Conference noted::sf

    There was a collection of several heinlein novels/novellas/stories
    that was published a number of years ago entitled "the past through
    tomorrow". It has a number of LL stories. I don't remember their
    names. They have been printed separately as well, but I think TPTT
    is the best overall collection because it shows LL in the context
    of the rest of heinlein's history. For example, the character A.J.
    Libby shows up in a RAH story entirely separate from LL, yet later
    LL and AJL are fast friends.
    
    There is also a character in Coventry that vaguely resembles LL
    in style and I always wondered if they were the same person.
    
    steve p
    

        If memory serves, the only story that Lazarus was actually in, in
        _The Past Through Tomorrow_, was _Methusela's Children_.  The only
        other Heinlein book that I can remember Lazarus being in (that
        hasn't been mentioned in .0 or .1) is _The Number of the Beast_,
        and although he doesn't show up until later in the book, it's an
        excellent read.

        Paul

    With the exception of _The Notebooks of Lazarus Long_, it sounds like
    all the books are listed in the other notes.
    
    "Methusalah's Stepchildren" (_Past Through Tomorrow_)
    _Time Enough for Love_
    _The Cat Who Walked Through Walls_
    _To Sail Beyond Sunset_
    
    Perhaps the other "passle" of "stuff" you refer to include other
    protagonists from other Heinlein works.
    
    All of his principle characters seem to have the same "grit" about them
    that LL has (even his female characters to wit Friday, Maurine, etc.).
    
    I think that LL only appeared in the above mentioned books.

    Doesn't Lazarus show up in Heinlein's first story about the
    machine to predict life spans?  I seem to remember that the
    inventor had one failure with a young man who didn't seem
    to have a death-date.
    				-John Bishop

>>>    Doesn't Lazarus show up in Heinlein's first story about the
>>>    machine to predict life spans?  

      
         Lazarus does not show up in the original story. He refers to
         the situation in the book "Time Enough for Love".

    Looks like the only thing I've missed in his appearance in No. of
    the Beast. I started that, but ran out of steam just after they
    met the Russians on Mars. Maybe I'll pick it back up.
    
    Thanks,
    
    Charlie

	I have to agree with .3

	Almost every Heinlein book since SiaSL has had the same principle
character, whether he was called Lazarus Long, or not.

Mike JN

    	 In one of the LL books I have their is a time line on the front
    and back inside cover. It relates  charcters to timelines to
    stories/books R.A.H wrote. 
    	The book is packed as I have just moved and it is at the
    bottom/back of a VERY FULL room. In about 5 months I should have
    it uncovered.
    
    	Eric Wise

    I dimly remember reading a book back in high school titled "Stanger In
    a Strange Land". If my fuzzy memory serves me correctly, Lazarus Long
    was a promenant figure in the story. 
    
    John D.

    BEEEP!!
    
    That is NOT on our list of answers.  The principle character of SIASL
    was Michael Valentine Smith, The Man from Mars.

    It's been over 10 years since I read the book but it was *hinted*
    that the lawyer character was Lazarus Long. He kept on saying how
    old he was and how he didn't have long to live. But Michael's
    lover mention that Michael had "scanned" him mentioned that he had
    many years left in him.
    		
    		Dom
    
    P.S. Just finish "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". Liked how Heinlein
    created moonie dialect and used it throughout. The book is somewhat
    dated technologically but still good.

No, the lawyer character was Jubal Harshaw.  Lazarus and Jubal don't occupy the 
same book until much later; either Number of the Beast, or the Cat who Walks 
Through Walls (or something).


Ian S.

    re:.12
    
    I think what .11 was hinting at was that Jubal *was* Lazarus.
    
    --- jerry

    re: Jerry   You're right; he was, he's not, and it was "Valentine
    Michael".  (Recall the first line of the book, which goes something 
    like "Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael 
    Smith".)
    
    						Don

    Since Jubal and Lazarus are both at the party in "The Number of
    the Beast" I don't think they're one and the same.

    re:.15
    
    Agreed (though I wouldn't know first-hand, since I never read TNotB).
    
    I was only pointing out what I felt he meant by his comment.
    
    --- jerry

    Given the internal consistancy of TNOTB, I wouldn't be surprised to
    have seen people on different timelines, from different universes, or
    even from different literary genres all together at once.
    
    Willie

    Don't forget to add NUMBER OF THE BEAST to the list.
    

    <            <<< Note 844.18 by PENUTS::PGILBERTI "Paul Gilberti" >>>
    <                          -< Another LL Book >-
<
<    Don't forget to add NUMBER OF THE BEAST to the list.
    
    The only list I'd add that book to is the DON'T read list. liesl

    Why ?   Couldn't you understand it ?  I thought it was very
    entertaining.

<    Why ?   Couldn't you understand it ?  I thought it was very
<    entertaining.

    I reached my barf factor over the way his female leads acted for
    starters. I lost it again when they hit OZ, come on. I am willing to
    suspend disbelief but the book has to maintain integrity in it's own
    universe. I didn't feel NOTB did.

    If you'd like a fun book with allusions to myth and fantasy woven in
    try "Silverlock" (I think that's the title). liesl

    I agree with Liesl. I'm not a big fan of Heinlein anyway, but a
    friend who'd been reading NOTB back when it was released was telling
    me about how bad it was. "Here, read the first page," he said to
    me, handing me the book. I read the first page and got partway into
    the second before I was ready to upchuck at what I thought was some
    of the worst prose I'd read in a long time. My friend then said,
    "The rest of it is just more of the same."
    
    re:.22
    
    John Myers Myers' SILVERLOCK sequel is THE MOON'S FIRE-EATING DAUGHTER.
    And while it beats the pants off of many a fantasy novel, it isn't
    nearly as entertaining as SILVERLOCK.
    
    --- jerry

    I once skimmed through a book of SF firsts, mosts, and other statistics.
    In it were some of the most widely acknowledged *worst* prose of science
    fiction.  The Number Of the Beast was quoted several times, including from
    the first chapter.  It was the only title from which more than one quote
    was presented in that section.

    -- mikeK

The right way to read NOTB is as an extended in-joke.  It helps if you are
a widely read SF fan (e.g., Edgar Rice Burroughs, L. Frank Baum (forget the
movie OZ), as well as more contemporary stuff) and go to SF conventions. 
It also helps if you have read most of what RAH ever wrote.  The book
doesn't even make sense if you don't understand this, but otherwise my only
complaint was a rather severe continuity break near the end that occurs
between one paragraph and the next (continuity breaks are more acceptable
between chapters or even delimited by asterisks; this one seemed more like
an editing error).

This phemonenon was even more pronounced with "To Sail Beyond the Sunset". 
If you haven't read practically everything that RAH ever wrote, don't even
bother to pick this one up.  Otherwise, it does a fairly good job of tying
up most of the loose ends.  This book has an index, of sorts, which is
useful in finding references to other stories.

I must be a diehard RAH fan or something, because I only remember three
things he wrote that I didn't like.  (Pardon my digression.)  One was
"Farnham's Freehold".  That struck rather too close to home -- my father
actually had a bomb shelter (just like the one described in the book) built
in our back yard in 1960 or so.  I found it very depressing, as it was
intended to be.  (This had no references in the LL universes.)

Another I didn't like was "I Will Fear No SexXXX Evil."  Talk about Barf
Factor...  This story might have been saved by editing, as Virginia
Heinlein claimed, but it needed a lot of work to make its characters
believable.  A lot of work.  (This was referred to, possibly as fiction, in
the LL universes.)

The third I am surmising was by RAH.  It is "The Smallest Moon", by Don
Wilcox, collected in "The Boys Life Book of Outer Space Stories", (c) 1964
by Boy Scouts of America.  The copyright credit was Lurton Blassingame
(RAH's agent -- see Grumbles from the Grave).  If this was one of the
master's unacknowledged pseudonyms, I can see why.

The title "Methuselah's Stepchildren" given in .4, should be "Methuselah's
Children".  This story contains references to other stories not in the
collection ("Universe" and "Commonsense", collected in "Orphans of the
Sky", although the full story waited for TEfL).  I thought it was cheating
to make Libby a Howard, although (grumble) inbreeding might conceivably
have made his talent more likely...

If you are intrigued by stories of the immortal man interacting with
short-lived Humanity, see also the character Robert Hedrock in several of
the Weapon Shops stories by A. E. van Vogt.

						-- Spencer

    re:.25
    
    Well, I'm a widely read sf fan and have been going to conventions
    for over 20 years now. On the other hand, I haven't read most of
    what RAH ever wrote, because I didn't like most of what I *did*
    read (I've tried to read STARSHIP TROOPERS on three separate
    occasions, and never managed to get more than a third of the way
    through it). Given what I've been told about what goes on in NOTB
    by folks who've read it, I'd probably understand most -- if not
    all -- of the in-jokes.
    
    The reference to a "bad prose contest" doesn't help. One doesn't
    submit oneself to an entire novel full of bad prose on purpose
    (well, at least I don't). Even the Bulwer-Lytton contest volumes
    I sample only a bit at a time.  And many books that I enjoyed when
    I was younger -- such as Burroughs, Smith, or the Tom Swift Jr.
    books -- I simply cannot read nowadays. I read a fair amount of
    pulp fiction, and as clumsy as it gets a lot of the time, it still
    isn't what I'd call "bad" (but then, I don't read the worst of it).
    And usually, its deficiencies in prose style is made up by verve
    and enthusiasm. I didn't find this the case in what I'd read of
    NOTB.
    
    And no, Don Wilcox is not a pseudonym for RAH. RAH used only a
    handful of pseudonyms, all of which are known. If "Don Wilcox" is
    one, it's got to be about the best kept secret in the field.
    
    --- jerry

    Different strokes. NOTB was rather too chatty, as were The Cat
    Who Walks Through Walls and To Sail Beyond The Sunset. I con-
    sider these three to be a trilogy of sorts. (And I personally
    despise trilogies.) The whole thing seems concocted to bring
    all the characters together, tie up all the story lines and
    give a new depth of meaning to the 'happily ever after' ending. 
    
    The stories are a bit silly, but there are some good spots.
    In NOTB when Zach tells how he got his PhD. In Cat when Colin
    finds out who the killer is, in Sunset when Maureen gets
    divorced.
    
    I got blurry-eyed when they rescued Mike. (yeah, a friggin'
    Digit who *cares* about a computer.)
     
    

    re: .25
    
<I must be a diehard RAH fan or something, because I only remember three
<things he wrote that I didn't like.  (Pardon my digression.)  One was
    
    i just wanted to add another one to your list.....i don't remember
    the title, but the story was about the chinese threat after it took
    over the US, and how a small underground force of american scientists
    saves the day.  i saw RAH on the title, thought it would be
    entertaining, and after i finished wondered how i managed to read it.
    
    

    re .28
    
    Do you mean _Sixth_Column_?  It's the Japanese, not the Chinese,
    who have conquered the U.S.
    
    It's quite weakened by lots of "I just happen to have invented
    a new miracle weapon yesterday" in the plot.
    
    			-John Bishop

    The book was later re-released.  I think under the title "Day After
    Tomorrow".  
    
    I agree that most of the plot revolves around this miracle weapon
    giving the freedom fighters an edge in everything from construction to
    comunications to weapon firepower.  The other main theme was how the
    good ol' U. S. of A. citizens could get tough if the heat was on.
    
    At the time I loved it.  But what the hey, it was my first RAH book and
    I think I was still a pre-teen.
    
    Scott Kirkman

  Yes, it was originally "Sixth Column" and reissued as "The Day After 
  Tomorrow."  And it was the PanAsians, not the Chinese or Japanese.

  I forget some of the details about how it got written but I do remember
  that it was at the behest of John W. Campbell.  In fact, RAH just rewrote
  Campbell's attempt at the novel.  I tried to read the Campbell version
  but it was just too awful.  All the things wrong with the RAH version
  were actually great improvements over the corresponding problems in the 
  Campbell version.  

  Yeah, there were lots of miracles on tap but given the premise -- the
  discovery of a heretofore unknown energy spectrum (just like the 
  electromagnetic spectrum only different) -- it managed to hang together
  pretty well.  After all, quite a few "miracles" fell out of the EM
  spectrum.

  I forget the title of the Campbell book but Jerry B should be along 
  shortly to supply it...

  JP

    PanAsians, etc.
    
    Well, one of the "good guys" was an American of Japanese descent
    (a nice touch, and his inclusion into the group was the best scene 
    in the book, in my opinion).  The dialog at the time went along
    these lines
    
    A: "<guy> wants to join"
    B: "But he's Japanese, he's one of them"
    A: "No, the conquerers know he's an American--they'll
    	be even harder on him"
    
    			-John Bishop
    

    re:.31
    
    Sigh. I'm too predictable. I can't remember the title of the
    Campbell novella, but if memory serves, it appeared in his
    posthumous collection, THE SPACE BEYOND.
    
    --- jerry

    The RAH story also depended on technology situated at doorways which
    only allowed EuroAmericans to pass. Pretty dubious science, and totally
    dubious politics.
    
    - Hoyt

    Gee, I remember that as one of my all-time favorites, but then that was
    back in _my_ pre-teens.  Haven't read it lately, but I did buy a new
    copy when my old one disappeared...
    
    Willie

    I b'lieve it was written in 1942, folks.  There was a lot of stuff that
    was created purely because of its morale-boosting value.
    
    						=maggie

    RE: .34, the RAH story did indeed depend on weapons that could be
    focused on a particular set of characteristics, that would allow
    EuroAmericans to pass and fry PanAsians.
    
    You can call it dubious science and politics, but given some of the
    current genetic research, the science part could be within reach one of
    these days. I agree, the politics would still leave a lot to be
    desired.
    
    As a plot device, you could say it was too easy to focus the weapon to
    operate against the PanAsians, but it wouldn't be the first time people
    learned how to use a technology without understanding the underlying
    scientific principles.
    
    - Richard

    It's also dubious in the terms of the novel, as it's made clear
    that some patriotic Americans are of Asian ancestry.
    
    It's probably best just to call it a novel from the paniced period,
    and an interesting example of how even a clever, educated person can
    be swayed by the social currents of the times.
    
    			-John Bishop