Éric Picholle has written a thoughtful review of the significance and possible uses of the on-line Heinlein Archives. See http://ametist.inist.fr/document.php?id=470.

I don't read French, but the sausage-grinder output of Google's translator suggests that this is pretty interesting. Any reactions?

Now we know how to say TANSTAAFL in French: "Un Repas Gratuit, Ça N’Existe Pas !"

Perhaps we can convince him to do a clean translation. He and colleague Anouk Arnal are members here. (And, of course, represented La Belle France at the Centennial.)

And of course Eric is perfectly fluent in English.

James Gifford writes:

Perhaps we can convince him to do a clean translation. He and colleague Anouk Arnal are members here. (And, of course, represented La Belle France at the Centennial.)

Ah. I did not get a chance to meet them.

M. Picholle draws a line between "Solution Unsatisfactory" and Heinlein's actions to influence atomic policy immediately after the end of the war-- a subject I have been researching myself in recent months.

Both extremely charming folks and a pleasure to meet. I first saw Mlle. Arnal in the front row of one of my early panels, and I kept, erm, staring a bit rudely at, um, her chest... because she was wearing a really nifty HC t-shirt that I didn't recall making. I finally twigged that she had made it from the HC poster image on the web site, but with some cool changes in the color pattern.

If she noticed my untoward glances, she did not hold it against me. We had several very charming conversations over the course of the weekend.

I only spoke to her long enough to ask her about her t-shirt, and hear just a bit about Heinlein fandom in Europe. I would love to hear more about that here on this board.

I have encouraged Eric to start a topic on this board to discuss what's going on across the pond.

Hi everybody

-- and sorry for the late answer, and for not having introduced myself yet...


Actually, I didn't know the paper was published yet, much less already online...
Funny to find out this way, thank you very much !


I will, if people here are interested — but no promise about when !

To make a long story short, it's basically an hommage to Bill Patterson's work,
and to the Heinlein Trust's quite original approach to his legacy. In this paper,
I tried to point out the originality of this possibly unique (to date...) project,
and to discuss the tension between the ambition to offer a tool to the researchers
and to allow the "fair use" of his archives, on the one hand, and avoiding to make
online piracy and copiright violation a lot easier, on the other hand.

I also tried and discuss more general smart database strategies for non-SF scholars
to have their attention called on the amazing variety of useful and otherwise
unavailable information that can be found in the archives of a man who was
a careful observer of the XXth century, with a very personnal point of view
on the technical revolutions that caracterize this historical period. As an example,
I offered Heinlein's visit to Los Alamos in august '45, only a couple of weeks
after Hiroshima, a key political period preceding the creation of the Federation
of Atomic Scientists (FAS).

Nothing really deep — not really my field (I'm basically a research physicist,
who sometimes also teaches some epistemology) — but I seldom pass on
any opportunity to place RAH front and center in an academic context.


Anyway, the basic conclusion is that the online publication of the Robert
and Virginia Heinlein archives is an amazing achievement, and will become
quite a powerful tool... once the necessary key to their overwhelming variety
is made available — namely, Bill's The Man Who Learned Better. (hint, hint !)



I wish it were true... But I'm afraid I am another casualty of the French
so-called "classical" education — loads of dead languages in high school,
thus rather poor fluency in any spoken language, even if we sometimes
can maintain the illusion on the internet...

All I can say is, votre anglais est beaucoup de mieux que mon français! We who are deficient in the French language would love to see an English translation.