The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein
A Critical Study of His Work (Second Edition)
A critical analysis of Heinlein’s context and response to the world and the future
Description
Robert A. Heinlein began publishing in the 1940s at the dawn of the Golden Age of science fiction. Today he is considered one of the genre's “big three” alongside Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. His short stories were instrumental in developing the genre’s structure and rhetoric, while novels such as Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers demonstrated that such writing could be a vehicle for political argument.
While Heinlein’s influence remains strong, his legacy is fiercely contested. His vision of the future was sometimes radical, sometimes deeply conservative, and arguments have flared up recently about which faction has the most significant claim on his ideas. In this major critical study, Hugo Award-winner Farah Mendlesohn carries out a close reading of Heinlein's work, including unpublished stories, essays, and speeches. The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein sets out not to interpret a single book, but to examine Heinlein’s arguments about the nature of science fiction, American politics, and himself.
Farah Mendlesohn is Emerita Professor of English and Media at Anglia Ruskin University, author of the acclaimed Rhetorics of Fantasy and co-editor of the Hugo Award-winning, Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction.
Reviews
“Mendlesohn’s study is a provocative and insightful intervention into the critical reception of Robert A. Heinlein as the assessment of this important writer transitions into the twenty-first century. In this lively, extensively researched reappraisal, a complicated picture of Heinlein emerges—an earnest adherent of collective civic struggle, a bold stylistic experimenter, an advocate for professional expertise, a keen technologist, a zealous cultural critic—which often upends conventional discussions that have swirled around the major writer and will likely shape the conversation for decades to come.”
- Jerome Winter, University of California, Riverside
“Mendlesohn expertly uses plain language and illustrative quotation to build up a sophisticated and comprehensive reading of Heinlein’s work, which will give all interested readers a real insight into his work and an understanding of why it matters.”
- Nick Hubble, Brunel University of London
“Farah Mendlesohn’s wonderful book remains the best available introduction to Heinlein’s work for serious readers, as well as a model of intelligent criticism, dispassionate analysis, and good taste. The revised edition belongs on any short list of first-class studies of science fiction, and it deserves the widest possible audience among scholars and fans.”
- Alec Nevala-Lee, author of Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction