October 14, 1960: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein
Dear Water-Brother,
I greatly admire your courage and also your intellectual virility that enables you to open up new areas of the literary globe.
October 21, 1960: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
In the first place, I think Putnam's offer is one of the most generous I have ever seen; it is all loaded in my favor. Will you please tell them so?
Cutting can always be done, even though there is always the chance of literary anemia therefrom. But the changes required are another matter—not because I don't wish to make them . . . but because I don't see how to make them. This story is Cabellesque satire on religion and sex, it is not science fiction by any stretch of the imagination. If I cut out religion and sex, I am very much afraid that I will end with a nonalcoholic martini.
I know the story is shocking—and I know of a dozen places where I could make the sex a little less overt, a bit more offstage, by changing only a few words. (Such as: "Hell, she didn't even have the homegrown fig leaf!") (Slightly less flavor, too; but if we must, we must.)
But I don't see how to take out the sex and religion. If I do, there isn't any story left.
This story is supposed to be a completely free-wheeling look at contemporary human culture from the nonhuman viewpoint of the Man from Mars (in the sense of the philosophical cliché). Under it, I take nothing for granted and am free to lambaste anything from the Girl Scouts and Mother's Apple Pie to the idea of patriotism. No sacred cows of any sort, no bows and graceful compliments to the royal box—that is the whole idea of the framework.
But, in addition to a double dozen of minor satirical slants, the two major things which I am attacking are the two biggest, fattest sacred cows of all, the two that every writer is supposed to give at least lip service to: the implicit assumptions of our Western culture concerning religion and concerning sex.
Concerning religion, our primary Western cultural assumption is the notion of a personal God. You are permitted to argue every aspect of religion but that one. If you do, you are a double-plus ungood crime-thinker.
Concerning sex, our primary cultural assumption is that monogamy is the only acceptable pattern. A writer is permitted to write endlessly about rape, incest, adultery, and major perversion . . . provided he suggests that all of these things are always sinful or at least a social mistake—and must be paid for, either publicly or in remorse. (The thing the censors had against Lady Chatterley and her lover were not their rather tedious monosyllables, but the fact that they liked adultery—and got away with it—and lived happily ever after.) The whole deal is something like Communist "criticism" . . . anything and any comrade may be critized (at least theoretically) under Communism provided you do not criticize the basic Marxist assumptions.
So . . . using the freedom of the mythical man from Mars . . . I have undertaken to criticize and examine disrespectfully the two untouchables: monotheism and monogamy.
My book says: a personal God is unprovable, most unlikely, and all contemporary theology is superstitious twaddle insulting to a mature mind. But atheism and "scientific humanism" are the same sort of piffle in mirror image, and just as repugnant. Agnosticism is intellectually more acceptable but only in that it pleads ignorance, utter intellectual bankruptcy, and gives up. All the other religions, elsewhere and in the past, whether monotheistic, polytheistic, or other, are just as silly, and the very notion of "worship" is intellectually on all fours with a jungle savage's appeasing of Mumbo Jumbo. (In passing, I note that Christianity is a polytheism, not a monotheism as claimed—the rabbis are right on that point—and that its most holy ceremony is ritualistic cannibalism, right straight out of the smoky caves of our dim past. They ought to lynch me.)
But I don't offer a solution because there isn't any, not to an intellectually honest man. That pantheistic, mystical "Thou art God!" chorus that runs through the book is not offered as a creed but as an existentialist assumption of personal responsibility, devoid of all godding. It says, "Don't appeal for mercy to God the Father up in the sky, little man, because he's not at home and never was at home, and couldn't care less. What you do with yourself, whether you are happy or unhappy—live or die—is strictly your business and the universe doesn't care. In fact you may be the universe and the only cause of all your troubles. But, at best, the most you can hope for is comradeship with comrades no more divine (or just as divine) as you are. So quit sniveling and face up to it—'Thou art God!' "
Concerning sex, my book says: sex is a hell of a lot of fun, not shameful in any aspect, and not a bit sacred. Monogamy is merely a social pattern useful to certain structures of society—but it is strictly a pragmatic matter, unconnected with sin . . . and a myriad other patterns are possible and some of them can be, under appropriate circumstances, both more efficient and more happy-making. In fact, monogamy's sole virtue is that it provides a formula defining who has to support the offspring . . . and if another formula takes care of that practical aspect, it is seven-to-two that it will probably work better for humans, who usually are unhappy as hell if they try to practice monogamy by the written rules.
The question now is not whether the ideas above are true, or just twaddle—the question is whether or not there will be any book left if I cut them out. I hardly think there will be. Not even the mild thread of action-adventure, because all of the action is instigated by these heretical ideas. All of it.
Mr. Cady's wish that I eliminate the first "miracle," the disappearances on pp. 123-124, causes almost as much literary difficulty. Certainly, I can rewrite that scene, exactly as he suggested . . . but where does that leave me? That scene establishes all the other miracles in the story, of which there are dozens. Now I will stipulate that "miracles" are bad copy—but if I eliminate them, I must throw away the last 700 pages of the ms.—i.e., write an entirely different story. Miracles are the "convincer" throughout. Without them the Man from Mars cannot recruit Harshaw, Ben, Patty, Dr. Nelson, not even Jill—nobody! No story.
(I thought I had picked a comparatively slide-down-easy miracle, in that I picked one which has a theoretical mathematical inherent possibility and then established its rationale later in Harshaw's study. But I'm afraid this one is like atomic power: no one but professional dreamers could believe in it until it happened. I might add that if I had trapped out that miracle with fake electronic gadgetry I could have "disappeared" an elephant without a squawk.)
All I can see to do now is to accept Mr. Cady's most gentle offer to hold off six months while we see if some other publisher will take it without changes, or with changes I think I can make.
But I shan't be surprised if nobody wants it. For the first time in my life I indulged in the luxury of writing without one eye on the taboos, the market, etc. I will be unsurprised and only moderately unhappy if it turns out that the result is unsalable.
If it can't be sold more or less as it is, then I will make a mighty effort to satisfy Mr. Cady's requirements. I don't see how, but I will certainly try. Probably I would then make a trip to New York to have one or several story conferences with him, if he will spare me the time, since he must have some idea of how he thinks this story can be salvaged—and I'm afraid that I don't.
The contract offered is gratifyingly satisfactory. But I want one change. I won't take one-half on signing, one-half on approval of ms.; they must delay the entire advance until I submit an approved manuscript. It is unfair to them to tie up $1,500 in a story which may turn out to be unpublishable. I don't care if this is the practice of the trade and that lots of authors do it; I disagree with the guild on this and think that it is a greedy habit that writers should forgo if they ever expect to be treated like business men and not children.
Please extend my warm thanks to Mr. Cady for his care and thoughtfulness. He must be a number one person—I look forward to meeting him someday.
October 31, 1960: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
&nb
sp; I have thought about your suggested changes in The Man from Mars. I see your point in each case and do not object to making the changes . . . but it seems to me that I should leave the present form untouched until I start to revise and cut to suit the ideas of some particular publisher. If I do it for Putnam's, then the horrendous job of meeting Mr. Cady's [of Putnam] requirements will automatically include all the changes you mention—in fact, most of the book will be changed beyond recognition.
But I still have a faint hope that some publisher will risk it without such drastic changes and cutting.
December 4, 1960: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
Lurton, I do not think I have told you what a wonderful job I think you have done in placing this ms. I wrote the thing with my eye intentionally not on the market. For twenty years I have always had one eye on the market with the other on the copy in this mill (yes, even when I disagreed with editors or producers). But I knew that I could never get away from slick hack work, slanted at a market, unless I cut loose and ignored the market . . . and I did want to write at least one story in which I spoke freely, ignoring the length, taboos, etc.
When I finished it and reread it, I did not see how in hell you could ever sell it, and neither did Ginny. But you did. Thank you.
If this one is successful, I may try to write some more free-wheeling stories. If it flops, perhaps I will go back to doing the sort of thing I know how to tailor to the market.
January 27, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
. . . I told you about a week ago that I had finished the basic cutting on Man from Mars. In the meantime, I have had a squad of high school girls count the manuscript, word by word, and totted up the results on an adding machine. The manuscript is now 160,083 words—and I am tempted to type those excess eighty-three words on a postcard . . .
I am a bit disappointed as my estimates as I went along had led me to believe that I would finish up at around 155,000 words and then I could even sweat off most or all of another 5,000 words and turn it over to Putnam's at 150,000, which I know would please them better. But I don't see any possibility of that now; the story is now as tight as a wedge in a green stump and, short of completely recasting it and rewriting it, I can't get it much tighter. I have rewritten and cut drastically in the middle part where Mr. Minton [at Putnam's] felt it was slow, and I have cut every word, every sentence, every paragraph which I felt could be spared in the beginning and the ending. As it is, it is cut too much in parts—the style is rather "telegraphese," somewhat jerky— and I could very handily use a couple of thousand words of "lubrication," words put back in to make the style more graceful and readable.
The truth is that it is the most complex story I have ever written, a full biography from birth to death, with the most complex plot and with the largest number of fully drawn characters. It needs to be told at the length of Anthony Adverse (which ran 575,000 words!): I am surprised that I have managed to sweat it down to 160,000.
My typist is now completing the third quarter of the ms. She is able to work for me only evenings and weekends; if her health holds up, I expect that she will finish about 12 to 15 February. In the meantime, I will work on further cutting and revision and should be able to eliminate a few words—more than a thousand but less than five thousand. If my typist finishes on time I will expect to deliver the manuscript to you by Monday the 20th of February (I doubt if you will want to reread it, but you may want to see how I have revised the sex scene that you were bothered about). That will give Putnam's in excess of three weeks more margin on production time in order to publish on or before the Science Fiction Convention in Seattle 2-4 September 1961. Or they can, if they wish, use the three weeks to read it and bung it back to me for revision of anything they don't like—and still keep their production schedule. I can't do extensive cutting in that time but I can certainly revise a scene or two, if needed.
March 17, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I've just been talking to Mr. Cady at Putnam's. He tells me that Doubleday wants to issue my Sex and Jesus book as a SF book club choice and as an alternate for some other non-SF book club. Little as I like the Doubleday SF book club, I enthusiastically okayed this plan as it makes almost certain that Putnam's will make their nut and a bit of profit even if the trade edition doesn't do very well—which has been my principal worry. However, Mr. Cady seems to think that these book club sales will materially enhance the trade book sales—also, he seems to have great confidence in the book (more than I have)—I hope he's right.
This change in plans will result, he tells me, in the book being sold by Doubleday as their June offering, with trade book publication as soon as possible, probably early July.
The final title will be set on Monday afternoon (Cady will phone me) and, Lurton, you are invited and urged to suggest titles—direct to him is simplest. (I assume that this letter will reach you in the early Monday mail.) The titles now in the running are:
The Heretic
The Sound of His Wings (which has an SF tie-in through my "Future History" chart without being tagged as "science fiction" in the minds of the general public. All of these titles have been picked to permit the book to be sold as a mainstream novel, "Philosophical Fantasy" or some such.)
A Sparrow Falls
Born Unto Trouble (Job 5:7)
That Forbidden Tree (Milton)
Of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:17)
Editor's Note: At this date, no one recalls just who came up with the Stranger in a Strange Land title.
(232)
Stranger in a Strange Land won the Hugo Award for Best Novel of 1962, given by the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago.
CHAPTER XV
ECHOES FROM STRANGER
(236)
Cults sprang up around Stranger in a Strange Land, and Heinlein himself was considered to be a spiritual guru.
Editor's Note: Putnam's sales on Stranger were not very good during the first year after publication. It went immediately into the book club edition, a two-year contract, and there was a second two-year book club contract. In the second year following publication, it was out in a paperback edition from Avon. Sales went from humdrum to medium to spectacular. This book turned out to be a "sleeper." Only word-of-mouth advertising could have accounted for this. At this time, it has been in trade edition for many years, still selling enough copies to make it worthwhile for the publisher to keep it in print. And it still sells merrily in the paperback edition, which is now with Ace. It is currently in the sixty-fifth paperback printing. The Doubleday Science Fiction Book Club recently sent a request for another reprinting under their auspices.
October 9, 1966: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
Herewith is ----'s letter to you re dramatizing Stranger. I have no idea what is proper and reasonable in this matter and will continue to leave it entirely up to your judgment. But I'm beginning to think that additional rights to Stranger, such as stage, TV, and movies, might someday be worth something—possibly through Ned Brown, possibly through other channels. The fan mail on this book has been increasing steadily instead of decreasing and it clearly is enjoying quite a lot of word-of-mouth advertising. I recently learned that it was considered the "New Testament"—and compulsory reading—of a far-out cult called "Kerista." (Kee-rist!) I don't know exactly what "Kerista" is, but its L.A. chapter offered me a $100 fee to speak. (I turned them down.) And just this past week I was amazed to discover a full-page and very laudatory review of Stranger in (swelp me!) a slick nudist magazine—with the review featured on the cover . . . And there is an organization in the mountain states called "Serendipity, Inc.," which has as its serious purpose the granting of scholarships—but which has taken over "water sharing" and other phrases from the book as lodge slogans, sorta. Or something. And there is this new magazine of criticism, GROK—I have not seen it yet but it is advertised in the Village Voice. And almost daily I am getting letters from people who insist on looking at
me as some sort of a spiritual adviser. (I fight shy of them!) All in all, the ripples are spreading amazingly—and Cady may be right in thinking that the book could be exploited in other media. (I'll settle for cash at the bedside; I want no part of the cults.)
November 6, 1966: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I think I mentioned to you that the Esalen Institute wants me to lead a seminar late in June on "Religion in the Space Age," along with Alan Watts, the Zen Buddhist writer, and an Episcopalian priest. It takes just one weekend, and the place (Big Sur) is near here, and the fee ($500) is satisfactory. Nevertheless I probably will not accept, as I do not see how I could take part without mortally offending both the priest and the Zen Buddhist. I'll negotiate it directly by telephone to the director, as I am reluctant to state my real misgivings bluntly in a letter.
December 22, 1966: Lurton Blassingame to Virginia Heinlein
. . . and to receive the Grok buttons. Might be news release to give additional stimulus to book.
April 15, 1967: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
More about Stranger—
My brother Rex queried the shopkeeper from whom he had purchased several sorts of Stranger buttons, was told: "There are about a dozen different suppliers." He went on to say that one of them was a girl who was working her way through college making these buttons (no doubt other sorts than Stranger buttons).
This afternoon (now Sunday evening) a sculptor, ---- of Los Gatos, called on us—to show us a figure he had just completed in bronze of the death of the Martian named Smith. He asked permission to bring it over at once as he was taking it to his agent in San Francisco in negotiating a commission for an heroic-size crucifixion job for a church.