Grumbles From the Grave

by Robert A. Heinlein

  I am not inexperienced with guns. I have coached rifle and pistol teams and conducted the firing of millions of rounds from pistols to turret guns. I am aware of the dangers of guns, but I do not agree that those dangers can be eliminated nor even ameliorated by coercive legislation—and I think my experience entitles me to my opinion at least as much as schoolteachers and librarians are entitled to theirs.

  * * *

  I am sorry to say in answer to your inquiry that I do not expect to be able to come east soon. If Miss Fowler passes this way, we shall be very glad to see her and to show her some of the sights if she wishes.

  May 9, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  As to the name on Red Planet ms., no, I'm not adamant; I'll always listen to your advice and I'll lose a lot of sleep before I will go directly against your advice. But I feel rather sticky about this point, as I hate like the deuce to see anything go out under my own name, without even sharing responsibility with Miss Dalgliesh, when said item includes propositions in which I do not believe. The matter of style, plot, and the effect on my literary reputation, if any, I am not adamant about, even though I am not happy about the changes—if you say to shut up and forget it, I'll shut up. It's the "Sullivan-Act-in-a-Martian-frontier-colony" feature that I find hard to swallow; from my point of view I am being required to support publicly a doctrine which I believe to be subversive of human liberty and political freedom.

  Editor's Note: Because of the necessity of editing Red Planet to suit the sensibilities of librarians (who, at that time, were mostly elderly ladies), Robert seriously made the suggestion that Miss Dalgliesh's name be added to the book as an author. This suggestion might have been made over the telephone—the files are incomplete on this point.

  But the storm blew over, and Red Planet, firearms or no, Willis' sex or no, became very popular. It was one of Robert's most popular books for juveniles.

  May 17, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  I'll have to give some thought to the Scribner's beef over the name. I can't see why Alice Dalgliesh's name, tacked on, should be a handicap. Maybe they would like to send the script back for reworking to my ideas. It seems to me that if she insists on rewriting the story by remote control, then she should expect to share the blame.

  On the other hand, it is fairly evident that you feel that the story is just about as good now as it was before. I am sorry to say that I don't think so; maybe it's good but it ain't a Heinlein story; it's been denaturized, had its teeth pulled. But I am very reluctant to go against your advice. I think it will damage my reputation and I know that it includes ideas of which I violently disapprove. What do you think, Lurton? Lay it on the line.

  FARMER IN THE SKY

  (59)

  Heinlein wrote Farmer in the Sky for Scribner's in 1949 during the hold-ups of filming "Destination Moon."

  Bill Lermer, a Boy Scout, and his widowed father decide to emigrate from Earth to Ganymede. In order to be eligible, the father must marry. This story tells about Bill's adjustment to his new step-mother and stepsister, their voyage to Ganymede, and how all four work to build a farm in an inhospitable environment.

  The new home is built, a farm started amid the wonderful sight of Jupiter and its other moons, lo, Europa and Callisto. Bill finds that his scouting is universal—a troop is formed in the space ship Mayflower, continued on Ganymede, amid many adventures. Bill and his family learn survival.

  September 8, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  I am up to page 150 in the first draft of my current story ["Farmer in the Sky"], intended for Boys' Life and for juvenile book, and should have this draft finished in ten days. It will probably take another month to shape it up into a satisfactory serial version and book-length version.

  September 24, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  The first draft of the Boys' Life and juvenile trade book job is finished, but the motion picture [Destination Moon] has developed daily crises which will probably continue until the shooting is over, about the end of November. As there is a long, tedious job of cutting to do to turn the book into a 20,000-word serial, I don't know when I will be sending in the manuscript. You may tell Crump [editor of Boys' Life] if you like, that the story is finished, but it may be a month or six weeks until it is ready. My situation here is unclear; my contract is up next week, the movie not yet shot, and myself unwilling to extend the contract on its present terms. We'll see.

  Editor's Note: Robert had done the script for Destination Moon with Rip Van Ronkel in Hollywood in 1948. George Pal purchased the script, and Robert was to do technical direction on it.

  The normal delays ensued. We arrived in Hollywood in early June 1949— shooting was supposed to begin soon thereafter. However, with rewrites, preproduction, and all the things that go on in Hollywood, actual shooting did not start until around October or November.

  While waiting for the film production to begin, Robert wrote Farmer in the Sky.

  November 20, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  . . . I'm working fifteen hours a day; the book-length version of Farmer in the Sky is now with the typist and the serial length for Boys' Life is being cut—slowly, because I have so little time. I've got it down under 40,000; there will be much tedious work before I can get it down to 20,000 and probably will not finish it until after the picture is finished. I'm working seven days a week and getting six hours of sleep, and I can't speed it up beyond that.

  March 6, 1950: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein

  Boys' Life found suspense problem. Scribner's very pleased with book.

  April 24, 1950: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  I am glad to hear that [Boys' Life editor] Crump is taking the serial [published in Boy's Life as "Satellite Scout"], since I need every cent I can scrape up for [house] building. Nevertheless, I would turn down his bid of $750 if I could afford to. It occurs to me, however, that, if he had me in a squeeze before. I have him in a squeeze now. He has scheduled it for the August issue; the makeup date must be staring him in the face, particularly as he is ordering a color painting for the cover from [Chesley] Bonestell.

  * * *

  And please be sure to tell him that I am certainly entitled to as much time to make up my mind whether or not I like his offer as he is to make up his mind whether or not he likes a story that he ordered from me in the first place. And tell him that I am proud, mean, stiff-necked, and that you doubt very much if you can get me to accept a lowered word rate, since I have been known in the past to pass up sales rather than take a cut.

  Don't quite let the sale get away from you—but if you can get him on the hook and keep him there, we may be able to squeeze a couple of hundred dollars' worth of blood out of this stone. I don't care whether he gets sore or not; this is my swan song with Crump; sales to him are not worth the trouble and worry.

  Don't get yourself in bad with him; blame it all on me.

  Even if you have cashed the check already, I hope you will call him up and twist his arm a bit.

  April 21, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  . . . The transformation from Farmer in the Sky to "Satellite Scout" [the Boys' Life version] took five drafts and consumed most of six weeks . . . whereupon I was left in suspense while [Crump] made up his mind whether or not he liked my condensation.

  BETWEEN PLANETS

  (60)

  Between Planets was given a working title of The Rolling Stones. Heinlein soon after used The Rolling Stones as the title for another book. Art by Clifford Geary. Scribner's, 1951.

  Don's parents suddenly order him to join them on Mars, bringing with him an odd, plastic ring of no apparent value. He leaves his school on Earth for the space station where he's to catch his ship. He meets and befriends a Venus "dragon," Sir Isaac Newton. But his ship is intercepted by Venus, no longer willing to be a mere property of Earth. Willy-nilly, Don is shipped to Venus.

&nbs
p; There he finds work washing dishes. Several attempts are made to steal the ring. Then Earth armed forces land and ravage the town. Don joins the Venus army. Much later, he is ordered to report—to Sir Isaac. The dragon needs the ring, which contains the clue to a scientific discovery made secretly on Earth. With it, they can build an ultrafast ship and weapons to force Earth to relinquish control of the planets. Don gets to Mars on that ship—a hero!

  January 18, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  I am 14,000 words into the new boys' book [Between Planets] and the villains are way ahead. The first part always goes slowly; I have to get acquainted with the characters.

  March 15, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  I've just answered a nite letter from Miss Dalgliesh asking for a synopsis of Between Planets (formerly The Rolling Stones). [The Rolling Stones was a working title, later used for another book.] She wants the finished manuscript by the first—I can't make it, by at least a week, but I am pushing night and day.

  March 17, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  Between Planets is rolling nicely; I expect to finish it by a week from today, or even sooner. However, the necessity of smooth-typing it will keep me from sending it on earlier than about the first week in April. I have told Miss Dalgliesh.

  April 1, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  Herewith two copies of Between Planets. In this same mail I have sent Miss Dalgliesh an airmail postcard telling her that the ms. will arrive in New York at the same time she receives the card (or should). Since they are so anxious to have it at the earliest possible date, will you please send the original over to her at once?

  May 31, 1951: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein

  Word from Blue Book taking Between Planets, paying $1,000. Scribner will publish about 1 November, allowing Blue Book to schedule story for September or October issue.

  June 3, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  Good news indeed about the sale of Between Planets to Blue Book. Please tell Kennicott [Donald Kennicott, editor of Blue Book, who knew nothing of science fiction except H. G. Wells's title] that there is no resemblance at all between Wells's War of the Worlds and my Between Planets—also that he should read Wells's book; it's a dilly. The move-overs should resemble in appearance the mythological fauns or satyrs, the "goat-men," but should avoid too close a resemblance, i.e., avoid terrestrial musculature, articulation, and physiognomy, both of goats and men. Faunus veneris is a biped, horned, and smaller than a man, but its appearance merely suggests the faun of Greek mythology. It is not actually related to any earthian life form; there is plenty of elbow room for the artist to use his imagination.

  June 28, 1951: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein (telegram)

  Scribner's proofs on their way airmail special delivery.

  THE ROLLING STONES

  (64)

  Heinlein tried to make The Rolling Stones wholesome, but Dalgliesh saw some Freudian connotations in Heinlein's creation of "Flat Cats."

  Castor and Pollux Stone, seventeen-year-old twins, go into space with their unusual family in a secondhand spaceship, called The Rolling Stone. They take along a cargo of battered bicycles to trade to settlers on Mars.

  Grandmother Hazel and their father, Roger Stone, support the project by writing episodes for The Scourge of the Spaceways, one of whose characters is the Galactic Overlord. Three episodes a week is their normal output.

  The twins buy a Martian flat cat, Fuzzy Britches, a creature most people enjoy petting. In transit they find that flat cats multiply with extreme rapidity, given sufficient food. They are forced to put the creatures into deep freeze.

  In the asteroid belt, the twins create a demand for the flat cats, now thawed, selling them to lonely miners.

  December 1, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  The boys' novel Rolling Stones is about a quarter finished, smooth draft—and an unsatisfactory story line thereafter. The trouble is that I am trying to do domestic comedy this time with nothing much in the way of revolutions and blood—and I find comedy harder to write. Oh, I can keep up wisecracking dialog all too easily, but the characters have to do something too, something important. With space warfare and intrigue ruled out by the nature of the story I find that a problem. Story centers around twin boys and their eccentric family. Family goes to asteroids in family spaceship, get into various sorts of trouble, get out again.

  January 5, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  The new boys' novel, The Rolling Stones, is rolling along. I am hard at work seven days a week.

  January 15, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  I heard from Miss Dalgliesh about Rolling Stones; she is enthusiastic.

  March 8, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

  I am sorry to say that I am again having "sex" trouble with Miss Dalgliesh—she has decided (from her Olympian heights as an amateur Freudian) that The Rolling Stones contains some really dangerously evil connotations. Her letter was rather horrid and I was quite offended. I am not asking you to front for me this time; I answered her myself. Since the business matters are all completed, it is strictly an author-editor matter and you have troubles enough without being put in the middle on this. But enough is enough and I do not intend to tolerate any more of this sort of thing. The Rolling Stones may be the last juvenile I will do, or, if I do another, perhaps we will offer it to ---- rather than to Miss Dalgliesh.

  I consciously intend to write wholesome stories for boys and mean to leave out entirely the sophisticated matters which appear in my writings for adults. In addition, Mrs. Heinlein went over this one most carefully, trying to find things Miss Dalgliesh might object to. When we were both satisfied that it was as pure as Caesar's wife, we sent it off. I feel sure that you would have returned it to me for revision had you seen anything in it which could have been construed as dirty. So she liked it and signed a contract for it—and now decides that it is dirty. The anecdote about the Vermonter who made a pet of a cow, "—same as you might a good hunting dog—" Miss Dalgliesh says suggests "certain abnormal sex practices." Well, it doesn't suggest anything to me except that my wife has made a pet out of a horse next door, which was what it was based on—and I am dead certain it won't suggest anything horrid to my boys and girls. But I gave her a revision—because we decided that the anecdote was not dirty but was dull.

  Her other objection was this: "Flat cats seem to me a trifle too Freudian in their pulsing love habits." Since I intentionally desexed them entirely, even to parthenogenesis, I found this a bit thick. I always called a flat cat "it" rather than "he" or "she" and gave the only named one a name with no sex connotation. These things I did because I knew she was hipped on the subject—but it was useless; she is capable of seeing phallic symbolism in Jack's beanstalk.

  Another objection she made has nothing to do with sex, but I find it illustrative of how far afield she has gone to find trouble: she objected to my naming a prospector "Old Charlie" because the first name of Mr. Scribner is Charles! How silly can one get?

  I don't expect you to do anything but wished to inform you because you may hear reverberations. I rapped her knuckles most sharply. There are types of behavior I won't tolerate for any amount of money. I retaliated in kind (which is why I left you out of it); I took one of her books for girls and subjected it to the sort of analysis she gave mine. I know quite as much Freudian, bogus "psychology" as she does; from the criteria she uses, her book was dirty as hell—and I told her so, citing passages. If she is going to leer and smirk at my perfectly nice kids' book, I can do the same to her girls' stories. Amateur psychoanalysts make me sick! That impressive charlatan, Dr. Freud, has done quite as much harm as Queen Victoria ever did.

  March 7, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Alice Dalgliesh

  1. If you are going to make changes, I prefer to see them in advance of proof.

  2. "Ol
d Charlie"—I happen to like the name Charlie better than the name Danny, but the issue raised strikes me as just plain silly. "Charlie" is a very common nickname; there is probably at least one character named Charles in over half of currently published novels. Are we to lay off the very common names "Bob" and "Alice" because you and I happen to have them? In any case, nine-tenths of my readers are quite unaware of the name of the publisher; children very rarely pay attention to the name of the publishing house. It would be just as reasonable to place a taboo on "Harry" and on "George" and on "Joe" because of the names of the President, the late King, and the Russian dictator.

  3. Flat cats and Freud—no, I most emphatically do not agree to any changes of any sort in the flat cats or anything about them. I am considerably irked by the phrase "—a bit too Freudian in their pulsing love habits." What love habits? I remember all too clearly the advice you gave me about Willis in Red Planet and how I should "consult a good Freudian"—in consequence, I most carefully desexed the creatures completely. I used the pronoun "it" throughout (if you find a "he" or "she", it is a fault of my proofing); the circumstances make it clear that the first one, and by implication, all the others, reproduce by parthenogenesis. Do you object to the fact that they like to be petted? Good heavens, that can't come out; the whole sequence depends on it—so don't tamper with it. In any case, I set up a symbiosis theory to account for them being such affectionate pets.

  If you choose to class the human response to the flat cats (the desire on the part of humans, particularly lonely humans, for a pet which can be fondled and which will show affection)—if you class this tendency (on which the sequence turns) as a form of sex sublimation, I will not argue the classification. By definition "sex" and "libido" may be extended to almost any human behavior—but I do not agree that there is necessarily anything unhealthy, nor queasily symbolic, in such secondary (sex?) behavior.