vilakins | SF and politics

But I liked both of them!
And I'm probably liberal or conservative depending on the particular issue.

But which one did you prefer? I love The Moon is a Harsh Mistress but Heinlein's overt pushing of his own ethics and sexual morality do annoy me in a lot of his later books.

Well, as someone else has pointed out here, Early Heinlein is quite different from Late Heinlein, and I prefer EH to LH.
But as for Asimov versus EH... look, I gulped them both down. Looking at my shelves now, I have two books by Heinlein and one book by Asimov (but the Asimov one is non-fiction...). So perhaps a slight preference for Asimov has turned into a slight preference for Heinlein because my favourite Heinlein books are more re-readable than my favourite Asimovs....

I love Asimov, but I recently decided I should read more EH because I did go right off him after LH weirded me out.

I think my preference for Asimov is so definite because of the Foundation trilogy which I've read about three times and which still stands up well.

I liked both of them though not totally equally, Heinlein made me laugh more often. I would probably probably describe myself now as middle of the road with slight left wing leanings

I've got to ditto Kerravonsen on this. I've read both, have enjoyed both, and while I lean to the liberal, it depends on the issue.

I love them both *now* but I did like Asimov better when I was younger.

I never liked Asimov (I like his detective stories a little better than his SF). And let's not forget Stranger in a Strange Land, baby! I read it in the 60s, too.

God yes and the Methusala's Children series, by the end of those I was beginging to wonder what Heinlein was on, but I loved them.

Stranger in a Strange Land started off as a really good book, but you can see Early Heinlein morphing into Late Heinlein in the middle, and IMHO it's really not a change for the better. :)

Yes, one of the points that I was going to make are that Early Heinlein and Late Heinlein are two very different writers. I like both Asimov and EH, but not LH.

As other people have also said, I don't think that I would label myself as eithe Left Wing or Right Wing. And those labels mean different things in different countries. Some people in the British Conservative party would probably be viewed as liberals in the US, for instance.

Yes, you're right. It was hard designing that poll to cover the different terms people use. We're happy to be called socialists here but it's an insult in the US.

I heartily dislike LH so much, it's coloured my view of him. I do like EH but knowing what he would become casts a shadow. Larry Niven is another one who's either lost the plot or paying a very bad ghost writer. :-(

I have to say that though I love The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Late Heinlein put me off so much I stopped reading him. I really should get hold of the early ones I missed though.

Yes, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of the two. The other one is Citizen of the Galaxy.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a favourite of mine, though it's a very long time since I've read it. The best character is the computer, of course. I also greatly like the novella Universe and its sequel (Common Sense IIRC). And has there ever been a better short story about the paradoxes of time travel than By His Bootstraps?

There's an awful lot of EH that I haven't read, though. I was put off LH by reading I Will Fear No Evil, which didn't have anything that I found objectionable in it but was incredibly boring.

The one where the rich guy bought himself a woman's body? I found it objectionable in that it displayed the usual assumptions about women, but then again, I read it in Germany and in German. And was fairly bored too.

I think that's the one, though thankfully I remember very little about it.

His early books written for young adults are generally very good, fun adventure stories.

I'm sort of an Asimovian moderate, though my political sympathies are much more with the left than the right, so I clicked the first answer. (Of course, as has been pointed out, the American left is still on most of the world's right. And "socialist" is something of a dirty word here.) I did enjoy Heinlein growing up, mind you, but I was obsessed with Asimov.

In any case, I think this hypothesis really fails to stand up.

I did wonder, which is why I polled it. Most people here seem to prefer Asimov though, which has skewed the results.

Yeah, I should have left socialist out, though it's just a description here. Back in the 50s to 70s, we were in fact so socialist, our economy was based on the Soviet model; a Russian friend was very surprised and fascinated when he found out. Back in those days, even our conservatives (the National party) were left wing in that respect. Our current govt is socialist; the party is called Labour and is the one I support, though it's more to the right than it used to be.

I've actually ordered an early Heinlein book, "The Door into Summer' because Greg has mentioned it a few times as a favourite, and it was advertised as a new book on the back of one of those 50s Amazing mags I bought. Blimey, but those things are so incredibly anti-Russian and sexist too. One story had a sympathetic character in an interesting story with a lot of humour--and the happy ending of killing almost everyone in the USSR with special frequency waves. What, they didn't think these were people back then?

the party is called Labour and is the one I support, though it's more to the right than it used to be
(sigh) That seems to be happening all over!
(I vote Labour and Australia is becoming frighteningly more conservative, chasing after the US like it was a vision of paradise...)

I've actually ordered an early Heinlein book, "The Door into Summer' because Greg has mentioned it a few times as a favourite

Yes, I like "The Door into Summer" -- that's the one with the cat and time travel, isn't it? (Not to be confused with "The Cat that Walked Through Walls" which is LH and I haven't read)

Yes, that's the one! Greg's recced it so often and how can I resist a book with a cat in it? I looked at 'The Cat that Walked Through Walls' and it's not for me; it ties up a lot of his later work which you need to have read, but I don't like his later stuff.

Yes, there seems to be a swing to the right everywhere. At least it's not so pronounced here as in Australia and the UK.

Right, timr for lunch at Marsden Winery by their lake. :-)

IIRC 'The Door Into Summer' was very good except for one niggling plot point that I felt was incredibly creepy in a male chauvie way (and I felt it was totally unneccesary to the story as well), but I've found I can ignore those and still enjoy the stories- which I why I can like nearly all Heinlein except for some of the tediously rambling ones. Great plots and some wonderful male characters, but Chauvinism is implicit in all and explicit in many.

Oh, is it ever. Those 50s mags (one of which advertised the book as new) I bought are hard to take. I have to say that Asimov was much better in that respect too; the women he did write were intelligent and even strong, like Susan Calvin.

Most people here seem to prefer Asimov though, which has skewed the results.

Most people are left-leaning, too. I think fandom in general tends to skew towards the liberal side, which is also going to bias the results.

I've actually ordered an early Heinlein book, "The Door into Summer' because Greg has mentioned it a few times as a favourite,

I loved that one the first time I read it. I re-read it a while back, and while it wasn't as good as I remembered (and had definitely dated), I'd say it's still worthwhile. And it's got a cat! :)

I know! This is a major reason for wanting to read it. :-) Plus Greg sometimes asks Claudia if she's looking for a door into summer when she's wandering around looking curious.

I answered Heinlen, because that was who I would've read at the time, but nowadays, if it were one or the other, I'd probably rather pick up an Asimov. That may have something to do with the fact that Glory Road was flung across the room into a pile of dirty laundry after a couple of chapters. But, I was no longer a wide-eyed teenager by then.

Tangentially, these days I'd probably ditch them both and pick up Le Guin or Tepper.

Or Nicola Griffith. Have you read her?

Oh, absolutely, Ammonite is one of my all-time faves :)

Mine too!

I started reading Heinlein with "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "Number of the Beast". I continued reading everything I could lay my hands on (mostly the later stuff by that stage - mid to late 1980s) and eventually worked my way through the Murdoch University library's collection of early Heinlein. I particularly enjoyed "Starship Troopers", and was disgusted by the movie.

I should probably mention that I tend to regard myself as a Marxist/socialist when it comes to political and economic thinking, and a social liberal when it comes to social thinking. I enjoyed Heinlein because he made me *think* about what I believed, and why I believed it was the better viewpoint. I also learned that patriotism is all very well, but that it's possible to be patriotic and disapprove of what's happening in your country as well (a very useful lesson which could be learned by many).

Asimov I read mainly as short stories, and found I preferred his short stories and essays to his novels. In a short story or an essay, there isn't the space for the lengthy padding.

I'm going to read the early Heinlein I missed when the later stuff put me off altogether. And go you for both your politicals and your attitude to patriotism, so often an excuse for crimes.

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