Today being Robert A. Heinlein’s 114th birthday, this brings to mind his novel Time Enough For Love, about the life of Lazarus Long (a.k.a. Woodrow Wilson Smith): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_for_Love
Since he was thousands of years old, his was a problem he had to deal with a lot.
Heinlein has the easiest birthday to remember: 1907-07-07.
For me, it is “The Number of the Beast”, knowing that every book or show is a glimpse into another world, that those characters are real, changed me so much had to stop reading books altogether as some of them just made me mad about not being able to help them
Just realized I’d been reading RAH for close to 45 years. . . ‘Podkayne of Mars’ and ‘Have Spacesuit – Will Travel’ were my firsts, he was a randy, weird old goat but he could spin a yarn, that’s for sure.
Have Spacesuit — Will Travel was the first SF that I ever read, as well as the first Heinlein. I was a big space enthusiast as a kid, and read everything available in the Kerrick Elementary School library back in fifth grade some 55 years ago about space travel, and someone had misfiled Have Spacesuit — Will Travel in the space travel non-fiction section. This was a life-changer for me.
I have you beat by about 13 years.
The Ernie Pyle Memorial library had an excellent Heinlein selection.
This was long before ‘wokeness’ started parasitizing library staff members.
Well, I started with six from the library—five juveniles and “Double Star.” Then I got the paperback of “Glory Road,” then a boxed set that I think had a few books slipped into it that weren’t part of the set, then in about two years everything I could find and was allowed to buy, then the hardcover of “Time Enough for Love,” then, last of all, a copy of “The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein.”
Also…I’d been reading Marguerite Henry—maybe you remember “Misty of Chincoteague”—and I’d run through all of them, and my finger wandered over to the Heinlein selection. I pulled out “Space Cadet” and wondered if it was worth reading—and it was!
I’ve always thought I owed Marguerite Henry a debt of gratitude, for publishing work so close to Heinlein on the shelves.
Counting back on my fingers, I first read Heinlein… jeeze… 61 years ago. That was before Podkayne of Mars was even written. I don’t remember which was first, but Have Spacesuit — Will Travel was my favorite. I never cared for his adult stuff.
My favorite was “The Star Beast”, which was silly but had a lot of heart. The great irony about Heinlein is his later adult novels tend to be far more childish than his earlier juvenile fiction: bloated, self-indulgent self-inserts full of wish fulfillment, protagonist centered morality and childish politics. He would have retained far more respect if he’d stopped writing 20 years before he did.
🤬 That despicable mal·appropriation of the word “woke” is used to incite, and validate, Archie Bunker type hostility to acceptance of otherness in people.
Making it an “acceptable” socio-political talking·point undermines the very foundation of the ethnic & cultural “melting pot” that has been one of the greatest STRENGTHS of the USofA❗
I just got this image of Monica’s “demise” being along the lines of the last “Most Interesting Man in the World” commercial by Dos Equus. Huge party followed by being launched into space – and a successful re-entry. At least for her. The rest of the spacecraft – not so much.
Still would have loved to see a follow-up to that commercial that has the Most Interesting Man resting comfortably in a tent on Mars, watching the sunset surrounded by Dejah Thoris lookalikes and just smiling at the camera as the commercial ends.
“So how did the young lady die… and where is the body?”
“Well Sir, she was apparently launched at nigh-absurd velocity into the path of this new prototype sound-barrier-breaking bullet train, and was dragged along under it for many kilometers, in just a few seconds. By official train engineer policy based in exceptionally pragmatic good sense, the train operator did not make any attempt to brake and kill 200 people out of some misguided pointless attempt to limit the mutilation of one woman who was already certainly dead by the time the conductor could blink.”
“Yes yes, I get all that, but where is the BODY?”
“….I think you’re not grasping the shear speeds involved here. Look at this drone footage panning the track. See this very long dark stain that begins here… and continues until there’s nothing more to be smeared?”
“Disturbing… but your point?”
“That IS the body. Liquified. I doubt you’ll find a single piece of bone larger than those bacon bits they sprinkle on salads.”
“GeeZUS…Are you fishing for a reward for most awful analogy ever? On another, unrelated note, any followup on the reports of a naked women with unlikely proportions seen fleeing from the area near the initial point of impact?”
“Nope. A couple people saw her scamper into an alley on all fours like a cat, screaming profanities about seashells or something, but even the well-intentioned fellow who wanted to offer her his coat and a ride home said the alley was empty when he got there.”
“Weird. Any likelihood it’s related to our strangely pre-identified railway smear lady?”
“I can’t see how, do you?”
“….No… which is a shame as I’d love for SOMETHING to be explained today!”
“Right?”
Knowing Shelly, she won’t just arrange for Monica to be launched from a trebuchet.
She’ll have a whole field full of gunners standing ready, and she’ll personally bellow “PULL!!!” at the top of her lungs.
Enthusiastic. That’s our Shelly.
“Love is Love and Not Fade Away.” —Buddy Holly.
A trebuchet, so plebeian! No precision
If it was a ballista, now we’d be talking
One word: Railgun
Today being Robert A. Heinlein’s 114th birthday, this brings to mind his novel Time Enough For Love, about the life of Lazarus Long (a.k.a. Woodrow Wilson Smith):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_for_Love
Since he was thousands of years old, his was a problem he had to deal with a lot.
Heinlein has the easiest birthday to remember: 1907-07-07.
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of someone else is essential to your own. ” Robert A. Heinlein
“A true lady takes off her dignity with her clothes and does her whorish best.”
—Robert A Heinlein via Lazarus Long
His “Space Cadet” is the fulcrum on which my life turns.
For me, it is “The Number of the Beast”, knowing that every book or show is a glimpse into another world, that those characters are real, changed me so much had to stop reading books altogether as some of them just made me mad about not being able to help them
Just realized I’d been reading RAH for close to 45 years. . . ‘Podkayne of Mars’ and ‘Have Spacesuit – Will Travel’ were my firsts, he was a randy, weird old goat but he could spin a yarn, that’s for sure.
Have Spacesuit — Will Travel was the first SF that I ever read, as well as the first Heinlein. I was a big space enthusiast as a kid, and read everything available in the Kerrick Elementary School library back in fifth grade some 55 years ago about space travel, and someone had misfiled Have Spacesuit — Will Travel in the space travel non-fiction section. This was a life-changer for me.
I have you beat by about 13 years.
The Ernie Pyle Memorial library had an excellent Heinlein selection.
This was long before ‘wokeness’ started parasitizing library staff members.
Well, I started with six from the library—five juveniles and “Double Star.” Then I got the paperback of “Glory Road,” then a boxed set that I think had a few books slipped into it that weren’t part of the set, then in about two years everything I could find and was allowed to buy, then the hardcover of “Time Enough for Love,” then, last of all, a copy of “The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein.”
Also…I’d been reading Marguerite Henry—maybe you remember “Misty of Chincoteague”—and I’d run through all of them, and my finger wandered over to the Heinlein selection. I pulled out “Space Cadet” and wondered if it was worth reading—and it was!
I’ve always thought I owed Marguerite Henry a debt of gratitude, for publishing work so close to Heinlein on the shelves.
Counting back on my fingers, I first read Heinlein… jeeze… 61 years ago. That was before Podkayne of Mars was even written. I don’t remember which was first, but Have Spacesuit — Will Travel was my favorite. I never cared for his adult stuff.
My favorite was “The Star Beast”, which was silly but had a lot of heart. The great irony about Heinlein is his later adult novels tend to be far more childish than his earlier juvenile fiction: bloated, self-indulgent self-inserts full of wish fulfillment, protagonist centered morality and childish politics. He would have retained far more respect if he’d stopped writing 20 years before he did.
@Randy Franklin
🤬 That despicable mal·appropriation of the word “woke” is used to incite, and validate, Archie Bunker type hostility to acceptance of otherness in people.
Making it an “acceptable” socio-political talking·point undermines the very foundation of the ethnic & cultural “melting pot” that has been one of the greatest STRENGTHS of the USofA❗
“Always store beer in a cold, dark place.” –Immortal wisdom from Lazarus Long
“The punishment for stupidity is death. The sentence is instantaneous and there’s no appeal.”
I just got this image of Monica’s “demise” being along the lines of the last “Most Interesting Man in the World” commercial by Dos Equus. Huge party followed by being launched into space – and a successful re-entry. At least for her. The rest of the spacecraft – not so much.
Still would have loved to see a follow-up to that commercial that has the Most Interesting Man resting comfortably in a tent on Mars, watching the sunset surrounded by Dejah Thoris lookalikes and just smiling at the camera as the commercial ends.
Grace and poise? More like Grace and “Poit!”
“Piano in a trebuchet” is a pretty succinct description of Shelly in general,to be honest.
It was so well done on Northern Exposure.
Ah …. Somebody remind me. Who’s supposed to be the Sociopath Here?? Shelly just offered to go all all Jimmie Durante on her ass.
.. and a Ballista would be 90% Cooler.
https://img-new.cgtrader.com/items/942556/3ec7fe91a6/ballista-3d-model-low-poly-max-obj-fbx.jpg
Ah, Shelly, you have such a way with words. lol
well there is always explosives…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE5wQZnimCY
It’s so good to see M and Shelly hanging out together 😀
“So how did the young lady die… and where is the body?”
“Well Sir, she was apparently launched at nigh-absurd velocity into the path of this new prototype sound-barrier-breaking bullet train, and was dragged along under it for many kilometers, in just a few seconds. By official train engineer policy based in exceptionally pragmatic good sense, the train operator did not make any attempt to brake and kill 200 people out of some misguided pointless attempt to limit the mutilation of one woman who was already certainly dead by the time the conductor could blink.”
“Yes yes, I get all that, but where is the BODY?”
“….I think you’re not grasping the shear speeds involved here. Look at this drone footage panning the track. See this very long dark stain that begins here… and continues until there’s nothing more to be smeared?”
“Disturbing… but your point?”
“That IS the body. Liquified. I doubt you’ll find a single piece of bone larger than those bacon bits they sprinkle on salads.”
“GeeZUS…Are you fishing for a reward for most awful analogy ever? On another, unrelated note, any followup on the reports of a naked women with unlikely proportions seen fleeing from the area near the initial point of impact?”
“Nope. A couple people saw her scamper into an alley on all fours like a cat, screaming profanities about seashells or something, but even the well-intentioned fellow who wanted to offer her his coat and a ride home said the alley was empty when he got there.”
“Weird. Any likelihood it’s related to our strangely pre-identified railway smear lady?”
“I can’t see how, do you?”
“….No… which is a shame as I’d love for SOMETHING to be explained today!”
“Right?”
I could see this, yes.
That was hilariously plausible. 8-D
If Paul ever wants to illustrate this and use it as canon, even word-for-word, I pre-emptively give my approval. 😉