Yeah, if Ender’s Game were in this set, I would avoid it like the plague, but I don’t think Heinlein or Herbert were anymore particularly homophobic than any straight man of their generation. Did they believe and perpetuate some myths about gay people? Probably, but it certainly wasn’t a major theme of their writings, and I’m not aware of them speaking out against gay people outside of their writings either. Herbert was apparently a cousin of Joseph McCarthy and thought he was pretty swell until he started blacklisting people, but that’s about the worst thing I can find about him.
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I like The City And The Stars.
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Childhood’s End, I’d say.
The Deep Range?
Rendezvous with Rama?
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You’d think they’d make a point of specifying, but judging from the thickness, I’m guessing it’s the unabridged version of Stranger in a Strange Land.
I did not much care for that book at all – nor Left Hand, nor Neuromancer. When I finally got around to Dune and found it to be actually readable, it was a pleasant surprise.
As far as I remember, Heinlein mostly referred to homosexuality as ‘misguided’ in his earlier novels, while in his later ones there are several instances of (off-screen) gay sex.
In the unedited version of Stranger, Ben remarks to Jubal that if he ever decided to go gay, Mike would be his only choice.
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Heinlein was a bit of a hard-ass, but also explored sexuality to a surprising degree - see Stranger in a Strange Land. I wouldn’t single him out as a particular homophobe.
Also, this set contains Left Hand of Darkness, which I would call progressive even by todays standards.
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If I was going to pick a Heinlein novel for posterity, it wouldn’t be Stranger in a Strange Land (good book though it was). It would Citizen of the Galaxy.
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Only the first part of The Once and Future King would be suitable for young children. Most of these are serious works that many children would find boring and irrelevant. You would also have to spend a lot of time explaining things like sex, drugs, and the ethics of power. I have all of them except Neuromancer so I don’t think I’ll be buying them, I’ll just replace my old paperbacks if they fall apart (some are now over forty years old). It’s the content that counts not the covers except for a few where the physical book makes a personal connection. That applies to my copy of The Once and Future King because it was the book I chose as my prize for being best at physics in senior high school, it caused a bit of a stir because the headmaster expected the winner of such a prize to choose a science book.
How is it physically impossible to keep every novel you have ever read? I think I have thrown away less than a dozen novels in my whole life and I’m 61 now. The house has about 3000 books in it and there is plenty of room for more, especially if I can convince my adult children to leave home.
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“Heinlein wrote a lot of nonstandard sexual stuff, for God’s sake he had a character go back in time and fuck his mother, give him a little credit.”
Does this character fuck his own mother or Heinlein’s mother?
Also, speaking of fucking:
$133???
Fuck that!
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who is this Gustave Glaubert?
We can’t all live in vast palaces hewn into the living bedrock. My flat isn’t tiny, but I have room for one 4x4 Expedit for books and that’s it. At the time of the Purge, I had books jammed into it every which way, and on top of it, and in dozens of teetering stacks on the floor next to it, and the floor underneath the Expedit was visibly bowed. (In fact it still is, but I assume the risk of structural failure must have abated)
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I’m not saying I wouldn’t read someone’s books because I thought they were obnoxious. I’ve read both those books on several occasions. But if I’m going to restrict myself to a very small, heavily curated shelf of novels, that necessarily makes it personal.
I’m maybe being a little unfair to Heinlein. Herbert I do have a real problem with; his books are crammed with his ideas about gender and biological determinism, and the more I read them the more gross and unpleasant I find a lot of those ideas. And I thought that before I learned he’d shut out his own son for being gay.
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My house has a liveable area of about 130m2 so although moderately big by current UK standards (average new build home is now about 90m2 I think) it is probably under the average for Norway where it is. I don’t know what the stats. are for the US (my best guess at your rough location) but personal experience visiting Raleigh NC over the last 20 years suggests that many US dwellings are a lot larger.
I realize that’s no consolation if you have to live in a high cost area, I have a friend who recently bought a 45m2 flat in Oslo that cost him twice what my 130m2 would sell for outside Drammen.
I do agree though that the books dominate a lot of the space. I really must tidy up some of the teetering stacks (or kick the kids out so I can use a bedroom as a library).
An interesting selection, I think the price is fine. Make a good gift. Has made me wonder about choosing my own six titles… just on a nostalgic sort of fondest-memory basis. Stranger in a Strange Land is fine, but for Heinlien I might have chosen Starship Troopers or Have Spacesuit Will Travel (going way back here) Left Hand of Darkness is a shoo-in. For Clarke I would go with Childood’s End or the City and the Stars. Dune is fine. The Once and Future King is an all-time favorite. I love Neuromancer but it’s a little new to be authentically nostalgic. Stars My Destination? The Mote in God’s Eye?
Ah, the six books you would choose. Took us long enough to get here.
For me, I think… Gibson and LeGuin can stay, but…
The moon is a harsh mistress (Heinlein)
Babel-17 (Delany)
The shockwave rider (Brunner)
and something by Stanisław Lem, perhaps Peace on Earth?
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You could make an argument on the alternate-history front, as White, rather than trying to square the circle of sub-Roman Britons jousting in plate armour, simply declares the kings of England from the Norman Conquest to (roughly) Henry V to be fictional and drops Arthur and his father in there. In a metafictional twist, he then gets criticised by Merlyn for doing so:
After a bit there was poor old White, who thought that we represented the ideas of chivalry. He said that our importance lay in our decency, in our resistance against the bloody mind of man. What an anachronist he was, dear fellow. Fancy starting after William the Conqueror, and ending in the Wars of the Roses …
— T. H. White, The Book of Merlyn (sometimes included as Book V of The Once and Future King).
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Yay! I’ll start with one you picked -
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (Heinlein)
Foundation (Asimov)
The Mote In God’s Eye (Niven/Pournelle)
Gateway (Pohl)
Galapagos (Vonnegut)
The Golden Apples Of The Sun (Bradbury)
The rules I just made up for myself:
- One book per author.
- List to be contractually non-binding, because tomorrow I’d be picking Cat’s Cradle or Ringworld.
- Generally agreed to be science fiction, otherwise I’ll end up trying to make a case for something like The Phantom Tollbooth.
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Why do you hate TH White?
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Well, there is his relationship with Brian Herbert… (his son)
I’m a huge Dune fan though.
