Robert Heinlein at One Hundred

News Type: Other — Seeded on Sun Apr 8, 2007 11:55 PM EDT

Article Source: Blog Critics

entertainment, books, science-fiction, sci-fi, writers, scifi, authors, robert-heinlein

The centennial of Robert Heinlein's birth is coming up in July, and tempers are still worked up over this pulp fiction writer who turned into a consciousness-raising guru during the 1960s. Only a few weeks ago, a writer in the New York Times Book Review attacked Heinlein's Starship Troopers as "an endorsement of fascism." Heinlein's defenders rushed in with letters to the editor to counter these charges, and a mini-controversy was soon brewing over a book for youngsters first published in 1959, by an author who died in 1988.

But Heinlein fans should be used to these deprecations. Over the years their favorite writer has been accused of many things – of being a libertine or a libertarian, a fascist or a fetishist, pre-Oedipal or just plain preposterous. Heinlein's critics cut across all ends of the political spectrum, as do his fans. His admirers have ranged from Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the founder of American Atheists, to members of the Church of All Worlds, who hail Heinlein as a prophet. Apparently both true believers and non-believers, and perhaps some agnostics, have found sustenance in Heinlein's prodigious output, some 50 books which have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide.

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Michael Sautter's Column, All of Newsvine
Groups: Science Fiction
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