Woosers! Goodread's comment touches Silverberg & Heinlein!

[a425couple]

So last night, we went out for a gift to ourselves of
an ice cream treat. While out, decided to check out
Half Price Bookstore. Ended up buying two Robert
Silverberg books for $1 each!
At home I decided to check out what Goodreads had
to say (kind of like dipping a toe in the water first!).

Woosers! This commenter Lyn, certainly has an interesting opinion
and his Goodread's comment touches Silverberg & Heinlein!

"Lyn rated it (3 out of 5)
Robert A. Heinlein demonstrated (time and again) that you can be a dirty
old man and still get by, but when you get weird, you’re just creepy and
the creep factor negatively effects your writing.

In 1966 someone should have said to him, “Bob, you’re sexually free and
you’re all about the ladies being wild and free too, got it, but you
wrote some great fiction back in the day before the thick shag rugs and
the hot tub parties … so take it easy on the porn, huh? And for God’s
sake DO NOT order another round of oysters, I mean what the hell??”

So we come to Robert Silverberg’s 1971 The World Inside.

I’ve read a lot of Silverberg and he is a very sexually oriented writer,
and this is the most sexually explicit of his novels I have read thus
far (read in July 2015 – have not yet gotten to Up the Line, but “I
heard things”). Silverberg was writing in the sixties and it was, no
doubt, very liberating to be able to describe – sex. We all do it; it’s
a big fun part of life, and so why not in science fiction? Indeed, why not?

Until it gets in the way of, and deteriorates from, an otherwise really
cool book. For me it was just too much, over the top, in your face page
after page pornography. And I certainly do not want to come across as a
prude – something that has NEVER before come up, I don’t think – but he
could have taken a different tack, left some film on the editor’s floor
to avoid the X rating and still had a damn fine novel that was not taken
over by the Ron Jeremyesque saxophone solos.

There was a scene, late in the story, where the sexual freedoms of one
culture were shown in stark contrast to the mores of another culture and
perhaps, PERHAPS, Silverberg was demonstrating by hyperbole how far
different sexual customs can come to be.

Anyway – what was it about? Over population, yet with a twist. Here,
Silverberg, shrugging off the Malthusian template upon which most such
dystopian-too-many-people stories go, shows us a future where the Earth
has over 75 BILLION people, and doing just hunky dorey thank you very
much. How? you ask? Well, they all live in huge sky scraping buildings,
with over 800,000 people in each. And … and … it is against the norm to
want to control births!! Yep, too many folks? Hell! we’ll just build
another building, move all the overflow over there.

All the bumping and grinding comes in from the custom that, to cut down
on sexually repressed aggressive behavior, it is a SIN, to turn anyone
down. Going “night walking” is acceptable, NAY, encouraged. So you’re a
little tired of your partner and the six kids? Go down a couple floors
and walk in on (no locks on doors) Mr. an Mrs. Jones, introduce
yourself, and let’s party! With Mrs. or Mr. or both, or whatever. The
residents say “God Bless” and you always want to be “blessworthy”
(making me think of Elaine’s “sponge worthy” analysis from Seinfeld).

Over population books always makes me think of John Brunner’s excellent
Stand on Zanzibar. Like Brunner’s novel, some residents go crazy and can
no longer stand living in such cramped quarters. Brunner’s malcontents
were called Muckers, as having “run amok” whereas those of World Inside
are called flippos, as flipping out and needing to get some fresh air.
This also made me think of Brian Aldiss’ 1958 novel Non-Stop because it
describes a closed environment and how the residents of this way of life
react and evolve. I think also that Aldous Huxley's brilliant Brave New
World must have been an inspiration.

It was nominated for the Hugo in 1972, was a very good book, most
definitely for Silverberg fans, and for erotica fans too. God bless!"

(has a picture of Miley Cyrus & big sponge finger!)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/261625.The_World_Inside

[Lynn McGuire]

"Earth 2381: The hordes of humanity have withdrawn into isolated
1000-story Urbmons,"

Two mile high buildings ! Not with today's building materials. And the
swing at the top would be 50 ??? to 100 ??? ft in high winds. Yuck, I
would be barfing with my vertigo.

Lynn

[J. Clarke]

In article <om7pss$2n0$1...@dont-email.me>, lynnmc...@gmail.com says...

>
> On 8/6/2017 12:50 PM, a425couple wrote:
> >
> > So last night, we went out for a gift to ourselves of
> > an ice cream treat. While out, decided to check out
> > Half Price Bookstore. Ended up buying two Robert
> > Silverberg books for $1 each!
> > At home I decided to check out what Goodreads had
> > to say (kind of like dipping a toe in the water first!).
> >
> > Woosers! This commenter Lyn, certainly has an interesting opinion
> > and his Goodread's comment touches Silverberg & Heinlein!
> >
> > "Lyn rated it (3 out of 5)
> > Robert A. Heinlein demonstrated (time and again) that you can be a dirty

> > old man and still get by, but when you get weird, you?re just creepy and

> > the creep factor negatively effects your writing.
> >

> > In 1966 someone should have said to him, ?Bob, you?re sexually free and
> > you?re all about the ladies being wild and free too, got it, but you

> > wrote some great fiction back in the day before the thick shag rugs and

> > the hot tub parties ? so take it easy on the porn, huh? And for God?s
> > sake DO NOT order another round of oysters, I mean what the hell???
> >
> > So we come to Robert Silverberg?s 1971 The World Inside.
> >
> > I?ve read a lot of Silverberg and he is a very sexually oriented writer,

> > and this is the most sexually explicit of his novels I have read thus

> > far (read in July 2015 ? have not yet gotten to Up the Line, but ?I
> > heard things?). Silverberg was writing in the sixties and it was, no
> > doubt, very liberating to be able to describe ? sex. We all do it; it?s

> > a big fun part of life, and so why not in science fiction? Indeed, why not?
> >
> > Until it gets in the way of, and deteriorates from, an otherwise really
> > cool book. For me it was just too much, over the top, in your face page
> > after page pornography. And I certainly do not want to come across as a

> > prude ? something that has NEVER before come up, I don?t think ? but he
> > could have taken a different tack, left some film on the editor?s floor

> > to avoid the X rating and still had a damn fine novel that was not taken
> > over by the Ron Jeremyesque saxophone solos.
> >
> > There was a scene, late in the story, where the sexual freedoms of one
> > culture were shown in stark contrast to the mores of another culture and
> > perhaps, PERHAPS, Silverberg was demonstrating by hyperbole how far
> > different sexual customs can come to be.
> >

> > Anyway ? what was it about? Over population, yet with a twist. Here,

> > Silverberg, shrugging off the Malthusian template upon which most such
> > dystopian-too-many-people stories go, shows us a future where the Earth
> > has over 75 BILLION people, and doing just hunky dorey thank you very
> > much. How? you ask? Well, they all live in huge sky scraping buildings,

> > with over 800,000 people in each. And ? and ? it is against the norm to
> > want to control births!! Yep, too many folks? Hell! we?ll just build

> > another building, move all the overflow over there.
> >
> > All the bumping and grinding comes in from the custom that, to cut down
> > on sexually repressed aggressive behavior, it is a SIN, to turn anyone

> > down. Going ?night walking? is acceptable, NAY, encouraged. So you?re a

> > little tired of your partner and the six kids? Go down a couple floors
> > and walk in on (no locks on doors) Mr. an Mrs. Jones, introduce

> > yourself, and let?s party! With Mrs. or Mr. or both, or whatever. The
> > residents say ?God Bless? and you always want to be ?blessworthy?
> > (making me think of Elaine?s ?sponge worthy? analysis from Seinfeld).
> >
> > Over population books always makes me think of John Brunner?s excellent
> > Stand on Zanzibar. Like Brunner?s novel, some residents go crazy and can
> > no longer stand living in such cramped quarters. Brunner?s malcontents
> > were called Muckers, as having ?run amok? whereas those of World Inside

> > are called flippos, as flipping out and needing to get some fresh air.

> > This also made me think of Brian Aldiss? 1958 novel Non-Stop because it

> > describes a closed environment and how the residents of this way of life
> > react and evolve. I think also that Aldous Huxley's brilliant Brave New
> > World must have been an inspiration.
> >
> > It was nominated for the Hugo in 1972, was a very good book, most
> > definitely for Silverberg fans, and for erotica fans too. God bless!"
> >
> > (has a picture of Miley Cyrus & big sponge finger!)
> >
> > https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/261625.The_World_Inside
>
> "Earth 2381: The hordes of humanity have withdrawn into isolated
> 1000-story Urbmons,"
>
> Two mile high buildings ! Not with today's building materials. And the
> swing at the top would be 50 ??? to 100 ??? ft in high winds. Yuck, I
> would be barfing with my vertigo.
>
> Lynn

One mile high was technologically doable with '50s materials. I've never
heard any structural engineer say that the Illinois wouldn't stand. There
were other issues with it that prevented it from being built but that
wasn't one--the big ones were parking and elevators IIRC.

With modern materials I doubt that 2 is that much of a stretch although it
would probably be hugely expensive (carbon fiber still ain't _cheap_).

Barfing, possibly. I don't know what the excursion is on the signal bridge
of a destroyer in a high sea but it was enough to make senior naval
officers heave.

[Lynn McGuire]

Are there any buildings on the planet over half a mile high ?

Lynn

[J. Clarke]

In article <om8e9d$tig$2...@dont-email.me>, lynnmc...@gmail.com says...

The Burj is a little over a half mile. Why do you ask?

[Cryptoengineer]

Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:om8e9d$tig$2...@dont-email.me:

Yes.

The Burj Khalifa is 0.515 miles high. The highest floor, however,
is only 0.363 miles up.

pt

[Lynn McGuire]

So the highest building in the world is a half mile high. So we can go
up by a factor of 4x ? I might buy 1.5x the current max, but not even
2x without a demo project.

Lynn

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Sun, 6 Aug 2017 20:07:49 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:

[snip]

>Are there any buildings on the planet over half a mile high ?

Apparently, one. Per
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_and_structures_in_the_world>,
Burj Khalifa in Dubai is 2,717 feet tall.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[bill van]

In article <0tvfoc1ugigm812fu...@4ax.com>,

Did you notice that the 86-storey Dubai high-rise that experienced a
40-storey fire the other day is called the Torch Tower?
--
bill

[J. Clarke]

In article <om8s5b$r9e$1...@dont-email.me>, lynnmc...@gmail.com says...

That it's the highest that has been built does not mean that it is the
highest we know how to build.

Google "Illinois building".

[Loupgarous]

This guy missed a chance to take a standing whiz on all the sex in "John Brunner's excellent Stand on Zanzibar" (to quote him). That Innis mode novel (in other words, written in the same way as RAH's Stranger in a Strange Land and I Will Fear No Evil) opens with a news broadcast leeringly alluding to a very bisexual celebrity couple and their dates, then gives us seamy sex almost from cover to cover (he spares the citizens of his imaginary country Beninia that, at least).

The sex in Stand On Zanzibar includes a scene in which "company shiggies" (women employees) cavort naked in fountains outside the boardroom of a major US conglomerate, snatches of explicit and violent pornography of the future, sex described reticently, melodramatically, in just about every way, a scene in which a sexually-repressed young man flips out, murders his mother's lover, rapes and murders his mother, rapes and murders a woman he finds outside his apartment, and goes to her apartment to rape her roommate before he's killed by the police.

John Brunner was preachingly anti-American and leftist in Stand on Zanzibar (which is otherwise a good futurist novel). He also put several times as much sex and more explicit and distasteful sex scenes in Stand on Zanzibar than RAH ever put in a novel. I'll leave the reasons this reviewer thought Stand on Zanzibar was excellent and adult Heinlein novels were creepy as an exercise for the reader.

In recent criticisms of Heinlein's adult novels, "Dirty old man" usually translates to "I don't agree with his politics".

The aptly-named David Axe took one to Farnham's Freehold in the War is Boring blog, demonstrating that he doesn't know how to read science fiction in "How Not to Write About Atomic War". https://medium.com/war-is-boring/how-not-to-write-about-atomic-war-e1632a6a19e8

Axe missed just about every cue that Heinlein was doing social criticism and not a Cold War civil defense manual, repeating The New Republic's description of Farnham's Freehold as “an anti-racist novel only a Klansman could love.”

Quoting from my own reply to Axe (as "Jean Lafitte"):

"All the self-righteous outrage over Heinlein’s “stereotypes” is not only way over the top, it’s wrongly directed. Heinlein’s far-future Africans in a globally-warmed future world (you missed that bit of prescience on his part) aren’t bad because they’re black. They’re bad because they’re exactly the same sort of smug, self-satisfied colonialists as the Belgians, who tortured, enslaved and murdered their way through the Congo while loudly proclaiming how they were civilizing the “savages.” Only the colors were reversed."

If the critics want to score points off of RAH, there are legitimate reasons. As I said in the same post as above:

"You’re new to Robert Heinlein if his use of lame racial and national stereotypes just hit you now. His work is full of shrewd, money-wise Jews, drunk Dutch ship’s captains, unsophisticated black people, women who get their way with their feminine wiles, and my favorite (from The Cat Who Walked Through Walls), ignorant, amoral Cajuns (I happen to be one of those). I still like Heinlein, because despite all that, he asked his readers to think about hard questions, like “is colonization moral?” — the question you and Jarrod missed in Farnham’s Freehold."

I got the name of "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls" wrong, everything else I stand by. The descriptions of sex in Farnham's Freehold, again, are restrained compared to Stand on Zanzibar (a novel full of sex that doesn't get the "ewwwwww" reactions Annalee Newitz, ML Lord and other recent critics have for RAH's post-juvenilia).

[Loupgarous]

On Sunday, August 6, 2017 at 12:50:23 PM UTC-5, a425couple wrote:

On Sunday, August 6, 2017 at 12:50:23 PM UTC-5, a425couple wrote:

Half Price Books, when I lived where they did business, is amazing. I became much more literate in Indiana where I first found one of their stores.

Thrift stores, especially the local, non-Goodwill chain ones, often have amazing deals on stuff I want to read. $2 got me a hard-cover copy of Victor Ostrovsky's <i>By Way of Deception</i>, an expose on Mossad's dirty dealings at a very local Christian thrift store just down the road from where I live, and I found an AUTOGRAPHED copy of John Brunner's <i>Stand on Zanzibar</i> at small thrift store in Denver.

[a425couple]

On 10/27/2017 2:11 PM, Loupgarous wrote:
> On Sunday, August 6, 2017 at 12:50:23 PM UTC-5, a425couple wrote:
>> So last night, we went out for a gift to ourselves of
>> an ice cream treat. While out, decided to check out
>> Half Price Bookstore. Ended up buying two Robert
>> Silverberg books for $1 each!

----

>
> Half Price Books, when I lived where they did business, is amazing. I became much more literate in Indiana where I first found one of their stores.
>
> Thrift stores, especially the local, non-Goodwill chain ones, often have amazing deals on stuff I want to read. $2 got me a hard-cover copy of Victor Ostrovsky's <i>By Way of Deception</i>, an expose on Mossad's dirty dealings at a very local Christian thrift store just down the road from where I live, and I found an AUTOGRAPHED copy of John Brunner's <i>Stand on Zanzibar</i> at small thrift store in Denver.
>

Yes, the thrift stores are always, in terms of cash cost,
a great deal. However, sadly, around here (one corner of Pac NW)
NOT having staff do any reasonable sorting and placement
on the book shelves. Hence, a lot of looking through
drek, before finding either 1) something you wanted,
or 2) something that looks in the line of what you want.

So, very often, they are expensive in terms of wasted time.
But,,,,, when one is wasting time anyway!!!!

[Loupgarous]

On Sunday, August 6, 2017 at 12:50:23 PM UTC-5, a425couple wrote:

> So last night, we went out for a gift to ourselves of
> an ice cream treat. While out, decided to check out
> Half Price Bookstore. Ended up buying two Robert
> Silverberg books for $1 each!
> At home I decided to check out what Goodreads had
> to say (kind of like dipping a toe in the water first!).
>
> Woosers! This commenter Lyn, certainly has an interesting opinion
> and his Goodread's comment touches Silverberg & Heinlein!
>
> "Lyn rated it (3 out of 5)
> Robert A. Heinlein demonstrated (time and again) that you can be a dirty
> old man and still get by, but when you get weird, you’re just creepy and
> the creep factor negatively effects your writing.
>

> <snippage>
>
> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/261625.The_World_Inside

I decided to respond directly to Lyn and others in Goodreads.com who buy into the "Heinlein was a creep" canard in a parallel discussion: "Heinlein and Silverberg are creepy, but Brunner isn't?".

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/19009275-heinlein-and-silverberg-are-creepy-but-brunner-wasn-t

I'll spare you the entire article and go straight to my point:

"...at the end of your review, you talk about "John Brunner's excellent Stand on Zanzibar". That novel, written in the Innis Mode as Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land was, opens with a news broadcast leeringly alluding to a very bisexual celebrity couple and their dates, then gives us much more explicit, seamy sex from cover to cover.

The sex in Stand on Zanzibar includes a scene in which "company shiggies" (women employees) cavort naked in clear view of the corporate boardroom, in media res passages from explicit and violent pornography of the future, casual sex described in just about every way, a scene in which a sexually-repressed young man flips out, murders his mother's lover, rapes and murders his mother, rapes and murders a woman he finds outside his apartment, and goes to her apartment to rape her roommate before he's killed by the police. This isn't an exhaustive list of the sex in Stand on Zanzibar, merely examples.

Soooo - why's Heinlein "creepy" and Brunner (whose Stand on Zanzibar is much more sexual, violent and sexually violent) isn't? Clue: it's not the sex.

John Brunner was preachingly anti-American and leftist in Stand on Zanzibar (which is otherwise a good futurist novel). He also put many times as much sex and more explicit and distasteful sex scenes in Stand on Zanzibar than Robert Heinlein ever put in a novel. And that was typical of science fiction written in or after the mid-1960s.

Recent criticisms of Heinlein's adult novels by people like Annalee Newitz, David Axe and ML Lord call Heinlein's later novels while not criticizing writers such as Robert Silverberg, Norman Spinrad (who'd written science fiction which had plenty of eroticism since the 1950s), Harlan Ellison (whose story "A Boy and His Dog" turns not just on sex, but violent, twisted sex from beginning to end, got rave reviews, and was adapted into a Hollywood movie).

Recent commentators' singling Heinlein out for being "creepy", then, isn't about the sex in his books. It's probably about his politics - almost every reviewer who's panned late Heinlein novels lately identifies as "politically progressive". This is literary McCarthyism."

McCarthyism in general's enjoying a new vogue. And it's informed recent criticism of Robert Heinlein's novels for far too long.

RAH deserves to be criticized on his literary virtues and faults - not his politics.

[Mike Van Pelt]

In article <e03e4d8a-8128-4080...@googlegroups.com>,

Loupgarous <loupga...@gmail.com> wrote:
>McCarthyism in general's enjoying a new vogue. And it's informed
>recent criticism of Robert Heinlein's novels for far too long.
>
>RAH deserves to be criticized on his literary virtues and faults -
>not his politics.

Or, at least, if they're going to criticize Heinlein on his
politics, it would be nice if they demonstrated half a clue
as to what his politics actually were.

--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

[Robert Woodward]

In article <dZ3KB.49180$_n1....@fx23.iad>,

m...@web1.calweb.com (Mike Van Pelt) wrote:

> In article <e03e4d8a-8128-4080...@googlegroups.com>,
> Loupgarous <loupga...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >McCarthyism in general's enjoying a new vogue. And it's informed
> >recent criticism of Robert Heinlein's novels for far too long.
> >
> >RAH deserves to be criticized on his literary virtues and faults -
> >not his politics.
>
> Or, at least, if they're going to criticize Heinlein on his
> politics, it would be nice if they demonstrated half a clue
> as to what his politics actually were.

It would also help to realize that they changed between 1940 and 1953
(compare the version of "If This Goes On..." that was serialized in
_Astounding_ and the version that appeared in _Revolt in 2100_).

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
-------------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robe...@drizzle.com

[Loupgarous]

Agreed. Most reviewers these days don't tend to see nuances in politics to the right of their own, which means RAH and Jerry Pournelle are out of luck.

RAH can't catch a break from Newitz, Lord or Axe, while Orson Scott Card slips a "Pournelle=Genghis Khan" remark in his mystery-suspense novel "Lost Boys".

Sarah A. Hoyt, an SF novelist in Colorado Springs, is a welcome change in the modern criticism of RAH. Her "What Do Heinlein Women Want?" in a Tor.com Symposium https://www.tor.com/2010/08/17/what-do-heinlein-women-want/ is a fair and balanced look at Heinlein's women in his books and stories and in his actual marriages.

This is pretty much what I was hoping to see in criticism of Robert A. Heinlein.