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Author Topic: Farnham's Freehold, by Robert A. Heinlein
annepin
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Farnham's Freehold, a book by Robert A. Heinlein, G.P. Putnam's and Sons, New York. 1964.

quote:

"It's not a hearing aid," Hubert Farnham explained. "It's a radio, tuned to the emergency frequency."

Barbara Wells stopped with a bite halfway to her mouth. "Mr. Farnham! You think they are going to attack?"

Her host shrugged. "The Kremlin doesn't let me in on its secrets."

His son said, "Dad, quit scaring the ladies. Mrs. Wells--"

"Call me 'Barbara.'" I'm going to ask the court to let me drop the 'Mrs.'"

"You don't need permission."

"Watch it, Barb," his sister Karen said."Free advice is expensive."

"Shaddap, Barbara, with all respect to my worthy father, who...


I like this opening. It's rich with character, and not just Farnham, but the others as well. The dialogue is artfully done, revealing both the main threat (Russia) and, again the characters.


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Wolfe_boy
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The best thing we can learn from this, I would think, is how to best use dialogue attribution:

1. Use "said".
2. Use action to indicate who is speaking.
3. Forgo attribution when possible, to unencumber your sentences.

Heinlein using explained in the first sentence is forgivable since we have no other way of determining what context that sentence was being spoken in.

Jayson Merryfield


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Robert Nowall
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Farnham's Freehold was not one of my favorite Heinlein books when I was younger, though later on I came to appreciate some of its qualities. Probably went through too many gyrations-of-plot for my young mind to fathom---even the best Heinleins tended to be episodic.

As for the intro above, it (1) introduces four characters in eight lines, and (2) sets up a tense situation. Looking at it for the first time in, oh, twenty years I think, I'd pick it up and read further.


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annepin
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I'm about a hundred pages into it now and I think it's rather a weird book. Well written and thought provoking, certainly, but not one, I think, I would consider a favorite, either.

On style I've noticed he's very dialogue heavy. In fact, almost everything is dialogue. And he withholds information from the reader as a device to create suspense, which irked me no end--there's the scene where they open the hatch and _everyone_ gets to go up and see what's out there, but the reader doesn't find out until the last character comes back.


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Robert Nowall
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Well, going back and remembering what it's about, I'd say it...


WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS!



...that it (a) started out as the saga of the survivors of a nuclear war. Then it shifted into (b) an alternate universe story, but still about survival. Then it became (c1) a story of life in a very different civilization as well as (c2) a commentary on the future of race relations. And then it went into (d) a straightforward time travel changing-the-past story.

I don't think that gives away too much, though this might. The last new edition I remember seeing had cover art that illustrated the very last scene...


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annepin
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SPOILERS!

I just finished the book. Indeed, your memory is accurate. It has me thinking about the "contract" a writer makes with the reader. Do you think he broke it here? I remember when I got to the new civilization part I thought, "Huh? What the...?" because it was such a different story from what I anticipated. I had similar feelings when I got to the time travel spot. And in a way, the race relations seemed a bit abrupt, though I suspected he might bring that up. I think the overriding theme (freedom and individualism) was strong enough to carry me through, though.


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Robert Nowall
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I heard tell that those who absolutely loved Stranger in a Strange Land came to this book, which, I think, came out next, and wound up disillusioned with Heinlein. (Either this one or Glory Road came out right after Stranger, I'm not sure which and my reference materials are not on hand.)
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KayTi
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I very distinctly remember this book, because of several disturbing images. It is not my favorite Heinlein, I have read it once and probably won't read it again.

The first 13 are good, but I found I had to work pretty hard to understand which character was who and what they were doing. I remember it became pretty clear pretty quickly, but looking at the first 13, it's not.


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Robert Nowall
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Heinlein only got worse in this way as time went on. I remember The Number of the Beast, where he added the detail of switching the "I" of the scene between the characters. Never finished the center of the book---skimmed to the end of it, where a bunch of characters from better Heinlein books showed up.
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KPKilburn
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I've never read any of his work, but any time you mention Kremlin, emergency frequencies, and attack in such a short time, you've got me reeled in.

I'm a big fan of works written during/about the Cold War, so I'm biased from the beginning on this (when I saw the year it was written).

I think it's an interesting-enough First 13. I skipped the posts that said "spoilers". I may pick this up and read it sometime just for something different.


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