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Comment by lonalzarus | Hacker News Reader

"...Heinlein never achieved stable and consistent recognition either during his lifetime or posthumously. His prose and ideas lacked the signature stylistic and thematic hallmarks that were to distinguish peers such as Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, and Isaac Asimov..."

I really dislike these sorts of remarks. Heinlein is down in the records as one of the "Big Three" authors in the golden age of science fiction. Any Science Fiction reader knows how much of a giant he is. Just because The Atlantic, didn't decide to declare him a singular hidden gem, or HBO didn't make a series based on his works, doesn't mean he wasn't recognized or appreciated in full.

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Everyone is entitled to their opinion. You, and I, as well, don't happen to agree with this one. After Asimov, RAH is my second favorite SciFi author, having read his entire catalog, many, multiple times. I have my favorites and disfavorites but, across the board, even with his teen stories and his later "dirty old man" books, his books all make interesting reads. His predictions just add to his legacy.

No doubt, I'm also a cranky opinionated life long Science Fiction reader, and we are definitely in agreement. I read as much Heinlein as I could get ahold of as a young man. There's no better fuel for a young nerd than stories of sex, heroic individualism and engineering with a healthy dose of libertarianism. And I know how well regarded Heinlein is in his field.

But what bothers me is the snow-clone nature of that statement that Heinlein was not recognized. It's like a knee -jerk default hyperbolic internet article closing, and I don't think it was true. Especially compared to people like Asimov and Clarke. They all had their little heyday as modern day prophets and fell by the wayside in the wider popular consciousness, no more "consistency" in recognition than any other. PKD, on the other hand seems to be bonafide cultural darling.

>But what bothers me is the snow-clone nature of that statement that Heinlein was not recognized.

It's flat out not true by any meaningful measurement. As the peer comment said, Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke were widely recognized as the big 3 of a certain era of science fiction. Maybe Asimov was the best known of the 3 to the broader public if only because he was so prolific. Clarke basically retired to Sri Lanka and neither wrote nor spoke much after that. (And even many science fiction fans might have trouble remembering one of his book titles today.)

But, as for Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land isn't my favorite but it did have a degree of mainstream success. And he was very well known, if somewhat controversial, in genre circles.

I think a lot of PKD's cachet comes from TV and film adaptations. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of his writing but there have been quite a few popular and/or critical TV shows and movies adapted to greater or lesser degrees from his books and short stories.

The author must just not be groking Heinlein.

Not sharing the water, as it were.

That is just an ignorant statement.

personally I only like "Starship Troopers" and would say he was one of my most disliked SciFi writers. It just feels like a Hippie fueled throw up to see what sticks on the walls, minus Starship Troopers and why did they make that movie when it didn't have anything that the book had to say in it?

You say it's an ignorant statement, then you support that with an entirely personal opinion? Okay, here's mine: I loved Starship Troopers, read every other book he's written and loved them as well, with the exception of Stranger in a Strange Land, which is most people's favourite for some reason.

But almost all of my favourite modern sci-fi authors list Heinlein as a major influence, and he has more Hugo awards than anyone else (Hugo is the major award for science fiction). I feel like he gets a lot of recognition.

Exactly. The author was ignorant to the facts and just used his own personal taste.

I was stating I don't like Heinlein but his is absolutely a top 3 author.

Hippie? That novel has often been characterized as semi-fascist, and it has pre-Anime mechas and alien bug colonies that essentially get genocided, I'm not sure what book you were "reading".

> Hippie? That novel has often been characterized as semi-fascist,

Well, the “Hippie” characterization was made by GP of the rest of Heinlein’s work (which GP does not like), not ST (of which GP approves).

It's not an uncommon reaction to some of RAH’s work, Stranger in a Strange Land particularly, but it's just as wrong as calling ST semi-fascist.

I suspect Heinlein gets categorized all over the map (from "hippie" to "fascist") because critics looking at only one of his books don't realize that he's using science fiction to explore (but not necessarily fully endorse) different sociopolitical and cultural arrangements. He constructs a Sparta-style government of the military elect which gets mistaken for fascism in Starship Troopers. He describes a free-love new religious movement in Stranger in a Strange Land. He engineers a libertarian-anarchist[1] revolution in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Heinlein portrayed none of these systems as perfect and seemed, to my eyes, to be exploring their implications in a scifi setting rather than plugging for any one of them.

[1]: Libertarian used here in an American context, though some members of the lunar revolution in the novel are monarchists, syndicalists, and anarchists as well.

Verhoeven said he found the novel to be childish and boring, so he made the movie a sort of parody of the book's pro-fascist leanings.

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