Finished the bio, last Thursday, that I'd written about last week. If you're a Heinlein fan, the kind of reader who breezed through the more or less unpublishable For Us, The Living while on a page-by-page basis identifying the short stories he'd later strip mined from it, it's pretty much a must-read. If you're a biography-hog (go figure, it takes all kinds), it's probably and OK page-turner. If you just want a thumbnail sketch of the guy though, the wikipedia bio is probably plenty.
So how did I like it? (Being the kind who pulled out old Heinlein paperbacks to co-read with the bio. Like I said, it takes all kinds.) Good, maybe a tad dry. But I can really, really see where the guy was coming from now. I think the author did the best he could with the limited remaining records and with the limited remaining Heinlein associates/friends/etc. And, all things considered, he seems to have given a pretty even-handed treatment of the ex-Mrs.-Heinlein (there's a nice note on these difficulties in the footnote appendix). I'm glad to have bought it in hardcover, and I eagerly await the next volume.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment