8 ms·

I've only read the first Foundation novel by Asimov. But what you write applies equally well to many other Golden Age authors e.g. Heinlein and Bradbury, plus s

by n4r9 2y ago

I've only read the first Foundation novel by Asimov. But what you write applies equally well to many other Golden Age authors e.g. Heinlein and Bradbury, plus slightly later writers like Clarke. I doubt there was much in the way of autism awareness or diagnosis at the time, but it wouldn't be surprising if any of these landed somewhere on the spectrum. Alfred Bester's "The stars my destination" stands out as a shining counterpoint in this era. You don't get much character development like that in other works until the sixties imo.

throwanem 2y ago
Heinlein doesn't develop his characters? Oh, come on. You can't have read him at all!
- n4r9 2y ago
  [The italics and punctuation suggest your comment is sarcastic, but I'm going to treat it as serious just in case.] Yeah, I'd say characterisation is a weakness of his. I've read Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers, and Double Star. Heinlein does explore characters more than, say, Clark, but he doesn't go much for internal change or emotional growth. His male characters typically fall into one of two cartoonish camps: either supremely confident, talented, intelligent and independent (e.g. Jubal, Bernardo, Mannie, Bonforte...) or vaguely pathetic and stupid (e.g. moon men). His female characters are submissive, clumsily sexualised objects who contribute very little to the plot. There are a few partial exceptions - e.g. Lorenzo in Double Star and female pilots in Starship Troopers - but the general atmosphere is one of teenage boy wish fulfilment.
  - throwanem 2y ago
    Thank you for confirming, especially at such effort, when a simple "No, I haven't; I just spend too much time uncritically reading feminism Twitter," would have amply sufficed. There's an honesty to this response in spite of itself, and in spite of itself I respect that.
    - Balgair 2y ago
      I sincerely have no idea if any of your comments in this thread are sarcastic or not. (This comment is also not sarcastic FYI). Generally, I also agree that Heinlein's characters are one dimensional and could benefit from greater character growth, though that was a bit of a hallmark of Golden Age sci-fi.
      - throwanem 2y ago
        "Teenage boy wish fulfillment" is well beneath any reasonable standard of criticism, and I've addressed that with about as much respect as it deserves. There is much worthy of critique in Heinlein, especially in his depiction of women. I've spent about a quarter century off and on both reading and formulating such critiques, much more recently than I've spent meaningful time with his fiction. I've also read what he had to say for himself before he died, and what Mrs. Heinlein - she kept the name - said about him after. If we want to talk about, for example, how the themes of maternal incest and specifically feminine embodiment of weakly superhuman AGI in his later work reflect a degree of senescence and the wish for a supercompetent maternal figure to whom to surrender the burden of responsibility, or if we want to talk about how Heinlein seems to spend an enormous amount of time just generally exploring stuff from female characters' perspectives that an honest modern inquiry would recognize as fumbling badly but earnestly in the direction of something like a contemporary understanding of gender, then we could talk about that. No one wants to, though. You can't use anything like that as a stick to beat people with, so it never gets a look in, and those as here who care nothing for anything of the subject save if it looks serviceable as a weapon claim to be the only ones in the talk who are honest. They don't know the man's work well enough to talk about the years he spent selling stories that absolutely revolve around character development, which exist solely to exemplify it! Of course these are universally dismissed as his 'juveniles' - a few letters shy of 'juvenilia' - because science fiction superfans are all children and so are science fiction superhaters, neither of whom knows how to respond in any way better than a tantrum on the rare occasion of being told bluntly it's well past time they grew up. But they're the honest ones. Why not? So it goes. It's a conversation I know better than to try to have, especially on Hacker News; if I don't care for how it's proceeding, I've no one but myself to blame.
    - 2y ago
  - throwanem 2y ago
    Excuse me for giving the impression of a pedant, but do you mean Clarke, as in Arthur C., there? I've been trying since I first read your comment to puzzle out to whom by that name you could possibly be referring in this context, and it's only just dawned on me to wonder if you simply have not bothered to learn the spelling of the name you intended to mention.
    - n4r9 2y ago
      Yes, that Clarke. Sorry for putting you to the extra effort. I spelled it correctly in the initial post you replied to. Guess I assumed that people would spot the back-reference.
      - throwanem 2y ago
        > Yes, that Clarke. Sorry for putting you to the extra effort. I spelled it correctly in the initial post you replied to. Guess I assumed that people would spot the back-reference. In entire fairness, I was distracted by you having said he and his contemporaries must all have been autistic, as if either you yourself were remotely competent to embark upon any such determination, or as though it would in some way indict their work if they were. I'm sure you would never in a million years dare utter "the R-slur" in public, though I would guess that in private the violation of taboo is thrilling. That's fine as far as it goes, but you really should not expect to get away with pretending you can just say "autistic" to mean the same thing and have no one notice, you blatantly obvious bigot.

by n4r9 2y ago

throwanem 2y ago

Heinlein doesn't develop his characters? Oh, come on. You can't have read him at all!

n4r9 2y ago
[The italics and punctuation suggest your comment is sarcastic, but I'm going to treat it as serious just in case.] Yeah, I'd say characterisation is a weakness of his. I've read Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers, and Double Star. Heinlein does explore characters more than, say, Clark, but he doesn't go much for internal change or emotional growth. His male characters typically fall into one of two cartoonish camps: either supremely confident, talented, intelligent and independent (e.g. Jubal, Bernardo, Mannie, Bonforte...) or vaguely pathetic and stupid (e.g. moon men). His female characters are submissive, clumsily sexualised objects who contribute very little to the plot. There are a few partial exceptions - e.g. Lorenzo in Double Star and female pilots in Starship Troopers - but the general atmosphere is one of teenage boy wish fulfilment.
- throwanem 2y ago
  Thank you for confirming, especially at such effort, when a simple "No, I haven't; I just spend too much time uncritically reading feminism Twitter," would have amply sufficed. There's an honesty to this response in spite of itself, and in spite of itself I respect that.
  - Balgair 2y ago
    I sincerely have no idea if any of your comments in this thread are sarcastic or not. (This comment is also not sarcastic FYI). Generally, I also agree that Heinlein's characters are one dimensional and could benefit from greater character growth, though that was a bit of a hallmark of Golden Age sci-fi.
    - throwanem 2y ago
      "Teenage boy wish fulfillment" is well beneath any reasonable standard of criticism, and I've addressed that with about as much respect as it deserves. There is much worthy of critique in Heinlein, especially in his depiction of women. I've spent about a quarter century off and on both reading and formulating such critiques, much more recently than I've spent meaningful time with his fiction. I've also read what he had to say for himself before he died, and what Mrs. Heinlein - she kept the name - said about him after. If we want to talk about, for example, how the themes of maternal incest and specifically feminine embodiment of weakly superhuman AGI in his later work reflect a degree of senescence and the wish for a supercompetent maternal figure to whom to surrender the burden of responsibility, or if we want to talk about how Heinlein seems to spend an enormous amount of time just generally exploring stuff from female characters' perspectives that an honest modern inquiry would recognize as fumbling badly but earnestly in the direction of something like a contemporary understanding of gender, then we could talk about that. No one wants to, though. You can't use anything like that as a stick to beat people with, so it never gets a look in, and those as here who care nothing for anything of the subject save if it looks serviceable as a weapon claim to be the only ones in the talk who are honest. They don't know the man's work well enough to talk about the years he spent selling stories that absolutely revolve around character development, which exist solely to exemplify it! Of course these are universally dismissed as his 'juveniles' - a few letters shy of 'juvenilia' - because science fiction superfans are all children and so are science fiction superhaters, neither of whom knows how to respond in any way better than a tantrum on the rare occasion of being told bluntly it's well past time they grew up. But they're the honest ones. Why not? So it goes. It's a conversation I know better than to try to have, especially on Hacker News; if I don't care for how it's proceeding, I've no one but myself to blame.
  - 2y ago
- throwanem 2y ago
  Excuse me for giving the impression of a pedant, but do you mean Clarke, as in Arthur C., there? I've been trying since I first read your comment to puzzle out to whom by that name you could possibly be referring in this context, and it's only just dawned on me to wonder if you simply have not bothered to learn the spelling of the name you intended to mention.
  - n4r9 2y ago
    Yes, that Clarke. Sorry for putting you to the extra effort. I spelled it correctly in the initial post you replied to. Guess I assumed that people would spot the back-reference.
    - throwanem 2y ago
      > Yes, that Clarke. Sorry for putting you to the extra effort. I spelled it correctly in the initial post you replied to. Guess I assumed that people would spot the back-reference. In entire fairness, I was distracted by you having said he and his contemporaries must all have been autistic, as if either you yourself were remotely competent to embark upon any such determination, or as though it would in some way indict their work if they were. I'm sure you would never in a million years dare utter "the R-slur" in public, though I would guess that in private the violation of taboo is thrilling. That's fine as far as it goes, but you really should not expect to get away with pretending you can just say "autistic" to mean the same thing and have no one notice, you blatantly obvious bigot.