The Heinlein Society - Robert A. Heinlein
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The Heinlein Society
Here to "Pay it Forward" and to discuss the life and works of the Grand Master.
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It is not clear how Heinlein got from this germ to the story he eventually did (around the beginning of April 1939) write up as his first story, “LifeLine.” Switching it from pure fantasy to science fiction may have suggested the pulp gadget-story format, which is typically about the inventor and his invention. Heinlein began in a way that would become characteristic for him—with irony: his inventor was not a mad scientist but the only truly sane man in the story, a rational man who faces facts squarely and without wishful thinking, fairly obviously a model of how Heinlein—as a rational man—hoped he would face that dreadful knowledge, resolutely: make time to enjoy the best things life had to offer him in his remaining time and leave Leslyn provided for, possibly by taking out a big insurance policy—any insurance company would scream bloody murder if it was discovered that he was using some kind of arcane knowledge. The elements of a science-fiction story—with a fantasy “twist” at the end—took shape, and this was a characteristic, also, of Heinlein’s approach to fiction: he was never to be comfortable with formula, and many of his stories challenge the boundaries of science fiction.
Equally characteristically, Heinlein chose a pun for his title (perhaps because he started the typing on April 1, 1939—April Fools’ Day): the lifeline is a crease in the palm that fortune-tellers use to tell the length of a person’s life. It is also what sailors call the rope they throw to a man overboard, to save his life. Heinlein gathered up enough paper—he was still using mimeographed precinct-worker instructions from the election in 1938—and began typing. The scenes fell into place like clockwork. He got through a thousand words that first day and more than two thousand the next. Two days later, he was done with the story. If Leslyn’s sense for story structure had been honed in the movies, she might have been surprised at how Robert had used the bits she had suggested. This wasn’t a conventional commercial plot, with a single, straight through story arc. He had twined three story lines together—mature stories, too, not pulp kids’ stuff. Even in first draft, this was a professional-quality job. Once he retyped it to get a clean manuscript, it would be ready to send out.
This spate of writing had been prompted by a piece in one of the science-fiction pulps, but the “prize” for Thrilling Wonder’s “contest” was less than the prevailing pulp story rates of a penny a word. (The most popular writers could earn a lot more, but there was also a bottom rung of the pulp market that was paid a lot less—half a cent a word or less. Thrilling Wonder Stories was on that bottom rung.) Instead, Heinlein sent it to the only editor who had both a fantasy magazine and a science-fiction magazine, John Campbell at Astounding Science-Fiction and Unknown.
Even though Heinlein was by now a touch typist, he was not very accurate. The retyping was a chore. He had thirty-two sheets in his rough draft. He drove down the hill into Hollywood, to a stationery store, and bought just enough good bond paper to retype the story. It took almost as long to retype the story as it did to write it, but eventually it was done, and he had thirty-two sheets of clean copy and a carbon on newsprint. He packaged the bond copy of the story with another envelope, self-addressed, and stamps enough clipped to it to return the manuscript. On April 10, 1939, he sat down to type his cover letter.
Dear Mr. Campbell:
I am submitting the enclosed short story “LIFE-LINE” for either “Astounding” or “Unknown,” because I am not sure which policy it fits the better. Stamped self-addressed envelope for return of manuscript is enclosed. I hope you won’t need it.
Very truly yours,
Robert A. Heinlein
He took the envelope down to the post office and mailed it the same day… …Leslyn came in, excited, with the morning mail: there was a business letter—not a returned manuscript!—from Street & Smith. She hadn’t opened it, of course: they had a custom of respecting the privacy of each other’s correspondence, and the envelope was addressed to him. She wouldn’t have opened it even if it were from mutual friends. Inside there were two sheets, one a form of some kind and the other on Street & Smith letterhead and signed by John W. Campbell, Jr., in a looping hand and blue, broad-nibbed fountain pen:
April 19, 1939
Dear Mr. Heinlein:
The legal obligations under which a publishing company operates require that we ask authors who have not previously sold to our magazine to prepare an affidavit of authorship for us. I like your story “Life-Line,” and plan to take it at our regular rate of 1¢ a word, or $70.00 for your manuscript. However, before this may be put through for payment, the purchasing department ask that the author sign the accompanying form, and have it witnessed by a notary public. If you will have this done, the check in payment of your story will be sent at once.John W. Campbell, Jr.
Campbell was buying “Life-Line”! A few days later, on April 24, the check arrived from Street & Smith—$70.00, as promised. Heinlein stared at it for a moment. “How long has this racket been going on?” he demanded rhetorically. “And why didn’t anybody tell me about it sooner?”
(Life-Line appeared in the August 1939 issue of Astounding)
Robert A. Heinlein: Volume I: Learning Curve, 1907-1948 by William H. Patterson Jr.
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Heinlein was writing again by November—a new novel, kicked off by something Ginny had said about “Gulf,” written thirty years earlier: Kettle Belly Baldwin, she said, had been one of his juiciest characters, and he hadn’t done nearly as much with him as he could have. Heinlein seems to have combined that comment with a bit he had mentioned in passing in Time Enough for Love, about assembling people out of genes from many different sources: His protagonist was a composite of the genes of both Gail and Joe Green, who had never had a chance to procreate in “Gulf.” His protagonist for Friday is a genetic composite of the best of humanity, in a balkanized United States, which symbolically reflects Friday’s own genetic balkanization—a true human who is nevertheless a true superhuman and who gains interior unity by the end of the book. Friday naturally led back to the subject of bigotry—and in the era of the Equal Rights Amendment, who better to represent humanity as a whole and the damage done by bigotry—and the possibility of self-healing that had always fascinated him—than a woman, Friday…
…He started writing in November 1980, while Ginny began researching the current generation of computers to replace typewriters and paper files… Heinlein finished Friday in late March—just in time for the April 1981 issue of Omni…
Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century, Volume 2: The Man Who Learned Better (1948-1988) by William H. Patterson
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In November 1977 Robert Heinlein finished his new book with the working title Panki-Barsoom. When his wife, Ginny, read the manuscript she was a bit disappointed, thinking it wasn’t up to his usual standards. They decided to table it for a while. A few months later on a trip to Tahiti Robert suffered a Transient Ischemic Attack, or TIA that paralyzed his right side. It turned out he needed carotid bypass brain surgery that was performed at the end of April. By the end of May he had recovered and was ready to work again. He decided to reread Panki-Barsoom. He told his friend Yoji Kondo, “it was worse than bad, it was mediocre!” He decided to keep roughly the first third of the book unchanged, but totally rewrote the final two thirds. The book was published in 1980 as The Number of the Beast.
Long after both Robert and Ginny had passed away, a copy of the original manuscript for Panki-Barsoom was uncovered. The Heinlein Prize Trust elected to have it published with the title of The Pursuit of the Pankera in 2020, forty years after The Number of the Beast.
Now for subjective opinion [from THS President Ken Walters], personally The Number of the Beast was never one of my favorites. I found it to be too experimental and in need of a serious edit. The bickering over who was in charge was tedious and the ending was just strange. I found The Pursuit of the Pankera to be more reminiscent of Heinlein’s earlier writing. Much more time is spent visiting Oz, Barsoom and The Grey Lensman worlds. Also, the ending was more straight forward. Of course, your mileage may vary! I welcome your comments and opinions.
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Major conventions:
- Worldcon 3 Denvention Guest of Honor speech – 1941
- Worldcon 19 SeaCon Guest of Honor Speech – 1961
- Rio de Janeiro Movie Festival Guest of Honor – 1969
- Worldcon 34 MidAmerica Con Guest of Honor speech – 1976
All of the Guest of Honor Speeches are published in the Requiem collection edited by Dr. Yoji Kondo, as well as in the Requiem volume of the Virginia Edition.
In addition, Heinlein was guest of honor at a number of smaller conventions for which his remarks were often not preserved. In 1976 and 1977 he accepted many such offers as part of his campaign to recruit new blood donors, but when his health deteriorated in 1977 he was forced to cease the practice.
Photo, Robert Heinlein at MidAmericon 1976
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There is no definite answer to this because many publishers are involved, and often they never reported sales (because they were not paying the royalties they owed Heinlein!). However, the total answer cannot be less than many tens of millions. Stranger In a Strange Land by itself has sold more than (conservatively) 25 million copies (and possibly many millions more). An estimate of 80 million copies altogether appeared on the back of a new issue several years ago.
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What was the Mañana Literary Society?
Robert Heinlein started the Mañana Literary Society as an informal Saturday-night get-together of Los Angeles science fiction writers and others before World War II. The membership included authors such as Anthony Boucher, Arthur K. Barnes, Edmond Hamilton, L. Ron Hubbard, Henry Kuttner, C.L. Moore, L. Sprague de Camp, Cleve Cartmill, Leigh Brackett, Jack Williamson and a very young Ray Bradbury. Robert and Leslyn hosted these meetings at their house on Lookout Mountain Avenue in Hollywood.
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4 original Hugos and 7 Retro Hugos
The original Hugos were for:
- 1956 Novel: Double Star. Published 1956 by Robert A. Heinlein
- 1960 Novel: Starship Troopers. Published 1959 by Robert A. Heinlein
- 1962 Novel: Stranger in a Strange Land. Published 1961 by Robert A. Heinlein
- 1966 Novel: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Published 1966 by Robert A. Heinlein
The Retro Hugos were started to cover works during the years before the Hugo awards were established. The Retro Hugos awarded:
- Best Novel–Farmer in the Sky. Published 1950 by Robert A. Heinlein
- Best Novella–“The Man Who Sold the Moon.” Published 1939 by Robert A. Heinlein (from The Man Who Sold the Moon)
- Best Dramatic Presentation–Destination Moon movie (release date July 7, 1950) with script by Robert A. Heinlein and Alford van Ronkel
- Best Novel - Beyond This Horizon (Astounding Science Fiction -Apr,May 1942) — Robert A. Heinlein
- Best Novella - Waldo” (Astounding Science Fiction Aug 1942)— Robert A. Heinlein
- Best Novella -“If This Goes On...” (Astounding Science-Fiction Feb 1940) — Robert A. Heinlein
- Best Novelette - The Roads Must Roll” (Astounding Science-Fiction Jun 1940)
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This is difficult to answer without first defining what to count. Using James Gifford’s Opus list in his Robert A. Heinlein Reader’s Guide I (Heinlein Society President Ken Walters) counted 205 listings. These included everything: essays, articles, forwards, afterwards, acknowledgments, book reviews, interviews, speeches, screen plays, scripts, etc.
In Heinlein Journal No. 19 July 2006 Bill Patterson says 63 books which include the short story collections (some of which exist in multiple formats). In the Wikipedia entry for Robert they state: Heinlein published 32 novels, 59 short stories, and 16 collections during his life.
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Under what pseudonyms did Heinlein’s sf/f stories appear?
Anson MacDonald (Anson is Heinlein’s middle name and a Heinlein family name; MacDonald was wife Leslyn’s maiden name, but this is a coincidence: John Campbell, who liked all things Scottish, chose the name before he knew about Leslyn’s maiden name.)
Lyle Monroe (Lyle was his mother’s maiden name, and Monroe was a branch of his mother’s family. Just as Heinlein’s personal names were taken from grandfathers, so was Lyle Monroe — another set of grandfathers.)
John Riverside (probably from Riverside, California)
Caleb Saunders — there are a couple of sources from which “Caleb” might have been drawn: Heinlein’s best friend from the Naval Academy was Caleb Laning; one of his favorite books in the 1930’s was Caleb Catlum’s America (Vincent McHugh 1936). A source for “Saunders” is not known.
Simon York – "They Do It with Mirrors". This was his only detective story. He said detective stories were easy to write but of lower market value than SF.
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How many times was Heinlein married?
Three.
His first marriage was a brief one. Her name is Elinor Lea Curry. They were married on June 21, 1929 and they divorced during October 1930. Robert was in the Navy during their brief marriage. There is evidence of friction between the two almost from the beginning of their marriage. She had her own plans which were different from Robert’s.
The second marriage was to Leslyn MacDonald in 1932. They divorced in 1947. Despite her later problems with alcoholism, and the failure of their marriage, Leslyn was clearly an extraordinary woman, intelligent and talented. Her influence on Heinlein’s early works cannot be ignored. Robert tried to help her with no success. Her father was an alcoholic and had severe problems. When Robert recognized that she, too, was having problems he took her to a psychiatrist. It didn’t help.
Leslyn was born 29 Aug 1904 in Massachusetts and died 13 April 1981 in California. She remarried to a man named Mocabee. She had no children.
Heinlein’s third marriage was to Virginia Doris Gerstenfeld, called “Ginny”. They married in October 21, 1948 and shared what was considered by those who knew them to be an ideal marriage. Ginny Heinlein was born 22 April 1916 in New York and died 18 January 2003 in Florida. Ginny was, without doubt, the basis of many, if not most, of Heinlein’s strong, capable female characters, in particular Hazel Stone. Ginny was brilliant and perfect for Robert. A highly educated person she was the source of many ideas for his stories. She read them all before they were sent to his agent. She recommended changes and it is said that she had the story idea for Stranger in a Strange Land.
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