![]() ![]() The result is, of course, that when I talk about really important 20th Century SF writers - which is kinda my thing? - I never mention Heinlein. And that 830-page beast was just a bridge too far for a traumatized veteran of the first 100 pages of Friday. But the seminal Heinlein collection, the one containing virtually all of his really important short work - including classics like “The Roads Must Roll,” “Blowups Happen,” “The Man Who Sold the Moon,” “Gentlemen, Be Seated,” “The Green Hills of Earth,” “Logic of Empire,” “The Menace from Earth,” “If This Goes On -”, and the short novel Methuselah’s Children - was the massive The Past Through Tomorrow. The problem was that by the mid-70s Heinlein was a star, the top-selling author in the field, and his entire short fiction catalog was locked up in his own bestselling collections. Sometimes editors would apologize for omitting him, admitting (with some frustration) that they just couldn’t get the rights to the Heinlein tales they wanted. It didn’t help that I made most of my discoveries through short fiction in those days, and Heinlein almost never showed up in anthologies. I enjoyed Starship Troopers well enough, but the next two novels I tried - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and especially Friday - I bounced off pretty hard. The Past Through Tomorrow (Berkley Medallion, January 1975). ![]()
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