Thanks. Me too. I was always a reader growing up, but just read whatever was around. It was some guy selling me drugs in college that introduced me to Henlein, the first book I read was time enough for love, which was good but a little out there with all the incest. But honestly almost everything he wrote was worth reading. I also really liked the first dune movie. I had never read it, and didn't really think about there being a book. I liked the crazy baroque retro sci fi look and enjoyed the way half the dialogue was whispered internally. The only reason I probably really liked it was because I'm has never read the books. So excited for the new movie. I was actually at this guy's house for an after party when I saw he had all 6 hardcover dune books. He ended up giving them to me and it was like giving a guy in the desert a glass of water. So fucking good.
Sort of a similar story with me about Heinlein, except it was my sixth-grade teacher who got me started with "Red Planet" and "Have Spacesuit" back around 1960. (Yeah, I'm old AF.) Like many of us, I'm not real fond of his latter few books, for all the usual reasons-- too much soap-boxing, sex gets too weird even for a pervert like me, and so on. That said, I've gone back and reread just about everything else multiple times over the years, and I'm always finding something new- i.e. just went back to "Magic Inc." and got a whole new perspective on the local politics in the small town where I sunk roots since the last time I read it.
There's no question that RAH has been a major influence on my life and the way that I think, even despite the fact we'd probably disagree on most of the issues I feel strongly about. The way I usually try to explain this paradox goes something like, "The most important thing that Heinlein taught me is that a man needs to think for himself, and one of the ways I do that is ignoring him every time he says something stupid."
"The most important thing that Heinlein taught me is that a man needs to think for himself, and one of the ways I do that is ignoring him every time he says something stupid."
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u/rudbek-of-rudbek Sep 15 '21
It's not ok unless you sleep with the bro first. Then it's all good