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Robert A. Heinlein: A real-life Forrest Gump

William Patterson’s big Heinlein biography isn’t just the life story of one man. It’s a history of United States in the first half of the 20th century. Not a complete history, but in some ways it’s better than complete, because it’s more intimate. Heinlein was like a real-life Forrest Gump, in the middle of many of the trends that shaped America.

Heinlein was born in Kansas, in 1907, the heart of Middle America.

He was a cadet at Annapolis during the years between the great wars. His classmates believed ruefully that they’d be the first academy class that would never see combat. Of course, World War II belied those beliefs. Heinlein’s military experience put him in the middle of the American rise to world power.

Tuberculosis put an end to his naval career, which plunged Heinlein into the middle of the Great Depression. Until Heinlein’s Navy discharge, he was a civil servant who didn’t have to worry about where his next paycheck was coming from. But after the war, he and then-wife Leslyn were on their own with only his small medical pension. Heinlein had to learn to support himself. This wasn’t the first time he was on his own financially—his family growing up was huge, his parents were distant, and they were always broke. Heinlein took a variety of jobs during his adolescence, including work as a math tutor, artist’s model, insurance salesman, and professional soft-shoe or tap dancer in a roadhouse.

Read the rest of my post on the Tor.com blog: Robert A. Heinlein: A real-life Forrest Gump

My one-week orgy of Heinlein discussion

I'm pleased to have been invited by Tor.com to participate in a one-week online round-robin of blogging about one of my personal heroes, science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein.

The occasion is publication of the first book-length biography of Heinlein, which comes out Tuesday. The title is a jawbreaker: Robert A. Heinlein In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1 (1907-1948): Learning Curve. The book itself is pretty intimidating, seemingly as big as a refrigerator. And it only covers the first half of his life. But don't be put off by the title and size, it's a great read. I love it not just because it's about the life of one of my heroes, but also because it's a tour of the United States during a fascinating period of history, the first half of the last century.

My first post in the series is here: "Robert A. Heinlein: A real-life Forrest Gump." I'll post excerpts and links on this blog, like I always do with my writing elsewhere.

I'm a little bit in awe of the company in keeping in the other bloggers and Heinlein fans who are participating in the Heinlein roundtable. They are "award-winning novelist (Tooth and Claw; Farthing) and prolific Tor.com blogger Jo Walton.... John Scalzi (author of Old Man’s War and several other SF novels), Pamela Dean (author of Tam Lin and the Secret Country trilogy, and several other works of fantasy), Charles Stross (author of Halting State, the Merchant Princes series, and the Laundry series), and Sarah Hoyt (author of Ill Met by Moonlight, Death of a Musketeer, Draw One in the Dark, and many other works of SF, fantasy, and historical romance)." That's some serious sf firepower there, and I'm honored to be in that group.

Jenny the dry-erase HOPA hoax

Stop me if you heard -- and believed -- this one: Pretty young woman gets revenge on her jerk boss by revealing his loutish workplace ways in a presentation on a dry-erase board. It's a great story of real-life revenge that everyone can relate to. Too bad it's a hoax.

The tale, as told in a photo gallery on TheChive.com, goes like this: Jenny works as assistant to Spencer, and hates the job and her boss. When she quits the job, she writes out her resignation on a dry-erase whiteboard, and then takes a series of photos of herself holding the whiteboard, and distributes them to her co-workers.

The final insult for Jenny came Friday. As she explains on her whiteboard:

On Friday I transferred you a call
I was about to hang up
When I heard you call me a HOPA
HOPA??

Read the rest of my post on the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: Jenny the dry-erase HOPA hoax

Tonight's supper (photo)

Google and Verizon got some net neutrality 'splainin to do

A net neutrality proposal from Google and Verizon smells fishy, like it might be a deal between two industry giants to keep out competition. In the words of the immortal Ricky Ricardo, they got some 'splainin to do.

The two companies announced a joint proposal on Monday that would divide the Internet into three networks: The public Internet, a private network for new, value-add services, and the wireless network. The proposal calls for net neutrality to be required on the public net, punishable by up to $2 million in fines, but leaves the private Internet -- whatever that is -- and wireless net alone.

As is always the case when big companies propose regulations, citzens should assume Google and Verizon are guilty before finding them innocent. Big companies often try to co-opt government to set up rules that allow them to divide the market among themselves while setting up barriers for new competitors.

Read the rest of my post on the Computerworld Tool Talk blog: Google and Verizon got some net neutrality 'splainin to do

iPhone head faced "cultural differences" at Apple

The cause of the end of Mark Papermaster's short but tumultuous career at Apple ran far deeper than the recent antenna debacle, according to reports. Mark Papermaster, who came to Apple two years ago trailing a cloud of litigation behind him, faced "cultural differences" at his new company, and conflict with Steve Jobs.

Papermaster, who headed up hardware development for the iPhone, left the company after Apple endured weeks of criticism over problems with the iPhone 4 antenna, according to the New York Times and many other publications. Apple confirmed the departure, but wouldn't say whether he left on his own or was pushed, the Times reported.

Papermaster's problems ran deeper than the recent iPhone 4 antenna debacle, according to the Wall Street Journal. His "departure was driven by a broader cultural incompatibility," the Journal said, attributing to "several people familiar with Mr. Papermaster's situation."

Read the rest of my post at the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: iPhone head faced "cultural differences" at Apple

 

 

How to write villains

I was not happy with the villain in my first novel, and I’ve been thinking about how to write villains. I’ve read that no one is a villain in their own mind, which may be true, but doesn’t help me with my problem writing villains.

More recently, I’ve been re-reading Elmore Leonard. So far, I’ve re-read Glitz, which I need to write about here — it was one of the first, if not the first, non-science-fiction novels I’d read for pleasure, and I was just dazzled by it. And now I’m rereading Unknown Man No. 89, which is even better.

Leonard writes wonderful villains. He’s a wonderful writer in general. I’m learning a lot re-reading him.

The second insight about how to write villains comes from actor James Marsters, who played Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. io9 interviewed Marsters and asked him how to play a great supervillain.

He said: “You have to come to grips with the fact that it’s fun to hurt people.”

For me, that nails it.

Praising the good in Google Wave

Google Wave was a vast, ugly experiment, a one-man band of a collaboration tool that played piano, guitar and harmonica simultaneously with cymbals between its knees and a trained monkey keeping time on a garbage can lid. But it had worthy goals.

Google Wave was designed to be a collaboration tool that combined the best features of e-mail, Google Docs, instant message, and Web application development, and put them all in a single package. But it didn't work out, and Google pulled the plug on Wave on Wednesday.

To me, the promise of Google Wave was that it would tame the problem of too many communications channels. We all have multiple ways of getting in touch with each other: E-mail; several instant messaging accounts; messaging on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn; a couple of different phone numbers, and more. Transferring communications from one channel to another is problematic.

For example, I was recently planning to connect with a friend at Comic-Con. The plans were loose, I was just going to text her from the show and we'd meet up. But once I got to the show, I realized I didn't have her cell phone number. I have two e-mail addresses for her, two Twitter accounts, we're friends on Facebook, we're connected on two instant messaging services. But because I didn't have her her cell phone number, we never connected.

Read the rest of my post at the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: Praising the good in Google Wave

“You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.” Thinking about "Inception"

Loved it. Brilliant. I felt like I had to ice down my brain after leaving the theater. Inception inspires thought about the right and wrong ways to end stories, and the power of dreams and storytelling, and more.

I detected echoes of Philip K. Dick, Roger Zelazny, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and of course The Matrix.

But I was never really impressed by the Matrix movies. The premise of characters unaware they live in a simulated universe seemed cliched to me even in 1999 when The Matrix came out. But Inception seemed fresh and unique. (Not everyone loved Inception, however.)

If you don’t want spoilers, put Edith Piaf on your gramophone and ride the kick back to reality. Otherwise, read on for more discussion of Inception.

Read the rest of my post on Tor.com: “You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.” Thinking about "Inception"

I'm looking for a netbook/notebook recommendation

A friend is looking for a netbook or notebook. He's completely non-technical, wants something priced at $500-$650 for writing, Web surfing, and e-mail, mostly while traveling. This is not an area I follow. What do you suggest?