The next day Robert went downtown to arrange with the bank for a mortgage.
I arranged for us to be able to advertise it as “low down payment, buyer assumes 25-yr loan at 6%; owner will accept 2nd mortgage for balance.” All very involved and I had to pay through the nose to arrange a 6% loan when the going price is 7% and up—but the house should sell now.1
While he was gone, Herro let herself in without knocking, and Ginny had to deal with her alone. This time, Herro told Ginny, she was not leaving under any circumstances: She had “taken counsel” and would get a court order if the Heinleins did not vacate immediately, and then have the sheriff throw them out.
Not likely.
This went on for two hours with much vilification and screaming, during which time June Compagnon arrived, extremely embarrassed, and then Robert arrived. Eventually the intruder left, and Robert immediately got a locksmith in to change the locks.
They flew out on Saturday, January 14, sending the movers on, to rendezvous the following Monday, January 16, at the Bonny Doon site. Rex and Kathleen met them at the San Francisco airport, and they spent the night in Palo Alto. The weather was clear and dry, and they had just gotten out ahead of a huge blizzard that blanketed the entire Midwest. They arrived at the Bonny Doon house to find that the windows had not been put in during their absence, or the doors hung: The factory would not even ship their double-glazed windows for another three weeks. Their belongings were delayed in the blizzard: The tractor unit broke down twice en route and did not arrive until Thursday, January 19—just before a typhoon that hit the Oregon coast and moved south, dumping ten inches of rain in two days.
The unfinished driveway (which would not take sealant, no matter how much plastic cement they poured in) became a cataract of mud—but the big van inched up to the doorway as the sky clouded over, and the packing cases were stacked neatly in what would one day be their dining room.
The water system was sabotaged the following night.
The contractor they had hired for the water system, and then fired for incompetence, had hired German students on a “profit-sharing” basis. One of them was threatening now to sue Heinlein for three months’ back wages. Nobody could prove anything, but the saboteur knew how to avoid the “booby-trap” klaxon and spotlight alarm at the gate, knew how to find that particular pipe in the dark (not easy), and was not interested in the house. He went straight to the vulnerable part of the water system and wrecked it.
The damage to the water system was repairable, but this incident highlighted the fact that the house-building project was in a very vulnerable state at the moment, with piles of expensive building material heaped around and the house essentially wide open. The only real solution was to move over from the cramped, cold cabin so they could keep watch over the place themselves. And get that property fenced at the earliest possible opportunity, with a six-foot cyclone fence, topped with angled barbed wire. “We may wind up with a moat and drawbridge and portcullis,” Heinlein wrote to Blassingame, “—and piranha in the moat. Ginny strongly favors the last although she is willing to settle for hungry alligators.”2
The German “mechanic” lawsuit was coming up for a hearing on February 24, 1967, so they got together all their documentation to defend the ludicrous action. But the rainy season was nearly over, and Ginny projected they would stay out of the red: June Compagnon had found a buyer for the house in Colorado Springs—$36,000 cash.
On January 27, 1967, a fire in the Apollo 1 capsule killed astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grisson, Edward White, and Roger Chafee. The setback was stunning—the first fatality among America’s astronaut corps—and put the program on hold until safety redesigns could be put in place.
And two more inquiries came in for film rights for Stranger—prompted, Blassingame thought, by a mention in a New York Times book review on February 19. Putnam’s finally started filling back orders on The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress in February, but Robert was fed up. He instructed Blassingame: No more sales to Putnam’s.
Once they were actually in the house, they could begin unpacking the shipment from Colorado—if they could get any time to work on that. The clock was ticking on the tax deduction for a gift of his papers to the UC Santa Cruz library’s Special Collections. Ginny had recovered her health immediately on returning to sea level, so at the end of January she took over supervising the construction: “Right now she is bossing the job,” Heinlein wrote to Blassingame.
I am officially ill, an acute attack of hypochondria in fact. This enables me to keep out [of] sight and tackle a mountain of paperwork while Ginny does some rawhiding over on the job as “lady boss.” We both think that this is going to result in faster action—her idea[,] with which I agree. If the contractor comes over here to consult, he will find me in pajamas and robe, with three days of whiskers and a sad look. But for the next few days he is going to learn that it is far easier to hustle and give Ginny what she wants than it is to talk her out of it—my God, that gal of mine can be difficult when she puts her mind to it!3
Heinlein spent eight days unpacking and inventorying a large batch of story files, creating a detailed set of accession notes (so detailed, in fact, that he assigned the accession notes their own opus number in his filing system). Donald Clark had told Heinlein—and his own lawyer had confirmed—that this constituted a valuable gift he could claim on this year’s taxes if the gift were inventoried and at least some of the papers actually in the hands of the university before taxes were prepared and the tax laws changed, eliminating this deduction. What with the sudden increase in the royalties, he could use the extra deduction this year.4
He would have to get the whole lot appraised to get a firm figure, so in the spring he contacted Robert Metzdorf, a New York appraiser of book and manuscript collections—who told him it would take at least a year before he could schedule this work. But he was the best: Rita Berner told him Metzdorf’s valuations had repeatedly stood up to IRS challenge.5
The work on the house was making visible progress, but they were not ready to move in until July. A sale of movie option to The Door into Summer that month, to Reed Sherman and Barney Girard, funded the rest of the material purchases.6
Poul and Karen Anderson dropped by the site on their way driving to Westercon7 in San Diego. That visit must have been virtually a campout, as the Andersons wound up leaving behind their air mattresses and drop cloths.8 By the end of August, the Heinleins had their first real houseguests: Cal Laning and Robert Cornog both paid them quick visits, now that they were able to entertain after a fashion. On Labor Day The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress won a Hugo Award—his fourth Best Novel Hugo—more than any other science-fiction writer, ever.
“This one surprised me,” he told Dan Galouye when congratulations started coming in early in September. “I had not known that my story had been nominated.”9
The Hugo was flattering, of course. So, in an awkward way, was a bit of plagiarism—the second-sincerest form of flattery—that came to his attention that fall. Hollywood again. He was passing through what would become Ginny’s office when the phone rang—not another supplier, but someone who identified himself as Gene Coon, one of the coproducers, with the creator Gene Roddenberry, of a television show that had been airing for about a year now, Star Trek. Heinlein knew about the show, but did not at that time own a television set; he had not seen it.
They had bought a terrific comic script from a brand-new young writer—his first sale, in fact—and it was not until production was actually under way that someone noticed a couple points of similarity with an episode in one of Heinlein’s Scribner juveniles. Coon conceded the similarity, but—pulling out the violins—asked if Heinlein would not waive his claim, as it would throw people out of business and might even mean the end of Star Trek.
Heinlein was not naïve: He was reasonably certain that Coon and Roddenberry had already “taken counsel” and were trying to find out how hard-nosed he was going to be about the acutely serious (for them) matter.<
br />
But he had other things on his mind and did not want to get embroiled in another plagiarism suit—and the opportunity to give a new writer a boost probably weighed in as well. He agreed to waive the “similarity.”
They sent him the script for David Gerrold’s The Trouble With Tribbles a week later, and Heinlein realized he had been “overly generous, to put it mildly.”10 The “Tribbles” were his flat cats from The Rolling Stones. He was mildly conflicted because he knew he had created them fifteen years ago by “filing off the serial numbers” of Ellis Parker Butler’s comic story “Pigs Is Pigs.”11 This might be unconscious plagiarism: Gerrold had not even reworked his flat cats—just given them a different name and exploited the same comic turns.
Robert let it go—and even wrote Gerrold a letter telling him not to worry about it. The episode aired on December 29, 1967. He was less pleased when, after the show went off the air, Gerrold began selling stuffed fake-fur and velour Tribble dolls at science-fiction conventions, substantially the same as the props used in the show, some of them with bladders to fake movement. That kind of merchandising was not covered by his original waiver—and when Gerrold printed the “permission” letter in another bit of gratuitous merchandising, a book for the series’ rabid fans, Heinlein found it harder to maintain a cheerful attitude.
If the matter had simply been dropped after that one episode was filmed, I would have chalked it up wryly to experience. But the “nice kid” did not drop it; “tribbles” (i.e., my “flat cats”) have been exploited endlessly.
Well, that’s one that did “larn me.” Today if J. Christ phoned me on some matter of business, I would simply tell him: “See my agent.”12
Dan Galouye’s other news after the Worldcon was more disturbing: the “liberal wing” of SFWA (the Science Fiction Writers of America) had started circulating a petition opposing the war in Vietnam, with about seventy of their colleagues’ signatures so far. The petitions were going to be published in several of the science-fiction magazines. Soon after, Poul Anderson wrote saying he and Dan Galouye and Sprague de Camp were thinking about a counter-petition, supporting the war—temperate and concilatory in tone.13
The idea of the counter-petition distressed Heinlein, and he counseled against it as promoting unnecessary—and ultimately futile—divisiveness within SFWA.
I am most sorry that this thing ever came up. It is not that I object to either side having their say, in print, or otherwise, and anywhere—I am for utter free speech and free press at all times without any reservations whatever. Nor am I afraid of the effect of your ad … [sic] it won’t have the slightest effect on Mr. Johnson’s decisions; he is a prisoner of his own policies and their political consequences.
What I do regret is the effect it has already had on SFWA and the greater effect it is likely to have, and that is why I am trying to damp out the movement to answer it; it can only widen the split.
If such ads could have any effect on National policy, I would not mention the welfare of SFWA in the same breath. But they won’t.… [and] I hate like the devil to see it rent by a political schism.14
As to the war itself, the public news was “too distressing to discuss.”15
No, I don’t like this war. It’s a proxy war, and I don’t like proxy wars. It’s a war fought with conscripts, and I don’t like conscription at any time under any pretext … Slavery is not made any sweeter by calling it “selective service”.…16
Nor was it possible to reconcile the conduct of this conflict with any concept of truth, justice, or national honor:
I can’t stand the thumb-fingered way Mr. Johnson and Mr. McNamara run this war. What the hell do they think men are? Lead soldiers to be expended at a whim? What the devil are we doing fighting an infantry war in a rain forest.… 17
I think Mr. Johnson has handled this war very badly. But I’m damned if I’ll add to his troubles by public criticism—especially when my misgivings, if expressed publicly, could give some aid & comfort to the enemy. I took part in electing Mr. Johnson by voting against him; therefore I owe him full support during his tenure.18
Aid and comfort to the enemy, however, was a ship that sailed when the left-wingers’ petition was published. The U.S.S. Pueblo surrendered to the North Koreans without a fight on January 23, 1968, becoming the first U.S. naval vessel to be hijacked by a foreign military power in 150 years. Student riots were hitting the news all around the world. Heinlein gave in and agreed to lend his name to Anderson’s and Galouye’s and de Camp’s efforts, and underwrite whatever portion of cost of publishing the counter-petition could not be raised by subscription. As it happened, the support from traditional liberals—and conservatives, as well—to this anti-anti-war statement was more than sufficient to cover publication in Galaxy. Himself, he was “neither right wing nor left wing—I believe in freedom under the Constitution … [sic] as written and not as rewritten by Lord Warren. In short, I am obsolete—and if you don’t believe it, pick up any newspaper.”19
With winter coming on, and the house 95 percent done,20 Heinlein was thinking about settling in to do some writing again.
I have not been able to write any fiction at all for more than two years.… Being unable to work has not produced a financial crisis—I’ve taken in more money each of the past two years than ever before in my life and this project is free of mortgage or debt. But it has produced a serious spiritual crisis; I have grown enormously frustrated at not being able to do anything with the story notes I am constantly making.21
The last 5 percent of the house-building went agonizingly, maddeningly slowly. They were able to purchase their own flagpole in February 1968,22 and his insurance company demanded they put a locking gate on the fence to protect the swimming pool. It also helped keep out the deer.23
Heinlein continued to receive complaints by every post from readers who could not find copies of Stranger—and the university bookstore said the book was no longer even in Avon’s—the paperback publisher’s—catalog:24 They had allowed it to go out of print in the middle of an incredible demand. But Putnam’s had pulled the book from Avon and let it to Berkley Books, the paperback house they had acquired in 1965. Berkley brought out 250,000 copies in March 1968—the forty-third impression of the book.25 It was gone almost before they could get it on the stands. And Putnam’s still would not reissue it in hardcover:26
My real grouse against Putnam is not over the pbs but over their refusal to keep Stranger in print in hardback—damn it, if they would reprint, they could now sell copies to every public library and every college library in the country, plus many private purchasers, as I constantly get letters asking me where hardback copies may be found. (So far, I know of six college courses which use Stranger.)27
Willis McNelly was using the book to teach one of his college courses and had one hundred copies on back order for the winter term that year; the seventy-five copies he had bought for the last year’s course were long gone, and he could not find any supplier.28
Heinlein’s sister, Mary Jean, sent them a clipping from the UCLA Daily Bruin (in Los Angeles), showing a listing of an experimental class offered by Dr. Carl Faber on “Guru-ism,” listing Heinlein with J. D. Salinger and Lawrence Ferlinghetti as “personal gurus.” Salinger’s name he knew, but not Ferlinghetti’s (Ferlinghetti was the owner of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco and a specialty publisher who kept Beat poetry and novels alive). But the idea that he was regarded as a “personal guru” made Heinlein absolutely livid: Guru was exactly the opposite of what he was trying to get across to these people.29
And yet—
And yet—
These people who were writing to him seemed to find in Stranger … certainly things he had put into it, things he had learned the hard way over the course of his life, and things that could not be found anywhere else. Drafted as a personal guru, he could refuse to serve. But Stranger out in the world seems to have been adopted as a voice for the “ethos of disaffiliation” from the conformist mainst
ream—the process Marxist social critic Herbert Marcuse called “the Great Refusal.” Heinlein had his own continuing refusals to make, frustrating and wearing.
Some of them were relatively easy: When the fan letters started talking to him as if he were Jubal Harshaw, he could gently steer them away from it. To one boy, one of those who wrote him a long and rambling “poem of comment,” he wrote:
How does one answer a poem? With another poem? But, being “Jubal” quite as much as I am “Mike,” if I wrote a poem, long habit would force me to sell it, rather than use it in a letter. Jubal, you may remember, did not fully approve of Mike’s open-handedness (while going on being open-handed in his own cantankerous fashion).
But I am also “Patty” of the snakes, who never wrote a line in her life.
In fact, I am none of these, but simply myself, who knows as much as you do—but not a whit more—about the Martian rite of sharing water. If you are offering me friendship, then Asmodeus knows that, at my age, a man needs all the friends he can win. Thank you.30
Those were the easy ones. One request to define “grok” in seven words came from a student teacher, and it was possible to make a polite (but pointed) reply:
Having neither “flappers” nor secretary I must answer your letter myself;
1. I used ca. three pages to define “grok.” Had I been able to define it in seven words I would have done so. See the discussion in the story.
2. Any religious message you may find in the story is up to you—or to any reader. What I try to offer is entertainment, as that is what the cash customer pays me for. If he gets something more out of the story, that is a bonus not in the sales price.31
And to a Methodist preacher who offered extravagant thanks for the book—and wanted to talk theology:
Robert A. Heinlein, In Dialogue with His Century, Volume 2 Page 37
