Expanded Universe

Rating:
Summary: Alternate Views of Heinlein
Review: For those readers of Heinlein who have limited themselves to his Future History stories, his Lazarus Long saga, or perhaps his early Juveniles, Expanded Universe presents an interesting alternate view of Heinlein's writing including many stories not featured in other anthologies and a number of his nonfiction pieces as well.

"Solution Unsatisfactory" tells of an alternate ending to World War II where the US develops an intensely radioactive dust with selective half-life rather than the atomic bomb; its use on Germany and its parallel discovery by the Soviet Union bring the world into a Cold War many times worse than what the world truly experienced. In short, the balance of terror doctrine was and will always be a "solution unsatisfactory."

"PRAVDA Means TRUTH" is a short nonfiction piece on the dangers of a state-run media and its influence on the lives of citizens, based on true-life experiences Heinlein and his wife had while traveling to Russia at the same time Francis Gary Powers' U2 was brought down. Similarly, "Inside Intourist" tells of the Heinlein's experiences with the Soviet tourism agency (through which all travel had to be arranged). Contrary to some reviewers' comments, Heinlein never condescends upon the people of Russia and its former republics; he merely explains the dangers the people face from their oppressive government. He in fact often discusses how nicely the actual people of Russia treated him and his wife on their trip.

Many other stories and nonfiction pieces (some dated by their survivalist Cold War era themes) are included; another of interest is "No Bands Playing, No Flags Flying," which tells the slightly fictionalized tale of courage and TB treatments (which Heinlein himself underwent) in the pre-WW2 Navy. His survivalist pieces may seem dated or extremist today, yet for the cold war climate (and today's constant threat of terrorism), the message is still clear: those who are ready will survive catastrophes, and those who aren't may very well not.

Give this Heinlein anthology a chance; for those already versed in Heinlein's other works, Expanded Universe will offer a fresh look into the mind of one of science fiction's Grand Masters.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Heinlein was an odd duck. When he was good, he was great. Hardly
anyone could touch him. But when he was bad, he was terrible.
_Expanded Universe_ isn't a totally terrible book, but it's close. I can't give it one star, because some of the stuff in
it is pretty good. But what's bad--and that's most of the book--
is terrible. A lot of the material in here is non-fiction. Heinlein should have stayed away from it, and left the popular
science writing to Isaac Asimov. And most of all, Heinlein
should have stayed away from politics, the military and philosophy. His rabid Cold War nuke-'em-'til-they-glow rantings are embarrassing, especially from a man who was never in combat and instead had to retire from the Navy because he had TB. All I
can do is sigh. I just wish he had stayed with fiction. Much of
this book is really embarrassing and disappointing.

Rating:
Summary: Almost turned me off to Heinlein
Review: I've been a Heinlein fan for just about as long as I've been an SF fan (somewhere around thirty-five years). But when I read this collection some twenty-odd years ago, it nearly turned me off to the old man altogether.

The fiction is pretty good (although even that isn't Heinlein's best). But to describe the nonfiction accurately, I'd have to use words that Amazon will remove from the review anyway.

For the most part, the pieces collected here represent a side of Heinlein I strongly dislike. Though I respect _Starship Troopers_, it's never going to be my favorite Heinlein novel no matter how many times we quibble over the precise definition of "fascism" -- and I'm not going to have much respect for the nonfiction in this collection.

Heinlein (who bought into the Korzybski/General Semantics fad pretty early on) spent a lot of years dismissing philosophers as tailchasers who derive their premises from their conclusions. But his own attempt at philosophy, as represented here in e.g. "The Pragmatics of Patriotism", is very nearly the worst writing on ethical philosophy I've ever seen.

Then, too, people who knew Heinlein report that despite his overall gentlemanly demeanor, he could be pretty churlish toward people who disagreed with him. Well, he's certainly unpleasant here; anybody who doesn't agree with him on the need for massive nuclear buildup is dismissed as a poltroon or a custard-head. Even in the unlikely event that I thought he were _right_, I wouldn't find this a very helpful approach.

Perhaps more surprisingly, his popular writings on _science_ aren't very good. Asimov's reputation as the "great explainer" is in no danger here.

This volume is second only to _Grumbles from the Grave_ in cementing Heinlein's posthumous reputation as a rather mean-spirited fellow whose fictional characters were generally much better company than he was. When I want Heinleinian company, I'll stick to D.B. Davis, Manuel Garcia O'Kelly Davis, and (maybe) Lazarus Long.

And when I want to read some humane nonfiction by an SF master, I'll still turn to Asimov. I credit Heinlein with three magisterial novels, several imperfect-but-great ones, and a good number of brilliant short stories. But the stuff in this book should have stayed in his drawer.

Rating:
Summary: Hard-nosed, yet compassionate
Review: If you are a hard-core devotee of Robert A. Heinlein's literature (not a casual fan, or someone who thought that Stranger In A Strange Land was "pretty cool") then your bookshelf is essentially empty without this book. Out of the nearly 30 works collected in this volume, none are without merit. It starts out with Life-Line, as any RAH retrospective must, and also includes such early classics as Solution Unsatisfactory and Blowups Happen. However, the majority of the book are far lesser known works. Among these, those of note include a trio of non-fiction (and a couple of fictional) articles on the atomic bomb and it's consequences that Heinlein wrote after WWII. Other interesting stories include two chronicles of the Heinleins' trip to the USSR. Also of note are the predictions that RAH made for the future, and his rants on such subjects as education, politics, and religion. However, the part of the book that I enjoyed most were the forewards and afterwards that are strewn throughout the book. They often reveal a lot about the author's character (perhaps more than he intended) and occasionally show fascinating insights. Overall, I found the book to be very entertaining, funny (at times), and written in Heinlein's typical witty prose (even the non-fiction.) Absolutely essential for any major fan of the Dean's work.

Rating:
Summary: Superior collection of fiction and non-fiction
Review: This is an superior collection of fiction and non-fiction. Two fiction and two non-fiction pieces deserve note.

"Solution Unsatisfactory" is probably the finest piece of prophecy in science fiction. The story, written in 1940, predicts the ending of WW II by the use of an atomic weapon and the start of a nuclear standoff shortly thereafter. He get the details wrong of course, the atomic weapon is radiated dust, the city Berlin, and the cold war is between Germany and the United States, but the foresight is uncanny.

"Blowups Happen", also written in 1940, shows the tension of working in a nuclear power plant and what happens when an accident happens. Any similarity between this story and three-mile island is purely coincidental.

I gave this book to a friend who had never read any science fiction and after reading it, she swore Heinlein was a time-traveler.

The two nonfiction pieces, "PRAVDA means TRUTH" and "Inside Intourist". Both pieces are taken from a trip Heinlein and his wife took to the Soviet Union in 1960. Heinlein's observations about life in the Soviet Union at that time are both entertaining and enlightening.

Rating:
Summary: Hard-nosed, yet compassionate
Review: When all is said and done, you can't help respecting Robert Heinlein. The man knew what he wanted to say, and by jiminy he went out there and said it... This book, along with "Grumbles from the Grave," probably cleaves closer to the heart of Heinlein's spirit than any three of his other books combined. It is a collection of short pieces: some nonfiction articles; others, slightly fictionalized accounts of very real political concerns. My favorite piece is "Solution Unsatisfactory," which was one of the earliest pieces in science fiction to deal so intelligently with the threat of nuclear war. Heinlein also includes a few accounts of trips that he and his wife made to the Soviet Union. They really tried hard to be open-eyed, open-minded observers of everything they saw. Things have changed in Russia since they were there, but it's worth reading just to sate one's appetite for Heinlein's distinctive voice. (For anyone interested in more up-to-date accounts of Russia, read anything by David Shipler.) Heinlein's time at Annapolis shows through in many of these pieces, as it does in virtually everything else he wrote. He seemed to have a very, very clear sense of America as a "country," or even as a "nation," as opposed to a "society." What I mean by this is that many of these pieces reflect a powerful understanding of the fundamental reality that America is a MILITARY entity, apart from being an economic juggernaut and a staunch promoter, on the international scene, of youth culture and our entertainment-based value system. Heinlein's military and political understanding is a disturbing one, but it is more securely grounded in serious, military realities than that of most authors writing today.

The pre-eminent concern in "Expanded Universe" is the threat of nuclear war. Heinlein, as anyone familiar with his writings will know, wrote firmly out of the Cold War tradition. "Solution Unsatisfactory" is the best example of this kind of thinking in this volume. Personally, I'd like to interject, I see absolutely no correlation whatsoever between the end of the Cold War and any putative decrease in the threat to mankind posed by nuclear weapons. I, for one, couldn't care less whether the dude aiming MIRV missiles at my kitchen speaks Russian, Arabic, Chinese, or, heck, even Navajo -- the point is that armed conflict will always exist, and now that nuclear weapons exist too, the clock is frankly ticking away the last seconds/hours/days/years/decades (decades? Let's hope so...) on mankind's time remaining on Earth.

For anyone who is genuinely disturbed by Heinlein's ideas, I want to make a few recommendations. Try to find a copy of "Nuclear Shelterist," by Walton McCarthy. It's out of print right now, but it's obviously worth trying to track down. Ask your friendly local librarian for help in finding it. Also -- if you can locate a copy of the British movie "Threads," you should see it. It's extremely frightening and graphic -- do NOT watch it with your kids in the house. I'm very serious about that. That said, it is an absolutely uncompromising overview of the currently accepted, likely aftermath of a nuclear war, extrapolated over a period of thirteen years after the war happens. It's horrifying enough that it might prompt you to get involved in some way. You might have to search a little to find the video -- not all video stores carry it. However, fifteen minutes of calling all the video stores in the yellow pages will probably be enough to track it down. Finally, I'd like to recommend "Hydroponic Home Food Gardens," by Howard Resh. If we ever have a nuclear war, indoor hydroponic gardens will be just about the only way of growing food successfully, and people who have them will have a VASTLY higher chance of surviving the worldwide economic chaos and food shortages which will definitely follow such a war. Whether you would actually be glad you survived is, of course, another question.

Well, I just wanted to make a little contribution, online, to the kind of concerns that Heinlein wrote about in "Expanded Universe." I like to think that he would have approved of my passing on those tips... Anyway, this book is fantastic. Buy it, please, and get copies for your friends. People need to be more aware of this stuff. I give this book seven hundred billion thumbs up.

Rating:
Summary: Heinlein's done it again
Review: Yet another work of art from Heinlein himself. I've read some other novels by him (Starship Troopers, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Red Planet) and this one is great! It's like driving through the brain of a mental patiant. With great works of sci fi and old stories.. It's fun to read over and over again.