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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

The cover for Grumbles from the Grave by Robert Heinlein.

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.

That opens randomly and gets in the way of my usual swiping motions. When trying to upvote/downvote and that opens instead, it’s slow to go away and then keeps trying to open, not letting me swipe a quick vote. Then the comment snaps to the left such that part of it is offscreen to the left. Scrolling a little will make the comment realign correctly.

When trying to swipe to the previous screen it randomly opens and now I have to deal with it before I can swipe away, and its slowness gets in the way.

I will never use this, so I’d like to disable it. I haven’t seen a way to do this in options. Thanks!

The original post is by a close friend of mine.

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

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.

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.

https://nebulas.sfwa.org/award-year/1974/

“…the first Grand Master Award was presented by Tom Scortia to Robert Heinlein…” (emphasis mine)

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)

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.