Kinda makes you want to go out and get an opera cape, doesn't he?

Makes me want to go out and get *something* any way.

Curious how this letter is making the rounds of the internet -- but hasn't shown up on any RASFW comment thread yet.

This letter wasn't in the RAH archive so I've sent the transcription to the VE to include in the second volume of Heinlein letters. (First volume is the Heinlein-Campbell correspondence 1939 to about 1974; second and third volumes are Heinlein-only)

I could make it land in the online archives somewhere as well, if you'd like.

There were many other signs of rottenness and unsuitability before the overt anti-semitism started. A number of foreign supporters had soured on fascism long before 1933.

Well, for what it's worth I've spent some time looking for a Marine "boat cloak," as promoted by RAH in the 1966 future article for Playboy. They either no longer exist or are available only within the network of military tailors and uniform suppliers.

In email I said something about the subject of fandom and this letter I thought worth copying here:

But the hardcore "fans" -- the ones with too much time on their hands, anyway -- are going to be quick to take offense no matter how reasonable it was. Heinlein never understood fiawol, and that's that. To a fiawol mentality, it doesn't matter that fanac may be trivial in the cosmic scheme of things: it's necessary, and that's that. Heinlein's remakrs rise out of a fijagdh mentality.

There may be a matter of degree here. Heinlein in 1941 is actually arguing that SF fen *are* superior to the general run of humanity because they are more open-minded about the possible (like, say, going to the moon) and at least somewhat trained to accept differences in lifestyle based on different situations.

But Slans are well beyond that kind of "superior".

If the dates worked better (they don't), one could wonder if the attempt of Kettle Belly's group in Gulf and its ultimate failure (as shown in Friday) could be in part a comment on this area. But more likely its just typical Heinlein "no final answers" commentary.

Altho I suppose that the Gulf "supermen" could in fact be a comment on Slans, in the sense of trying to show a more realistic development of the human race to the "next level", if not specifically an answer to the pretensions of fans (which waiting to Friday to deliver that message would take a great deal of patience!)

Also different uses of the term "fans." There are fans (readers), fans (so-called "organized" fandom, an expression which always makes a fan giggle and snort), and faaaaaaaans (fannish fans, fans of organized fandom and other self-referential stuff)

I'm very curious, in his letter to FJA, Heinlein assures him that he has personal knowledge of survival beyond the grave. Does anyone on this forum know what he based this statement on? Had Heinlein, experienced some near death experience? I know that he was already afflicted with lung disease, but most of his major health events lay in the future.

As a child Heinlein had "mystical experiences" that included his being a part of an immortal entity that everyother living thing was part of too. Emerson's "Oversoul" or somesuch. ISTR it also included past-life expderiences