"Robert A. Heinlein - For Us The Living" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

Text set in Janson Manufactured in the United States of America 13579 10
8642
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Heinlein, Robert A.
(Robert Anson), date. For us, the living: a comedy of customs/by Robert A.
Heinlein. p. cm. 1. Traffic accident victims--Fiction.
2. Twenty-first century--Fiction.
3. Time travel--Fiction. I. Title.
PS3515.E288F67 2004
813'.54--dc22
2003065682
ISBN 0-7432-5998-X


for Heinlein's Children



"It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated to the unfinished work .
. . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom ..."
 --Lincoln at Gettysburg




Editor's note

This novel was written by Robert Heinlein between 1938 and 1939 and was
never edited while Heinlein was alive. While the novel is presented in its
original form, minor editorial changes have been made for clarity and style.



INTRODUCTION

RAH DNA


"Any map of the world that does not include Utopia is not even worth
glancing at."
--Oscar Wilde

Most authorities are calling this book Robert A. Heinlein's first novel. I
avoid arguing with authorities--it's usually simpler to shoot them--but I
think it is something far more important than that, myself, and infinitely
more interesting.
But my disagreement is respectful, and I'm not prepared to dispute the point
with sidearms, or even ripe fruit. Robert himself called For Us, The Living a
novel, repudiating that label only once that I know of, in private
correspondence, and the book clearly has at least as much right to be called a
novel as, say, H. G. Wells's When the Sleeper Wakes (Robert's favorite novel,