Expanded Universe [Mass Market Paperback]

Have you ever done that and immediately regretted it?

"Hmmm..." you ponder, "perhaps there is a REASON for package tours."

If the above applies to you, do not buy this book, "Expanded Universe."

However, if you've been to Heinlein-ville many times and taken the package tours (Stranger In A Strange Land, Friday) and thought "What an interesting guy. Wonder what makes him go tick-tock?" then this book is the equivelent of "Europe On $5-a-Day."

Containing some of his earliest works, some works considered by publishers, "not fit for paper," and some personal papers with some fascinating insights, "Expanded Universe" is a must-have for anyone who has that common feeling that resembles personal acquaintance with the master of sci-fi. The writing style itself is not his best -- some is quite primitive (being early Heinlein). Some of the stuff, to be quite honest, I had to struggle through. But some of the stories were incredible, and in my opinion, too short.

A wonderful reference manual. If you truly LOVE Heinlein, then your collection is obviously not complete without it, and it makes a good bathroom reader (of which there are so few).

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.

In this collection you'll find some good fiction, but in the nonfiction essays you'll also learn what a lousy "philosopher" Heinlein was. For example, he defines ethical behavior as "behavior that tends toward survival" on the grounds that no sane moral philosopher defines it as "behavior that tends toward extinction." False dichotomy, anyone? Has any reason been given why ethical behavior should affect species survival one way or the other at all, let alone why it should be _defined_ as doing so?

He wasn't exactly humane, either. Samuel Johnson, the man who wrote that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," is described (apparently by way of dismissal) as a fat poltroon who was haunted all his life by a pathological (was Heinlein a psychiatrist?) fear of death. This doesn't exactly address Johnson's claim, but maybe it's enough for people who have sold their souls to the U.S. military. Anyway, even supposing Heinlein's claim were true, this isn't a very compassionate way to talk about people who are hounded by uncontrollable fears.

His essays on the Cold War and the former Soviet Union, including his rants about the need for a strong central government to keep building and threatening to use nuclear weapons, are just embarrassing today. Not content with objecting to the Soviet government (as any liberty-loving person would), he also pokes merciless fun at Russian culture and the Russian people (repeatedly referring to them as pigs and suggesting that the Russian language had to borrow words from English for anything more complicated than a turnip patch). The Third World comes in for some insults too.

Does he even have a clue why so much of the world (including some U.S. citizens) opposes U.S. foreign policy? Nope. His summary of the source of anti-U.S. sentiment: "Everybody wants to kick the fat boy." Now _that's_ cutting social analysis.

All this from a writer who has long been held up to us -- quite unaccountably -- as some sort of libertarian. _What_ sort? He doesn't have any moral objections at all to the use (or threat) of nuclear bombs against innocent civilians; anybody who disagrees is dismissed as a custard-headed pacifist. (Apparently bombing civilians is "behavior that tends toward survival.") He may have written appreciatively of liberty in some of his fiction, but in real life he wanted a strong and powerful State who can bully the rest of the world into submission.

What's so libertarian about this supposedly grand old man? Thank God his sort of "leader" _wasn't_ in the White House when it counted.

One star for the non-fiction; three stars for the fiction. It's about half and half, so the book gets two stars.