#Robert Heinlen

[rabothekerabekian]

My top books I read in 2023:

1: Sirens of Titan (Kurt Vonnegut) - I love Vonnegut’s writing so much, and Sirens is such a great narrative on free will and loving whoever is around to be loved. (Plus chrono-synclastically-infundibulated is just fun to say)

2: Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison) - already a book about important social issues that are still incredibly relevant today, Ellison’s style portrays a lifelike picture of the politics of race in America.

3: Midnight’s Children (Salman Rushdie) - The language and style of this book make it a delight to read as Rushdie paints an incredible mural across a canvas of Indian historical events interwoven with the supernatural to create an amazing story.

4: Job, A Comedy of Justice (Robert Heinlen) - Excellent satire of fundamentalist religion, packed with jokes and reality shifts, a complex world that goes from Mexico to Kansas to heaven to hell has a lot to say about religion.

5: The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov) - The Devil and his entourage cause chaos in Soviet Moscow, in addition to a narrative about Pontius Pilate. An excellent and absurd premise sets up a criticism of humanity but also a defense of it, both in Judea 2000 years ago and now.

6: Ficciones (Jorge Luis Borges) - While the writing can be dense, so much is packed into these short stories parsing the meaning is definitely worth it. Fantastical scenarios act as mirrors to reality and each story leaves just enough to the readers imagination to make it a compelling and thought provoking work about the labyrinthine ways of reality.

7: Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe) - I love novels you can get lost in, and such a rich portrayal of Igbo life easily lends itself to a complex world that many people failed to see about Africa. Important social issues are dealt with and both extreme ways of living are critiqued in a compelling narrative.

8: Bluebeard (Kurt Vonnegut) - A coming of age a going of age and the Armenian diaspora are explored through the life of Abstract Expressionist artists and what it has to say about culture, society, and gender roles. You have to keep reading to see what’s in the potato barn, and when all is revealed it makes a lot of sense for Vonnegut.

9: Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami) - So much happens in the book you are riveted as the chapters bounce between characters. An excellent hook grabs you in and doesn’t let you go. Murakami’s imagination runs wild and this strange reinterpretation of oedipus makes you think.

10: Cat’s Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut) - Newt Hoenikker said it best - “no damn cat, and no damn cradle.”

[vtgbooks]

Vintage Frederik Pohl Vintage Algis Budrys William Tenn Vintage Robert Heinlen

[alonewolfr]

Il peccato sta solo nel far male agli altri senza necessità. Tutti gli altri “peccati” sono sciocchezze inventate.

|| Robert Anson Heinlen

[thelasthundredmiles]

Certain types of loud mouthism should be a capital offense among decent people.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein

[maggotbroth]

"I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy... censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything — you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

-Robert A. Heinlen

[professor-doc-emeritus]

What I've read in 2022

been slowly rediscovering my reading hobby, so i think ill keep track of what ive read this year in a big post. only real rule is that it has to have been a physical book with a spine, only because listing all the manga and comics i read online would be too difficult and embarrasing. order for this section is not necessarily chronological as I am very forgetful, but future sections probably will be

Dune by Frank Herbert

Atomic Habits by james clear

Miracle Monday by Elliot S! Maggin

Sueprman's Pal Jimmy Olsen by Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber

Justice League Internation vol1 by Keith Giffen and J.M. Demattis

Superman: The One Who Fell by Philip Kennedy Johnson and Scott Goldlweski

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlen

[uncannyfantastic]

Vincent di Fate’s cover art for the 1979 Signet edition of Robert A. Heinlen’s “Revolt in 2100.” . #vincentdifate #robertaheinlein #revoltin2100 #paperbackcover #signetbooks #scifiart #retroscifiart https://www.instagram.com/p/CLLRPtuF-zJ/?igshid=czginwac6pbd

[colltales]

Time Off

Time Off: When Calls Drop & Streets Go Quiet

When Calls Drop & Streets Go Quiet People who never turn anything off, including themselves, may not understand, but there is such thing as doing nothing. In fact, if so-called power naps reset the brain, then dropping everything and just staring at a wall could do wonders to anyone. Not us, though; no time. Check back tomorrow, say after 5:30pm? It’d help if we could freeze the city over and…

[ladygreyslibrary]

This book was well written, concise, and emotionally affecting. I absolutely recommend it and I agree with most of what he’s saying. But I have to differ with him on the subject of welfare or disability fraud being “a profound betrayal of the group”. And I don’t think its the result of the “anonymity of society” as Junger says.  I think it’s the result of a very personal struggle.

This is just me kicking around my own thoughts on the subject so if you see any logical fallacies or incorrect assumptions, please correct me.

I can’t get mad about welfare cheats the same way I get mad about CEOs causing the mortgage crisis because I don’t see welfare cheats as stealing from me. I see them as stealing from the government. So it follows then that I don’t see the government as actually representing me. My government is not, to use Junger’s metaphor, part of my tribe.

My taxes should be me contributing to my community’s well being but they’re not. Instead they’re a kind of tribute demanded of me by an antagonistic conglomerate that gets spent on things like stealth bombers and drone programs and bailing out the aforementioned crisis causing CEOs with million dollar paychecks. Taxes are the playground bully taking my milk money and giving me a black eye in the process. It’s not that I’m indignant about paying my way. I’m indignant about paying for a system that claims to speak for me and work for my own good while I actively fight against it.

As such anybody who gets any money back from this entity, even if they do it fraudulently, gets a kind of amused chuckle on me. A ‘good for her’ gif. Even those assholes they dig up every once in a while to go buy lobster tail or something with food stamps for the local news amuse me. But I’m sure if I was paying taxes directly to SNAP I’d be livid. Or at least I’d have to be practicing some kind of radical compassion/ letting go of expectations shit to not be actively angry about it.

As always I’ve got a relevant Robert Heinlen quote. From The Number of the Beast.

“But we aren’t freeloaders. Every year Pop and I study the Federal Budget and decide what is useful and what is sheer waste by fat-arsed chair-warmers and pork barrel raiders. Even before Mama died we were paying more income tax than the total of Pop’s salary, and we’ve paid more each year while I’ve been running it. It does take a bundle to run this country. We don’t begrudge money spent on roads and public health and national defense and truly useful things. But we’ve quit paying for parasites where we can identify them.”

Granted, I’m probably using a different definition of ‘national defense’ than Heinlein was, but this seems like a good system. Not one I’m capable of doing myself but one that would probably eliminate that apathy of fraud if I could.

None of this disproves Junger’s thesis; it’s just an elaboration he doesn’t seem to have taken into account.

[mccek]

Se non hai simpatia per te stesso, non puoi avere simpatia per gli altri.

Robert Anson Heinlen

[spaceintruderdetector]

Astounding Science Fiction, Volume 43 Number 3, May of 1949. Published by Street & Smith Publications,  Inc., New York, NY. 164 pages. Cover art by Paul Orban. Edited by John W. Campbell, Jr. Featuring essays by John W. Campbell, Jr. as The Editor and Lorne MacLaughlan. P. Schuyler Miller and L. Sprague de Camp book reviews on SPACE CADET by Robert A. Heinlen and THE LUNGFISH, THE DODO, AND THE UNICORN (AN EXCURSION INTO ROMANTIC ZOOLOGY) by Willy Ley. Includes the following works of fiction: Needle (Part 1 of 2), a serial by Hal Clement. Prophecy, a shortstory by Poul Anderson. Mother Earth, a novelette by Isaac Asimov. Lost Ulysses (Advent Part 3 of 5), a novelette by William L. Bade. The Conroy Diary, shortstory by L. Ron Hubbard as René Lafayette.

[lesravageurs]

Ravageurs are precise. | Robert A. Heinlen

[invincible-selfxmade-punk]

Could you list top 100 books? I'm trying to get into reading.

My top 100 Books!! I’m glad you didn’t ask this on a work day  b/c holy hell this was a bit of work!  However, it was fun to go back and revisit some of my favorites. Sorry, not everything was capitalized, I did this all voice to text b/c it was a lot of writing.I wish I could wake up to asks like these every day. This really isn’t going to be in any particular order but I will try to put my favorites in the top 20

The Stand by Stephen King

See No Evil, Hear No Evil by Robert Heinlen

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

Zelda by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno

A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carre 

Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

Liar’s Club by Debra Karr

Life of Pi johnny martel

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion 

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King 

A Thousand Secret Senses by Amy Tan

Arabic Jazz by Diana Abu-Jaber

God Bless John Wayne by Kinky Friedman

A Thief of Time by Tony Hillerman

Lone Star Killing Time by Kinky Friedman

Steppenwolfe by Herman Hesse

Rock Critic Murders by Jesse Sublette

Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel

Now More Again by Elizabeth Wurtzel

a thousand little pieces by James Frey 

Bright, Shining Morning by James Frey

origin by Diana Abu-Jaber 

I wear the black hat by Chuck Klosterman 

lone star legend by Gwendolyn Zepeda 

anasazi boys by Neil Gaiman 

good omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett 

a delicate truth by John le Carre 

This side of paradise by f Scott Fitzgerald 

back to blood by Tom Wolfe

The Friedkin connection a memoir by William Friedkin 

a thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini 

the return of the thin man by Dashiell Hammett 

The fifth assassin by Brad Metzler 

casual vacancy by jk rowling 

the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay 

sex drugs and cocoa puffs by Klosterman

sharp objects by Gillian Flynn

gone girl by Gillian Flynn 

saving fish from drowning Amy Tan 

feed by Mira grant

tinker tailor soldier spy by John le Carre 

Tender is the Night by Hemingway

now watch him die by henry Rollins 

Devil in the white city by Erik Larson 

It by Stephen King 

get in the van by Henry Rollins 

white night by Jim Butcher 

solipsist by henry Rollins

a stained white radiance by James lee burke 

I Alex Ross by James Patterson ross

Elvis, Jesus and Coca Cola by Kinky Friedman

The hunger games trilogy by Suzanne Collins 

true believers by Kurt Andersen 

into the wild by Jon 

cadillac jukebox by James lee Burke

in cold blood by Truman Capote 

catch-22 by joseph heller 

london bridges by James Patterson 

one from none Henry Rollins

freedom by Jonathan Franzen 

This Side of Paradise by Hemingway

pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk 

Lullabye by Chuck Palahniuk

the man who owns the news: the inside secret world of Rupert Murdoch by Michael Wolff 

fear and loathing in las vegas by hunter s Thompson 

alien ink: the FBI’s secret war on freedom of expression by Natalie Robbins

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Postcards from The Edge by Carrie Fisher 

loose jam by Wayne Wilson 

Hell by Chuck Pahlaniuk

celebrity by Thomas Thompson 

Primary colors by anonymous 

sin city by frank miller

fatal vision by Joe McGinniss

summer knight by Jim Butcher

proven guilty by Jim Butcher 

sweet Jesus, I hate rush Limbaugh by Joseph Milton

the Icarus Agenda by Robert Ludlum 

the road to Omaha by Robert Ludlum 

Bushwacked: life  In George w Bush’s America by Molly Ivins 

the house on mango street by Sandra Cisneros

grim reaper the end of days by Steve allton 

preacher by Garth Ennis 

sandman by Neil Gaiman

the book of fate by Brad Meltzer 

a morning for Flamingos by James Lee Burke 

heaven’s prisoners by James Lee Burke

love is a dog from hell by Charles Bukowski 

purple cane road James Lee Burke 

Crescent by Diana Abu Jaber 

in the electric mist with the Confederate dead by James lee Burke 

the Adrian Mole Diaries by Sue Townsend

V For Vendetta by Alan Moore

Watchmen by Alan Moore

Never The Same Again by Jesse Sublett

I Want My MTV

Soul Circus by George Pelecanos

[travelinlibrarian]

Friday Reads: Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlen, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alex Nevala-Lee Astounding is the landmark account of the extraordinary partnership between four controversial writers - John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A.

[iamat0m]

Struggling with The Sads today because a webcomic dedication reminded of all of the authors whose work I enjoyed but are now dead. RIP Iain M Banks, Terry Pratchett, Robert Heinlen, Isaac Asimov, and others.

[bookwyrmshoard]

Best Fictional Fathers in Children’s/YA Books

It's surprisingly hard to find good fathers in fiction, even (or maybe especially) in children's fiction. By good fathers, I mean fathers who are not absent, harsh, or abusive. But with the help of my daughter and a few other family members, we managed to come up with eight. In no particular order, here are books and series featuring men who truly qualify as "good fathers."

The Penderwicks series by Jeanne Birdsall. To paraphrase my daughter Robin, Mr. Penderwick is fantastic, completely supportive of his girls, and he keeps coming out with Latin quotations. He's a really good father all around, and handles being a single parent of four girls extremely well. He supports their interests including science, math, sports, and writing. When two of his daughters get into real trouble, he's disappointed in them, but he sees that they feel terrible about it so he doesn't make a huge thing of it. And when he remarries, he doesn't differentiate between his own children and his new stepson, but loves them all equally.

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery. Anne may only have had Matthew for a short time, but in that time, he made her feel truly loved and wanted. Matthew's love was quiet and unconditional, and it remained, I believe, one of the foundations of Anne's life forever after.

The Melendy series by Elizabeth Enright. I almost left Mr. Melendy out because he is not always home (notably in book two, The Four-Story Mistake.) But when he is home, he's always caring and supportive of his children, and does his best as a single parent. And when he takes on add an orphaned boy to his family, it's clear he will be just as much a father to him as to his biological children (in Now We Are Five.)

Beauty by Robin McKinley. Beauty's father loves and believes in all three of his daughters. And he's a well-grounded person; while he is hit hard by the loss of his ships and wealth, he never loses a sense of who he is, nor how blessed he is to have his daughters. He only accedes to Beauty's request to take his place at the Beast's castle because she is so adamant.

The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Pa is caring but firm (and even stern when Laura has been naughty.) It's clear he loves his family and they love him. (Note: Wilder idealizes her real father in these books; she downplays his restlessness and makes their frequent moves seem like adventures, not the difficult uprooting they must have been.)

The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. Arthur Weasley is sometimes absent-minded and definitely eccentric even by the standards of the wizarding world, with his keen interest in Muggle technology and culture, but he's also a very good father in all the ways in which it counts — particularly in terms of love and acceptance. Between them, he and Molly raise a family of strong, loyal and highly individual offspring who know their own minds and are (for the most part) determined to side with the right and good. That loyalty, both to family and to what is right, is what makes Percy's defection so painful to them — and even Percy comes round in the end.

Linnets and Valerians by Elizabeth Goudge. Initially, the Linnet children think their Uncle Ambrose is stern, dry, and unloving, but they soon discover that while he can be stern and holds them to a high standard, he has a softer side which he keeps well-hidden. In fact, he makes a very good parent once he gets used to no longer being a crusty old batchelor.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. This is another book I almost left out, because Dr. Murray is very much absent through much of the book. But his love and presence loom large in Meg's memories, and it's her longing for him that sends her across the galaxy to rescue him. He comes across as a good, loving father through those memories, as well as in his actions once the children find him.

Five on a Merry-Go-Round by Marie McSwigan. It's the Great Depression, and Mr. Sloan has been ill and lost his job. So he and his family head south for a job, only to find no job and no available housing. Mr. Sloan worries about his inability to provide for his family, but he doesn't give up, drink, take his frustration out on his children, or disappear. With great resourcefulness, he and his family turn an abandoned merry-go-round into a home and figure out how to live there.

Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlen. Like Anne, Thor doesn't have his father figure for long; Baslim is killed at the end of the first section of the book. But before that, over the course of several years, he provides the orphaned, runaway slave Thor with a home and a sense of stability. Baslim teaches Thor not only to read but to think independently, while instilling in him integrity, values, and a sense of honor. Though he is never demonstrative, Baslim's love and care for Thor are obvious, and later on, Thor recognizes their relationship as one of father and son.

The Paddington series by Michael Bond. Mr. Brown loves his children. And though he's initially reluctant to add a bear to the household (who wouldn't be?), he eventually accepts Paddington as a member of the family. He's often played for laughs, but he's a pretty good father all the same.

HONORABLE MENTION (fathers who are only peripheral to the story):

The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper.) Will Stanton's father doesn't come into the story much, but Will and most of his siblings are pretty well-adjusted and clearly loved by their parents.

The Nancy Drew series (Carolyn Keene.) Mr. Drew is a pretty good father. He's not usually involved in Nancy's sleuthing, but he doesn't stop her and seems proud of her intelligence. Given when these books were written, the amount of freedom and trust he gives to Nancy is a little surprising.

The Protector of the Small series (Tamora Pierce). Keladry of Mindelan's father doesn't come into the books often, but he's totally supportive of his daughter's desire to become the first female knight in centuries.