Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Araña Countdown Post: Heinlein

Ah, Heinlein.

I don't think I have a more ambiguous relationship with any writer, living or dead.

Robert Heinlein is one of the greats of our genre. He also couldn't write women to save his life and had some seriously strange ideas about sexuality (I'm not at all averse to healthy polyamory, but if you're a fan do I have to say more than "Wake her up the best way"?)

The Transpecial universe started with an unpublished and honestly not very good story entitled "The Veteran," which was written for (and soundly rejected by) a Heinlein tribute anthology. It was meant to engage with Starship Troopers. Because of that I made the main character Latino, like Johnny Rico.

That character eventually became José Marin, although most of the original story was ditched in the creation  of Araña (the ship was originally more of a colony ship with families on board).

So, there's a lot of influence of Heinlein here, but hopefully none of the creepy stuff ;).

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