open

Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Forums

You are logged in as a guest. ( logon | register )
Posting a reply to: Re: The Definitive 1950s Reading Challenge

Back
General Discussion -> Roll-Your-Own Reading Challenge
Guest name
Subject
Message

Emoticons
HTML: Yes
Anonymous: No
MBBS Code: Yes


 Disable HTML
Enable emoticons



You are replying to:
jwharris28
Posted 2015-01-27 7:38 AM (#9372 - in reply to #9371)
Subject: Re: The Definitive 1950s Reading Challenge		Quote Reply



Regular

Posts: 76
25
The Green Hills of Earth has some of Heinlein's stories that were sold to the slicks, like Saturday Evening Post. That was a huge step up for a pulp writer. But the do seem slight today. They're good stories, but not standout stories. To me, Heinlein was always best when he was writing for young adults. His best short story is "The Menace From Earth," which has a teenage girl for the main character. My second favorite story is the very adult "All You Zombies..." - which might be his last two short stories. Which supports my theory that Heinlein peaked as a writer between 1955-1960.

I didn't start reading Heinlein until 1964, so it's hard to gauge the impact Heinlein's stories had in the 1940s. From what I read though, he was a shooting star right from the start in 1939, and his stories were extremely popular. I wish I could comprehend how readers felt about Heinlein when The Man Who Sold the Moon and The Green Hills of Earth came out in 1950 and 1951. Just how many people were thinking of space travel? Or how many people read science fiction? What were the print runs on those early books? I'm sure V-2 rockets and the atom bomb got a lot of people receptive to science fictional ideas.

(Delete all cookies set by this site)