Sure it's interesting, even if the characters lead the reader through every detail of Heinlen's world by thinking about how everything works---things they've obviously used hundreds of times.

Sure, the characterization is good, even though the grammer's poor.

Sure, the style is good, even though he has MANY sloppy/poorly created examples of tense.

Sure, you can get into the uneven pace, even though there are quite a few editing mistakes.

good storytelling = good book

I really enjoyed reading Starship Troopers because of the ideas and the story.

Double Star is one of my favorite novels, and The Man Who Sold the Moon is one of the best collections of single-author SF short stories.

(I'm not particularly a fan of his later works, but that's because the stories he started to tell were less interesting to me.)

I won't say that he was one of the best SF writers of all time, necessarily, but he certainly was influential.

I will say he became very talky as he aged, but except for FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD, which I found way too depressing, I have enjoyed all of his books, even the talky ones.

You're allowed your own opinion, just as we are. Please try to express it in ways that are constructive instead of just argumentative. (Tell us what didn't work for you and, if you don't have any ideas on what could have been done instead, let it go at that.)

JB: You spent your whole post telling how you liked the book from a reader's viewpoint. You also pointed out the problems with it from a writer's viewpoint. Also, let your wife know that it is for her to say what bad writing is. If she doesn't like a book, it's bad writing. She doesn't have to know why, but she won't recommend it to her friends. I hope she never says that about my writing.

Dude, Heinlein didn't start by writing juveniles, although he certainly did do quite a few of them!

OSC has pointed out that "the masses" don't actually read. Whenever someone actually does get "elitist" (and I'm not saying that Dude was) about readers, they seem to forget that only about 10 percent of the population even bothers to read things that they don't have to.

But in arguments about reading, I stick with the Muses. Not because I'm one even then, but because that's the technical standard I apply to criticizing a written work. I look at it in terms of those "elusive" virtues that make a work readable.

Starship Troopers is justly called an SF classic. End of story. It doesn't even matter whether I personally like the book or think the craft of its writing is up to par (I do happen to have liked the book, and the writing wasn't subpar).

To be dismissive of the accomplishment of Heinlein's early writing is to ignore the entire point of writing well, namely, so that you have an impact on the reader.

And I will freely admit, Heinlein was opposed to polishing his prose. But read Starship Troopers again sometime and see how much he gets right. The most striking criticism is the first, "the characters lead the reader through every detail of Heinlen's world by thinking about how everything works---things they've obviously used hundreds of times."

Actually, Heinlein was a master of SF exposition, a field that he nearly invented. And Starship Troopers is one of his best works in this respect. Please enlighten us as to how he got it wrong. I won't comment on grammer/style/pace/other issues except to mention that the book is written as a first person account, and well written at that. A good first person account isn't written like any of the third person accounts.

Starship Troopers reads like a book written about soldiering written by a soldier. To paraphrase a previously asked question,

quote:

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You admit the story itself is okay. The feel of the novel itself is great. So how does that add up to poor writing?

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It's like if someone told you that they hated The Wizard of Oz. Most people I know would immediately jump to it's defense, even if they barely remember watching it.

American science fiction started out as comic books and campy stories (Buck Rodgers comes to mind). It started out and has continued to be popular fiction not necessarily literary fiction. Heinlein helped develop the modern version of science fiction and for that I think he deserves recognition.

Christine, I do think Heinlein's work was popular with a wide audience. "Stranger in a Strange Land" had an impact on the 60's movement where sexual promiscuity and group marriages were popular concepts. I understand there are still nests out there based upon the concepts in this book.

Why I hated them, though, I can't say. I'd have to read him again to figure it out. Seeing as how I don't have enough time to read the stuff I want to read, chances of slipping something in that I don't want to read are pretty slim.

But he did have some solid strengths as a writer (particularly as a writer of SF), and the fact that he put out some amount of garbage for public consumption doesn't mean that nothing he ever wrote had value. Frankly, it was the fault of the public that they had an appetite for garbage.

Starship Troopers is, in my personal opinion, the best thing he ever wrote. Other people disagree. But the fact remains, I've read a half dozen of his books and decided that only one of them was really worth it (the one in which women qua women play a very limited role, as it happens ). I also credit him with being one of the founders of several important techniques in SF writing. He was an accomplished scientist (well...yeah, accomplished rather than distinguished or anything like that) before he started seriously writing SF. And he had vision...whatever that means. I don't always (or even largely) agree with his vision, but there comes a point when you must separate the artist's personality from the work of art.

No novelist will suit all people in all respects. Some will have great weaknesses (as I believe Heinlein does with respect to the English language in general). But if they're read, if they're popular, they'll have strengths that outweigh their weaknesses in a lot of people's minds.

Critical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of other novelists, I believe, is one of the skills that will develop a novelist. It drives one to analyze what works within their own work, and what doesn't. We can't pussyfoot around our opinions and gut intuition, for they are what drives us toward truly great work; but the validation that others have drawn the same conclusions in analysing a work as you have, can further bolster your opinion and self-esteem.