Conference noted::sf

    I bought this for a friend of mine as a Christmas gift, who read it
    immediately. He's quite a SF reader and critic, and I trust his opinion
    as I would my own. He said:
    
    'Well, that was really good!  The editor certainly did not improve
    STRANGER by cutting out all the description that appears in this
    complete edition. I recommend it strongly.'
    
    Of course, I'm too cheap to pay for a second hardcover edition. I plan
    on borrowing his. Regrettably, he lives in Minnesota, so it will have
    to wait until I see him this spring.
    
    Max, passing on the comments of Dr. Steven Keipert without his
    authorization.
    

I have two copies.  The first copy that I recieved was missing pages 251 - 279
(more or less, I don't remember the exact page numbers).  It was a drag because
I didn't notice they were missing until I got there.  SFBC sent me a new copy.

I can understand why it was cut in its first version.  

    I bought this the instant it appeared in the bookstore, since 
    Heinlein is one of my favorite authors.  My reaction after
    zipping through the book once was disappointment.  A second,
    more leisurely read brought a bit more satisfaction.  I
    believe the flavor is exactly the same in both books and
    you'll find not much more than "rounding out" prose.  Of
    course any Heinlein prose is good.  And also this was an
    excuse for me to buy the book in hardcover, since my paper-
    back copy of the original version has become tattered from
    rereading.  Why don't you get hold of the book at your local
    library and see what you think.
    
    Laura

    Read it, and aside from being a bit more wordy, it's not different
    enough to justify the price. But it'll be a collector's item ;-)

just finished it....all i can say is, yes virginia, you grokked rightly. waiting 
is ended. thou art god.


so anybody want to hazard a guess as to when jubal harshaw/l. long first makes 
his appearance as a character. starship troopers? podkayne?

<<< Note 960.5 by OBSESS::GRIFFITH >>>

>> so anybody want to hazard a guess as to when jubal harshaw/l. long first 
>> makes his appearance as a character. starship troopers? podkayne?

Why guess? Unless I misunderstand your question, Lazarus first appeared in
Methuselah's Children.

Regards,
Steve.

    Lazarus first appeared in the short story "Life-Line," which I believe
    is the first story Heinlein ever wrote.

I thought that was revisionism.

In "Time Enough for Love", Lazarus claims to have met Dr. Hugo Pinero. 
However, I definitely do not remember his appearance on stage in the actual
story, and I'm sure that the incident that Lazarus describes did not occur
in the story.

There was no dramatic need for it.

SPOILER WARNING STOP HERE IF YOU HAVE'T READ BOTH
























That should scroll off most windows (in my experience DECwindows notes
ignores formfeeds -- there was one there for character cell notes no matter
how big their window).

In Life-line, Dr. Pinero does refuse to give a reading one group of
clients, but that's because the small family of three had only minutes to
live.  He blames an equipment malfunction, keeps them around for a couple
of hours, and watches them get killed crossing the street as they leave the
building where he has his office.

Most of the other dealings he had in the story were with journalists or
scientists (skeptical, hostile members of the establishment).  One of the
journalists gets killed within a day of being tested, too.  While Lazarus
might have been one of them, I didn't recognize him.

Lazarus describes an incident where he (possibly as Woodrow Wilson Smith,
but probably under an alias since the masquerade would have been getting
started about then) visited Dr. Pinero as a client.  Dr. Pinero gets kinda
vague about the reading and blames an equipment malfunction (again?), but
in this case one assumes he thought it was really broken.

Anyone want to make me feel like an idiot, and point out where in the story
he appears?

						-- Spencer

    Re .8
    
    Are you sure it was in "Time Enough for Love". I thought Lazarus made
    his claim to Mary in "Methusalah's Children". Mary refered to Pinero as
    Pinero the Charlatan when Lazarus and she were discussing
    life-expectancy.
    
    Clive

re: .9

I could easily have gotten this wrong (sigh).  I have neither book handy
(I'm in Colorado; my copies are in Massachusetts).  Could even be both.  My
point was that I didn't notice Woodie in Life-line.

						-- Spencer

    Lazarus did NOT appear in Life-Line (re .7).  Mr Spencer (.8 &.10) is
    correct.
    							mjp

Re: .11 (LL did not appear in Life-Line...)

   Well, the circumstantial evidence sure seems like he did.  As was previously
noted, in talking to Mary in "Methusala's Children" either LL did say he had
visited Pinero, or he strongly implied it. (I'm at work, the book's at home.
I *thought* he mentioned Pinero by name but can't verify it at the moment.)
In "Life Line", Dr. Pinero did have an unusual guest for whom the good doctor
did not understand the results and concluded that the machine was broken/
miscalibrated.

   While he's not called Lazarus Long by name, the implication is there.
(For further data, consider that Pinero had had no other problems with the
machine, and LL's claim that the doctor could not accurately estimate LL's
death.  By some information which would spoil the end of "Life Line" if it
were discussed in detail, we know that this was the only such enigmatic reading
that Dr. Pinero had from his machine.  Therefore I conclude that the customer
must have been Lazarus Long.)

					-mjg

    Lazarus wasn't in the story about Dr. Pinero.  So what?  I am not 
    aware of a published log of everyone that Dr. Pinero tested the 
    machine on (do I REALLY need a smiley here?).
    
    When LL made that comment I took it as a cute little plug for one
    of H's old stories (an "in" joke for the faithful readers).  Why
    does it need to be more than that?
    
    I liked Life Line because it was a different cut at the old question:
    "Do you really want to know when you are going to die?"  By the way,
    the most common answer I have seen is "No."  For instance, silkies
    (seal-people of ancient myth) are cursed with knowing when and how they 
    will die.  H neatly rolled in the issue of whether knowing the future
    allows you to change it (Dr. P. tried to prevent their deaths by 
    delaying them past the time when they were to die, but only succeeded
    in making them so worried about being late that they weren't paying
    attention when crossing the street and got killed (or at least that is
    how I extrapolate from the details given in the story)).
    
    I find a lot of Heinlein stories to be more fun to remember than to 
    re-read - I'm a more critical reader now than I was as a kid.  Somehow
    the preaching sets my teeth on edge now.
    
    Erg
    (I'm not a reading addict.  I can stop anytime.  As soon as I get to
    the end of the chapter.)

    
    In the last week I have twice read that "Stranger..." is going to be
    made into a movie, starring Tom Hanks.
    
    Since Hanks was also mentioned as starring in David Brin's "The
    Postman", I would take both announcements with a grain of salt.
    
    -rjc-

    Tom Hanks?  Too old.

    re .14
    
    "Stranger..." was already made into a movie..."The Man who fell to
    Earth"..a loose adaptation at best, imho..
    starring David Bowie. 

    
    The Man Who Fell to Earth was an adaptation of the novel by the same
    name by Walter Tevis, unless deadline pressure has completely fried my
    brain.
    
    Oh, for the voice of Jerry Boyajian...
    (actually, more oh for the library of Jerry Boyajian...)
    
    DFW

    Wall is right - "The Man Who Fell to Earth" has no relation to
    "Stranger in a Strange Land".  Tevis wrote other fairly
    well-known works too, such as "Mockingbird" (lonely robot in
    post-nuclear US), and "The Hustler" and "The Color of Money"
    (about a pool shark, Fast Eddie), both of which were made into movies.
    /jlr