A Fine Old Debate About Starship Troopers

We will go into Alexei Panshin in detail on this blog soon enough. There is a good deal to say. Meanwhile, I discovered during the research process on Panshin this debate by some leading SF personages about Starship Troopers circa 1960-61. Many of you may not have seen this obscue yet high-powered dust-up, so I bring it to your attention. Here's one provocative quote, from James V. McConnell. Again, let me emphasize he's writing in 1961. It was ever thus:

Aside from the goodness or badness of war, the comments so many people have made about SS [Note:"Starship Soldiers" was the magazine version] indicate, to me at least, that s-f is becoming the haven for old, trite, worn-out ideas instead of the testing-ground for new thoughts most s-f devotees so loudly pretend.  How many people have told me, these past few years, that Sturgeon is great, but when will he quit writing those peculiar stories and get down to reality? If Ted were not the great writer that he is, probably he would be mobbed, ostracized, or what have you.  Like Heinlein apparently is to be.  New gadgets we can stand apparently, but not new ideas, nor new ways of looking at old ideas nor even a close examination of the emotional responses most of us have to the safe, secure, comfortable values which society today applauds and inculcates in us.  In my opinion, s-f readers (and writers, too) have become a bunch of old Aunt Nellies hell-bent on preserving the status-quo, glorifying the present norm, and ready to crucify anybody who dares rock the boat by thinking.

Heh, it was ever thus. I think that you'll enjoy comparing these comments on Starship Troopers with your own thoughts and memories of the book.

The Bigger Picture

While I while away on the next installment of "Connections" in the biography (Part I is here) you might enjoy seeing the whole picture that I took the blog title image from:

There are more perfect images available, but this one has the feel of a magazine that was read and reread many times, then stored for the next 70 years, only to be brought out and furnish a delightful sense of surprised recognition, of something old that is none the less perpetually new--something like the work of Robert A. Heinlein.

Heinlein as Libertarian

If you're an admirer of Heinlein and his work you should be a member of the Nexus Forum at The Heinlein Society. If not, hit the link and join!

Regarding the brief post from the other day Was Robert LeFevre the Inspiration for Bernardo de la Paz?, it was pointed out to me that there is some discussion of this point in a thread at the Nexus Forum. There is also a lot of other substantive comment on RAH's politics by Heavy Heinlein Hitters Bill Patterson, James Gifford, Robert James and others who have been seriously studying Heinlein far longer than me. If you are interested in this topic I highly recommend you read the whole thing.

Goodreads Reviews of the Biography

I had previously read the Amazon reviews of the biography, but there are interesting reviews at Goodreads as well. Some are just stubs but a few are substantive.

Was Robert LeFevre the Inspiration for Bernardo de la Paz?

And other interesting speculations about Heinlein's libertarianism. I don't agree with everything the author says about Heinlein, but will await with great interest more information on the LeFevre/de la Paz question when  Volume II of William Patterson, Jr's. biography becomes available:

Both in his physical appearance — the wavy white hair, the dimples, the smiling voice — and in his ideas, Professor Bernardo de la Paz bears a striking resemblance to a real-life libertarian who flourished and enjoyed considerable influence within the libertarian movement during the 1950s, '60s, and '70s — Robert LeFevre. Now it so happens that Robert A. Heinlein and his third wife, Virginia Heinlein, lived in Colorado Springs throughout the 1950s and through the first half of the 1960s, the very period during which Robert LeFevre, a neighbor of theirs as it turns out, was serving as editorial page editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph.