No writer before or after was greater at his craft than Robert A. Heinlein. This is not my opinion but that of one of the most prolific authors or all time-- he himself a monster in the field of Science fiction. He to whom I refer was named Isaac Asimov, author of more than 300 books. No author since has four times won Science Fictions most vaunted award, the Hugo, as has Heinlein. His first Hugo was conferred by acclamation of an audience of brilliant writers including Asimov. Why I so love Heinlein is his love of liberty found throughout his writings. Among the sayings of the inimitable Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love, are the words that, The purpose of my government is never to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil. In The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Heinlein wrote that ...no circumstances under which State is justified in placing its welfare ahead of mine. Five of Heinleins novels treated rebellions against tyranny. A titanic scholar, Heinlein loved America, and in If this goes on..., he wrote:I looked up Tom Paine, which led me to Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson and others—a whole new world was opened up to me. . . . Very inspiring stuff. In Citizen of the Galaxy, Heinlein showed his abhorrence of human enslavement, calling slavery . . . the most vicious habit humans fall into and the hardest to break. Concise and remarkably prescient was a phrase found in his last work To Sail Beyond the Sunset. Besieged by ill-health, overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Carmel.By-the Sea, Heinlein wrote, unlimited spending on ‘social’ programs ends in national bankruptcy. Heinleins work brim with optimism and his love for freedom, liberty, and conquest of tyranny never flagged. Near his death, the optimistic Heinlein wrote about his vision of the future of humanity. I believe in my whole race, Yellow, white, black, red, brown. In the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability, and goodness of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth. That we always make it just by the skin of our teeth, but that we will make it. Survive. Endure. I believe this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes will endure. Will endure longer than his home planet—will spread out to the stars and beyond, carrying with him his honesty and his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage and his noble essential decency.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 05:38:45 +0000
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