"Robert A. Heinlein - Revolt in 2100 (Collected Stories)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

If I had to pin a label on Heinlein, I’d call him a romantic humanist.\ He deals with the
relation of man to science. His attitude to\science is to my mind a rational one: neither
idolatry nor panic, and this may be because he knows something of the social
sciences, the link between man and machine.
Man as a dynamic part of a dynamic society is a concept rarely treated in science-
fiction. Large faceless masses surge in the background, in an outrageously
homogeneous fashion, and against this scene unqualified protagonists perform in-
credible and unmotivated deeds, through logical processes slightly beyond the utmost
bound of human thought. No society has ever been homogeneous, even in Sparta.
There will always be Coventries. Heinlein knows this, and is perhaps the only science-
fiction writer who has seen the real purpose of creating a temporal frame for stories
which by definition deal with the movement of man and society through time. The use


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of this method of dynamic continuity is one of Heinlein’s mafor contributions to the field
of science-fiction.
Imaginative literature ideally reflects and interprets reality. Future “realities” have often
been handled by means of what is actually symbolism. That is, of course, one way to
do it. It is not the only way; an integrated mirror of a future reality which can be
accepted as three-dimensional rather than as a background of “flats” may be aèhieved
by Heinlein’s method of dynamic continuity. Once that is achieved, the writer is free to
tell a story about the values of men and women which is significant to the men and
women who read the story. Since the future societies which Heinlein postulates are
workable societies, he can concentrate upon the important problems of human beings
in relation to their culture. Those problems may affect the society, but their importance
rests in how they affect the individual. And Heinlein understands that the personality is
as complex as the society. The same man who wrote Coventry wrote They.
All this, however, does not entirely explain why Heinlein is such an excellent story-
teller. C. L. Moore calls Heinlein’s work the result of “the innocent eye and the
sophisticated mind,” which seems to me an accurate analysis. The term, “a sense of
wonder,” has been too often profaned for me to profane it, but I will go so far as to say
that nobody who knows Heinlein could call him blasé. Since I have known him, his
attitude has always been, “If this goes on—.” And from that, it’s only a step to “Once
upon a time—.”

HENRY KUTTNER
Los Angeles, California




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 ‘If This Goes On-‘
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It was cold on the rampart. I slapped my numbed hands together, then stopped hastily
for fear of disturbing the Prophet. My post that night was just outside his personal
apartments-a post that I had won by taking more than usual care to be neat and smart
at guard mount...but I had no wish to call attention to myself now.
I was young then and not too bright-a legate fresh out of West Point, and a guardsman