Electronic OtherRealms #21 Summer, 1988 Part 10 Clifford Simak -- 1904-1988 Robert A. Heinlein -- 1907-1988 Clifford Simak On April 25, 1988, we lost Clifford Simak. He was 83, An SFWA Grand Master, winner of the Hugo, the Nebula and the International Fantasy Award. His best known works were City (1952 IF Award), The Big Front Yard (1959 Hugo), Way Station (1964 Hugo) and Grotto of the Dancing Deer (Hugo and Nebula, 1981). He is survived by a daughter, a son, and a brother. I feel guilty about the paucity of appreciations. Simak was well liked and appreciated by many. A number of comments got lost in the mourning when Heinlein's death was announced, and I wasn't able to track them down in time for this issue. I feel sorry that a man to the field and loved by it's readers is leaving us under the shadow of another. I will carry appreciations for Simak next issue as well if they are sent to me. Clifford, you brightened our lives and lightened our hearts. Wherever you are, our love and our respect go to you. Be happy, and know you are loved. Robert A. Heinlein I got the word on May 9th, the day after he died. Life hasn't been the same since. This isn't an obituary -- I've tried writing one since I heard the word, and my mind refuses to accept that he's gone. He's not really gone, you know. Open up one of his books and he's back, staring over your shoulder, talking, teaching. He sat up with me, many nights, sharing his life, his love of people, his demands that you stand up for yourself and not wait for others to do it for you. He taught me a lot. I like to believe I got at least some of the lessons right. He was, more than any other writer, my spiritual father, although we never met. So no obituary. Anything I do would be a pale imitation to the good-byes in Locus, and I refuse to let him die. Any time someone tells me otherwise, I'll just look at the bookcase and smile. I know better. I'm not alone, either. Never before has a Science Fiction writer been recognized as widely as Heinlein has. Obituaries in all the newspapers; in Time, in Newsweek; in the New Republic. NBC Network; NPR. Even Herb Caen, spiritual guardian of San Francisco, said goodbye. Not all of these were good obituaries, or accurate, but it is an indication of how important Heinlein was, not just to us, but to everyone. Waldos. Waterbeds. Grok. How many authors have words in the dictionary? How many authors can look at major technological advances and say "That's mine!" Starship Troopers. Time Enough for Love. Have Spacesuit Will Travel. I will Fear no Evil. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Friday. The Roads Must Roll. The Man Who Traveled in Elephants. To Sail Beyond the Sunset. No, he's not dead. He's right in the other room, and down the street, and across town and in the libraries and towns and minds across the country. Open up a book, and you'll see. Appreciations Tom Galloway Last July I did something stupid. I was going back to LA from Westercon in Oakland. I would be moving to Switzerland soon, and since I'd never done it, I decided to take the Pacific Coast Highway back along the coast. And this took me through Santa Cruz. I knew about the Heinlein collection at UCSC, so I called and set up an appointment to look at it. For someone like me, for whom Robert Heinlein is one my two favorite authors, it's interesting. I got to read a couple of stories that hadn't been reprinted in any of his collections. Some unreprinted magazine articles. Some correspondence about stories and articles. Earlier drafts, with marked in changes. Fascinating stuff. But that wasn't the stupid thing. That was the smart thing I did that day. Now, I have to give you some background about myself. I know several authors at both the friend and acquaintance level, mostly from having worked conventions. I've met a number of other people who are celebrities, or major authorities, in a limited field, such as chess or Artificial Intelligence or other interests of mine. I was a member of a committee at Yale that selected and contacted prospective speakers for one of the residential colleges. So I know how to behave and act around such. I know that you don't just pop up on someone's doorstep and go, "Gosh, Mr. Einstein, I really love your work". If everyone did that, such people'd never have time to do what they did to make people want to pop up on their doorstep. Right now, you're thinking that the something stupid I did was to pop up on Mr. Heinlein's doorstep. Wrong. This something wasn't that stupid. Close though. Y'see, for several years before that, I had in my possession the Heinleins' phone number. I'm not going to say how I got it. But I had this number, and I hadn't used it for the several years that I'd had it. Until that day last July. I'd just seen the collection. I was in the same town. I was moving to Europe for an indefinite period, but at least a year. And we all know that his health'd not been the best for a number of years. And it all came together and I did the stupid thing. I pulled over at a phone booth. I even made a rationalization. I was going to offer to arrange for me to pay for a dinner for him and Mrs. Heinlein at a restaurant of their choice, as a token of my thanks for many hours of enjoyment and education. I dialed the phone. To my surprise, a male voice answered. For some reason, I'd expected Mrs. Heinlein to answer, probably because I once read somewhere that she handled his correspondence. I managed to recover slightly, and got out an explanation of who I was, and why I was calling. Compounding my stupidity, I managed to make it sound like I was trying to invite myself to dinner with them. That got straightened out, and he declined my offer as they were in the midst of preparing to move to a condo. Other than that, I won't go into the details of the maybe two minute conversation, except to say that at the end I thanked him for the many hours of enjoyment and education. Mr. Heinlein was very polite throughout the conversation, which I knew was an imposition. It was dumb. It was stupid. I still have problems believing I did it. And even now, now that I know that I'll not have a chance, however remote, to somehow manage to encounter him in a way that would not be an imposition, I don't know how I feel about it. On the one hand, I'm very glad that I did have a moment of personal contact with him. On the other, I know that it was a stupid thing, and a very bad way of supposedly trying to express my appreciation to him. But, y'know, in a way I'm doing the same dumb thing right here. I'm trying to express my appreciation of what his work meant to me and did for me, and here I am just writing about two minutes of "personal" contact which if anything were against the sort of thing I thought I'd learned from his work. I guess the point is, it meant enough to me that I did something that normally I'd never do. The something was dumb. It was stupid. But the work affected me that much. Shit. Dan'l Danehy-Oakes The litany of the dead goes on, and on, and on; but somehow these two hurt more than most. Somehow these two touch us right where we live. Both of them were getting on; both of them were had been ill, were living on overtime. We should have seen it coming -- and I guess, in a way, we did. In a way. But we never really expect it until it happens. Do we? I never met Clifford Simak. I met Robert Heinlein only once, and that at a time when he was very ill -- shortly before his bypass operation. But both Heinlein and Simak have enriched my life, and many others -- probably yours, if you're reading this -- with their quintessentially American dreams of the future. Heinlein was the town-bred American, beating the drum and selling war bonds. If he hadn't so much style, he would have been just a Babbit, waving his flag and mouthing his cliches; but he was never cliche. Think of every way you could to say something, and Heinlein would still surprise you. Simak, now, was the American outback woodsman. He told stories of a quiet future where folks is still folks and everybody is basically good, if you only understood 'em; and he filled this future with magic, so nothing in the here-and-now ever looked quite the same after you read a Simak book. It was Heinlein's stories, more than anyone else's, who taught us that it was possible to think and reason in an SF story. It was Simak's that taught us that you could write SF with genuine feelings. They were, respectively, the mind and the heart of science fiction, and it's fitting that they should be taken from us so close together. No less sad for that. A few months ago, I reviewed Heinlein's To Sail Beyond the Sunset for this 'zine. I wrote (among other things): This may well be his last book; if so, he's built himself a monument worthy of his life and work. I stand by that. Simak didn't need a monumental last book; each of his works was a quiet, tastefully-placed stone or flower in a rock garden nobody else could tend, and that stands for him as no towering headstone could. In the last few years, it's been fashionable among young turks to call Heinlein a fascist, Simak a sentimentalist; to say that both had outlived their talent. I don't think so. Listen to me, young turks: years will pass, and City and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Way Stations and Double Star and They Walked Like Men and Time Enough For Love and A Choice of Gods and To Sail Beyond the Sunset will still be here long after all you young turks, and me, and Chuq, and the cyberpunq posers have all been swept away to wherever they sweep trash like us. And the answer will be unspoken, unheard, but true and passionate: their talents outlived them. Not the other way around. Sail on, Robert, into an unimaginable sunset. And, Clifford, may your enchanted journey never end. Kenn Barry I never met Robert Heinlein. I wish I had. Saw him once, at a con, but not being one of those people who feel that hero-worship is a good excuse for bothering your hero, I didn't introduce myself. But at least I had the pleasure of knowing him in the same way that the rest of his legions of fans did. I found his books in my local library when I was 12, one fine summer. Some things, some experiences, so rivet a person that they can never be forgotten (nor, sadly, recaptured). Such was that summer, for me. _The Rolling Stones_; _The Star Beast_; _Tunnel In The Sky_; _Time For The Stars_; _Red Planet_. When I couldn't find any more on the "books for young people" shelf, I made my first foray into the grownup's side of the library, and read until there was no more to read. When the Heinlein ran out, I moved on to Clarke, Asimov, the rest of the crew, and they were fine, but it wasn't really the same. How can one put it into words? How can that feeling of the mind coming alive be communicated? If I say it was like the first time I heard "Rite of Spring", sitting in my room, in the dark, but not really even knowing where I was, will it mean anything to anyone but me? Heinlein has put the stars in our eyes, and his starry-eyed readers will put the stars in our reach. Listen to the people who made Apollo, who made the Saturn V. What did they read as youngsters? Over and over, the same names are heard: Verne, Wells, Heinlein. Somewhere out there are thousands of brothers and sisters I've never met, dreamers and believers, who as children went through those books at lightspeed, and knew it could be real, if we chose to make it so. Heinlein showed us. He made that dream of the future a living reality, showed us that it was only our bodies chained by gravity, not our minds. He took us to space, and we won't ever come home again, not really. The 12th summer passes; a year goes by. Puberty arrives, and with it the mailer from the SF Book Club: new Heinlein novel! Stranger In A Strange Land. Yet more horizons become visible. Question authority. Think new thoughts. Never be afraid to doubt that which makes no sense, no matter how many times They tell you you're silly or stubborn, a troublemaker. Have faith in yourself. I can't summarize a man's life work in one essay. So many threads, so many lessons. I was never close to my real father, but Heinlein made up much of the lack. He was not the only place I found lessons about duty, and courage, and responsibility, but he more than anyone else made these things real for me. Protect the weak; value honesty for its own sake; take responsibility for your own actions. I haven't always lived up to this model, of course, but at least I have the ideals; Heinlein gave them to me. Many more summers have come and gone for me since those first, electric discoveries of new dimensions of my own humanity. Since then have come the muddy, equivocal lessons of age, including the lesson that even Heinlein can try, but fail, to distill wisdom into words. And now there's that final lesson that we are only clay, and cannot tarry forever, no matter how much we wish it were otherwise. Heinlein wished harder than anyone, but he, too, now sails beyond the sunset. If there were one thing I could tell him, I know what it would be: that those stories he was always so modest about, those words strung together to entertain, to "buy groceries", have given him the immortality that he sought. As long as human children look up and wonder, his books will be there to inspire them. Goodbye, Mr. Heinlein. You are loved, and missed. And if there is another shore upon the other side, maybe I'll one day get to thank you personally, and laugh along with you at the wonderful joke we play on ourselves called Life. Joel Davis I can remember reading Simak's books when I was, or, 10 or 11 years old. I can even remember the smell and feel of that old, tiny library branch, where I found those books. I don't even have to close my eyes to see exactly which shelf they were on. I've read Way Station so many times I can't count 'em. And City -- it blew me away. And my personal Simak favorite was and still is Time is the Simplest Thing. It was the first SF novel that this Catholic kid ever read that had a Catholic priest in it. When I saw that, I remember thinking: Wow--this stuff is really real. This guy writes about people like me! And, of course, the story is so wonderful, gentle, the great Simak touch. I just checked my own bookshelves. Yeah, still got a copy of it. Crest Book, Fawcett World Library, paperback. 50 cents. Mmmmm. Love that smell of old paperbacks. Copyright 1981 Doubleday edition. Don't know about this one, since it doesn't have an imprint date. But it's old, and it's real, and it is taking me home again to dusty roads in rural Ventura County, California, 1961. 13 years old. I remember. Thanks, Clif. God bless ya! Fred Bals I woke up sometime very late on Sunday night, May 8th. I jumped awake out of a nightmare, reaching for my wife, knowing something had happened. That happens to me frequently. I'm not a very good sleeper. So even though there's a terrible temptation to point at the coincidence and make more of it, I don't want to. I can wonder though how many others who hold a similar love for science fiction may have been suddenly jarred out of sleep that Sunday night and thought to themselves, "something has happened." The name Robert A. Heinlein is -- by any measurement -- synonymous with the phrase science fiction. Ask people with a passing knowledge of science fiction about writers, and they are as likely to name Heinlein as Asimov or Clarke. Within fandom itself, Heinlein is often referred to simply by his initials -- RAH -- in a shorthand sort of familiarity usually reserved only for Presidents of the United States. In fact, that type of shorthand can be used only when you know your listeners are as familiar with the subject as you are. It's shared knowledge on almost a racial memory level. Say JFK to the average North American and you know you're going to generate a certain set of associations. Say RAH to the average science fiction reader and you will get some sort of response. Heinlein so profoundly affected science fiction that it's difficult to imagine what the field would have been like without him. There is not a contemporary writer working in science fiction who has not been influenced by Heinlein's writing. That statement bears repeating -- there is not one writer in the field who has not, in one way or another, had to deal and come to terms with Heinlein's monolithic presence -- whether to ultimately embrace him or to rebel against him. His influence is simply too pervasive to ignore. Write a time-travel story, and lurking somewhere in the back of your mind -- as you know it will with your readers -- is "By His Bootstraps." Generation starships? "Universe." Self-aware computers? "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress." Swords and sorcery? "Glory Road." Combat science fiction? "Starship Troopers." Try to create a strong-willed, opinionated character, and you're guaranteed that he or she will be compared to Heinlein's generic "competent man." The list goes on and on. Only Hammett and Chandler in the mystery genre, Hemingway in the mainstream, and Heinlein in science fiction have had such a tremendous an impact on other writers -- and their field itself -- as they have had upon their readers. The man has died. But the writer achieved immortality long ago. The Robert A. Heinlein Space Station A Proposal Raymond E. Feist I like the sound of that. Heinlein Station. Yes. I do like the sound of that. As a child I loved adventure and reveled in the works of Scott, Sabatinni, and Dumas. Tales of daring- do and romance were my escape. My alien planes were upon the shores of France as D'Artagnan sought a boat for passage to England, or the windswept highlands of Scotland where Alan Breck helped young David Balfour reclaim his due. Then I discovered science fiction. And then I discovered Robert Heinlein. Robert A. Heinlein was a giant, a man of letters as important to his time and place as were Sir Walter Scott and Alexandre Dumas to theirs. For in my life I have seen the idea of adventure turn from being one of the King's Musketeers to being a Starship Trooper. For has their been one of us, who as a child found a book by Robert A. Heinlein that didn't have his or her imagination fired, who didn't suddenly become seized with the desire to go Out There? There have been and are other writers who have the same effect, but Robert had that effect on more people than any other writer I know of. Ask those around you which books got to "hooked" on Science Fiction, and there well always be a Heinlein title among them. It may have been Tunnel in the Sky, or Rocketship Gallelio or The Door Into Summer, but there's a Heinlein title in there. For when I was a child, first learning that there were places I'd never seen, landscapes of awesome design, people with impossible creatures, with odd and alien sounding names, Robert A. Heinlein was often my guide. And that is why I like the idea of the Robert A. Heinlein Space Station. Without leaving this Earth, he was my guide Out There. Without leaving this Earth, he said it was all right for us to dream. Without leaving this Earth, he took us to places of wonder beyond imagining and made them real. He turned my mind toward Space, toward the idea of going Out There. And in doing this for two generations of Americans--no two generations of human beings regardless of nation--with others to come, he becomes more important that Scott or Dumas, for while they entertained and excited us, as Heinlein did, it was Robert A. Heinlein who turned our vision heavenward. It was he, most of all, who said, now that you've read about going Out There, go Out There! That's why I like the idea of Robert A. Heinlein Space Station. Heinlein Station. Can you think of a better place for us to begin out voyages Out There? OtherRealms #21 Summer, 1988 Copyright 1988 by Chuq Von Rospach All Rights Reserved One time rights have been acquired from the contributors. All rights are hereby assigned to the contributors. OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic edition may be distributed or reproduced in its entirety as long as all copyrights, author and publication information remain intact. No article may be reprinted, reproduced or republished in any way without the express permission of the author.