Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction

by Alec Nevala-Lee

Time Enough for Love, to close out his Future History. It centered on Lazarus Long, the effectively immortal protagonist of Methuselah’s Children, whose superhuman fecundity—women beg to have his children—came off as a wishful reaction to the author’s own childlessness. The result was his last major work, and it included a few nostalgic nods to Hubbard, whom he had never ceased to see as a war hero. Lazarus uses the pseudonym “Lafayette Hubert, M.D.,” and he refers to another Lafe, a naval officer, with some familiar qualities: He had hair so red that Loki would have been proud of it. Tried to choke a Kodiak bear to death. . . . Lafe tackled him with bare hands . . . and mind you, when he had no need to. I would have faded over the horizon. Want to hear about Lafe and the bear and the Alaskan salmon? Heinlein put more of himself into it than perhaps any other story, and it became his first bestseller in hardcover.

The world had caught up with him, and as fans of Stranger in a Strange Land sought out his other books, a lucrative chain reaction ensued.

I think it was other way around, fans of juveniles sought his OTHER works, discovering SIASL et al. I was one.

Much of his newfound wealth went toward his medical bills, as well as those of his mother, who died in 1976. He also assisted with the hospital expenses of Philip K. Dick, who wrote to him with awe, “I am trembling as I write this, to address a letter to you. . . . You made our field worthy of adult readers and adult writers.”

He credited the transfusions that he had received during surgery for saving his life, and he spent the better part of a year researching an article on blood sciences, seeking advice from Asimov, whom he admiringly described as a renaissance man: “If Isaac doesn’t know the answer, don’t go look it up in the Encyclopedia Britannica, because they won’t know the answer either.” On a visit to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory—which must have reminded him of Jack Parsons—for the launch of the Viking spacecraft, the writer Jerry Pournelle informed him that half of the scientists there had been drawn to their profession by his stories.

Heinlein had become a statesman for the genre, testifying before the House Select Committees on Aging and Science and Technology on applications of space technology for the elderly—he said that he hoped to stay alive until he could buy a commercial ticket to the moon.

Jerry Pournelle was chairing the Citizens Advisory Council on National Space Policy, a loose consortium of writers, scientists, and public figures who prepared white papers on strategic defense for President Ronald Reagan. It was as close as anything ever came to Campbell’s dream of a direct pipeline to the halls of power, and Heinlein joined in avidly—he admired Reagan, who reminded him of Barry Goldwater, and he had registered for the first time as a Republican.

On September 17, 1984, Arthur C. Clarke told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the principles behind Star Wars were “technological obscenities.” Heinlein was furious. Events came to a head when both writers attended a meeting at Larry Niven’s house. Clarke had written a critical article on the subject for Analog, arguing that an orbiting laser station could be destroyed by “a bucket of nails,” and when the aerospace engineer Max Hunter brought it up at the gathering, he replied lightly, “But Max, I learned everything I know about celestial mechanics from you.” “I didn’t teach you enough, Arthur,” Hunter responded. Clarke found himself facing a hard line of questioning from the other attendees, and he conceded a few technical errors. The discussion remained cordial and focused on the science, however, and Clarke stuck to his political views. Heinlein was less willing to let it drop. After the formal session had broken for lunch, Heinlein—who had remained silent—told Clarke, in a tone that shocked the others, that he had no business giving advice to Americans. Clarke recalled, “He accused me of typically British arrogance, and he really was vicious. It really hurt me. I was very sad about it.” When Clarke responded that he had a moral objection to the program, Heinlein advised him to avoid getting involved in matters in which he didn’t have a stake. Clarke felt that the issues in question affected everyone on the planet, but he ended on a conciliatory note, telling...

He insisted that he was no longer connected to the church—which sent him fifteen thousand dollars a week—but he was just as involved as always.

he died in the hospital two weeks later. He was twenty-two years old. When his parents heard the news, Mary Sue screamed for ten minutes, while Hubbard was furious: “That stupid fucking kid!”

a teenager named David Miscavige, who became one of the only men whom Hubbard trusted.

Hubbard’s reclusiveness and health problems have led to speculation about ghostwriters, any doubts that the book was written by him were dispelled by its first section, which was close to a straight rewrite of Buckskin Brigades.

Proves nothing. A ghost writer could easily do that .

Asimov had received a blood transfusion during his operation, and he was infected with HIV.

she reportedly said to a startled group of writers at lunch, “Personally, I don’t give a fuck what you write, but we have teenagers who read the magazine.”

This is undoubtably apocryphal.

Heinlein contemplated a campaign to recruit the diplomat Jeane Kirkpatrick, whom he regarded as tougher on communism than George H. W. Bush, to run for president.

when Marilyn vos Savant, the woman with the highest recorded intelligence in history, asked him to walk her down the aisle at her wedding, he agreed,

There was widespread prejudice against AIDS—caused in part by the Reagan administration’s unfeeling response

Nonsense.

Me too.

David eventually moved to Santa Rosa, California, where he lived off a stipend from Asimov’s estate. In 1998, after his father’s death, he was arrested for possession of “the biggest child pornography collection in Sonoma County history,” with thousands of videos found in his home. After pleading guilty to two counts, he was sentenced to three years’ probation.

His final book published in his lifetime, Our Angry Earth, was a collaboration with Pohl,

Bibliography

Glarigly absent: The Heinlein Interview

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I. Asimov: A Memoir. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

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——–—. The Great Heinlein Mystery. North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2012.

“This is how a man lives” RAH, “The Future Revisited,” reprinted in Kondo, Requiem, 180.