A New Robert A. Heinlein Book to be Published.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. I haven't ready any of Anthony.

The other night, out with some friends, someone brought up the book Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Debris of a near-miss of a comet cause widespread destruction and chaos. Like the friend, I'd originally read it when it first came out in 1977. Some years later my s-f book club read it, along with Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, published in 1959. That's about a limited nuclear war and how a small town in Florida survives for the next two years. We did the two books the same month for a compare and contrast, which is always very interesting.

Both books are essentially survivalist books, but in the reread I was utterly shocked at the overt and nasty racism in the first book. Wow. I hadn't recognized it the first time around.

The second book also has racism in it, which I'm going to label benign, with apologies to any non-white person who reads this. I'm calling it benign because, unlike the Niven and Pournelle book, the racism in the Frank book is one of patronizing to the few blacks in the town. It's not nasty and vicious, but one of everyone knowing their place. Yes, I do recognize that's still racism.

It's astonishing how much our perceptions can change over time.