger in a Strange land or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. If I must put it in the Juveniles it goes before Have Space Suit. But as I noted I am biased and one never forgets their first love.
As a separate issue should Podkayne of Mars be in this list. It is an oddball (and not published for the same publisher) but yet other than a female protagonist it certainly fits the mold as well as Starship Troopers.
The Juvenile Novels of Robert A Heinlein – A Short Discussion
I had so much fun with the Heinlein short stories that I’m rolling into the Heinlein juveniles. I think many people understandably feel that the juvenile novels may be Heinlein’s best work. I confess I’m of two minds about that. They have different properties and leave room for adult novels to show their quality in a different way.
But let’s see where we can go with these stories. I think I’ll rank them best to worst according to my incredibly sensitive literary faculty.
Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958)
The Rolling Stones (1952)
Farmer in the Sky (1950)
Starman Jones (1953)
Citizen of the Galaxy (1957)
Tunnel in the Sky (1955)
Red Planet (1949)
The Star Beast (1954)
Space Cadet (1948)
Time for the Stars (1956)
Between Planets (1951)
Rocket Ship Galileo (1947)
I’ve left out Starship Troopers (1959) because although Heinlein included it in his juvenile series. I think it’s actually one of his adult stories.
Now my order is obviously idiosyncratic and to be perfectly honest most of the stories are fairly equally good so it’s a very rough sorting. I did put Rocket Ship Galileo last because now, space nazis do seem a bit silly to me. But at the time the story seemed just fine to adolescent me. Maybe depending on the day “Tunnel in the Sky” and “Citizen of the Galaxy” could switch places on the list. And maybe a few other ones too. But let’s go with this.
The only story that I think I can objectively hold up as accurately ranked is my first choice, “Have Space Suit—Will Travel.” I think Heinlein did excel his usual juvenile story here. The protagonist, characters and plot devices are especially enjoyable and I can say even now, a sequel or two in this universe might be a fun read. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll contact the Heinlein estate to find out if they have any provisions for making that part of his intellectual property available to “respectful” collaborators.
I gave copies of all these books to my grandsons as soon as they were old enough to read. I consider them excellent company for growing boys. Just looking at that list of names makes me think of picking up “Starman Jones” or “The Rolling Stones” just to relive the feeling of reading them for the first time. They are each a touchstone to a very happy time in my life when the local library had a whole shelf of these Heinlein stories just waiting for me to read them and move onto the next one.
One other word on these books. Of all the books, I think “Between Planets” was the only one I never reread. I remember it took place on a Venus that was tropical in climate. There was a Venusian named Sir Isaac Newton, I believe, but I don’t remember very much else about the plot other than some kind of interplanetary political intrigue.
So, what is your order of excellence? And what is your rationale? And where exactly do you stand on the “Starship Troopers” question? And what is your opinion on space nazis. Leave your comments in the comments section below.
24MAR2025 – Photo of the Day
24MAR2025 – Quote of the Day
Learn, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed.
Axel von Oxenstierna
The Green Energy “Transition”
Here’s an excellent article that takes an objective approach to energy policy. It looks at energy sources as an historical phenomenon. One of my favorite quotes is, “We find a useful referee in this war of words with the recently released Eye on the Market 15th Annual Energy Paper by Michael Cembalest, J. P. Morgan’s chairman of market and investment strategy. As this 70-slide, deep-dive report pointedly notes, “after $9 trillion globally over the last decade spent on wind, solar, electric vehicles, energy storage, electrified heat and power grids, the renewable transition is still a linear one; the renewable share of final energy consumption is slowly advancing at 0.3%–0.6% per year [emphasis added].” One does not need a mathematics degree to understand that such anemic growth rates are not the hallmarks of an “unstoppable” juggernaut. Hence, Cembalest’s bottom line: “Growth in fossil fuel consumption is slowing but no clear sign of a peak on a global basis.” That is to say, no “energy transition” is in sight.”
I like a business analyst that has a rye sense of humor; “an unstoppable juggernaut.” The Germans being the hyper-obedient victims of their past behavior have gone down the green road with both feet. They shut down their nuclear power plants and without Russian gas their economy has been crushed. They don’t have enough heating energy for their homes and they can’t run their heavy industries like auto manufacturing and chemical synthesis without fossil fuels. I wonder if they were smart enough to leave the nuke plants intact just in case they came to their senses. Nah, they’re too smart to have left themselves a emergency exit. I’ll bet they knocked them down.
The gist of the essay is that there’s never a transition from one energy source to the next. The old one keeps on at the same lever or even increases. Eventually an even more productive successor just step changes itself into prominence. Human muscle didn’t disappear when animals were domesticated. Wind power didn’t eliminate oxen. Neither did steam. And steam still powers many applications even though fossil fuels became predominant. And one day oil and gas will be overshadowed by nuclear or geothermal or whatever larger source is engineered. We want more power not less. That’s the lesson.