Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Obenberger
Because I live about 10 miles from Waukegan, I probably shouldn't say this just now, but I think Heinlein is in a class that Ray Bradbury never quite reached. He was a wonderful and provocative author, but there's nothing like Time Enough for Love, To Sail Beyond the Sunset, or Stranger in a Strange Land, and the entire "alternative history" that Heinlein wove together as a unifying life's work. I didn't know that he was mainly self-educated in libraries, and that's a great tribute to what he accomplished. He'll live forever in our intellectual tradition and be most remembered for Fahrenheit 451.
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Hey joe - you're right on a few things, and let's leave the Bradbury/Heinlein thing to another thread... honestly, I don't care about Joyce and other influential writers in our time.
Stranger in a Strange Land is one of the most stupendous published works in terms of influence and just pleasurable reading ever (let's face it, Dubliners, Finnegan's Wake, etc are just not pleasurable reads).
Also, Jubal Hershaw is a classic character - maybe the actual main character in Stranger in a Strange Land? At any rate I believe Heinlein predicted Ken Kesey somehow years before the human actually existed. It's always freaked me out.
Still, Bradbury had more cross-spectrum influence, in my honest opinion....
:D