"Robert A. Heinlein - Grumbles from the grave (Non Fiction)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

definite answer. I think you’re one of the writers who can work up someone
else’s ideas into a logical story with enthusiasm. Some can, you know, and
some definitely can’t. You are in a position to know, and that’s why I’d like to
have your own reaction to this.
February 23, 1940: Robert A. Heinlein to John W. Campbell, Jr.
Here is the story about the atomic engineers and the uranium power plant
[”Blowups Happen”]. I had intended to send it to my friend in Lawrence’s
radiation laboratory at Berkeley for a final technical check-over, but decided
to send it to you promptly instead. As you pointed out, things are happening
fast in this field. The quicker a story laid in it sees print, the better the chance
that some assumption in the story will not already have been invalidated.
I presume that this story herewith will give you some idea as to whether or
not I can work out another man’s ideas. If you decide that I can, then I would
be interested in taking a crack at your idea of scientists going insane over the
uncertainty of truth in the “sub-etheric” field. But not just at present, not
before fall. It does not seem to me to be a good idea for me to do another
story about scientists going crazy too soon— neither for me as a writer trying
to build a commercial reputation, nor for the magazine.
Furthermore, it is a big idea; I would want to use not less than fifty thousand
words. I have a serial on the stands now; I don’t suppose that you want to
publish another serial by me for a year, at least—or have I incorrectly
estimated the commercial restrictions.
EDITOR ‘s NOTE: During the summer of 1940, Robert visited John Campbell
in the east, the two became fast friends. Letters went back and forth, at great
length.
November 2, 1940: Robert A. Heinlein to John W. Campbell, Jr.
... I turned it down, stating that the rate for my own name was higher than
that. (I may let them publish “Lost Legacy” under a pseudonym, as it is one
that I really want to see published. I am going to give a slight amount of
rewriting to make it science fiction rather than fantasy, but still let it say the
things I want it to say.)
Having touched on my personal policy to that extent, I feel obliged to be more
specific, since it concerns you, too. I am going up, or out, in this business—
never down. I don’t want to write pulp bad enough to slip back into a lower
word rate, and a hack attitude. As long as you are editing, at Street and
Smith or elsewhere, you can have my stuff, if you want it, at a cent and a
quarter a word, or more if you see fit and the business office permits. I won’t

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use an agent in dealing with you, although I now have one. Neither my name
nor the name of Anson Mac-Donald will be made available to any other book
at the rate at which you buy from me, and, if I get an offer of a better rate, I
will let you know and give you refusal, as it were, before switching. I write for
money and will sell elsewhere for a materially higher word rate, but I feel a
strong obligation to you. No other editor will get the two names you have
advertised and built up at the rates you pay.
I seem to have drifted a long way from stating my own policy and intentions. I
will probably go on writing, at least part time, indefinitely. If you someday find
it necessary to start rejecting my stuff, I expect to take a crack at some other
forms, slick perhaps, and book-form novels, and in particular a nonfiction