Asymmetrical Information

I liked Asimov better than Heinlein, however, I have grown up to be an individualist, capitalist, libertarian.

So that contradicts your theory, at least in this instance. Perhaps I'm the exception that proves the rule?

(FWIW, I also find Ayn Rand's novels boring.)

And I, conversely, hated the two Asimov books I read in my (more) youthful days, whereas Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress blew my mind.

I was then and remain a leftist on pretty much any issue except guns (where I'm not really in the NRA camp either); I still think Asimov's a bad writer, but the last time I tried to read Stranger..., at around 20 or so, I found it embarrassing. OTOH, I reread The Moon... two years ago and loved it as much as ever, maybe more.

I liked them equally and I'm a conservative.

For me though sci-fiction has diminished greatly in the last 20 years. I find Orson Scott Card to be unreadable.

I read them both as a kid. But even then I found most of Heinlein unreadable and mawkish and that's me as a thirteen-year-old. *Stranger in a Strange Land* was a favorite (maybe today I wouldn't like it, I am afraid to go back and try), and I kept on picking up others to find comparable quality. Caves of Steel, I, Robot, and most of all Foundation were to me more rigorous and more conceptual. They didn't have characters but I knew that and didn't mind. I associated Heinlein with 1960s mush, and Asimov with scientific method. Tolkien I liked better than either one; the statist-oriented Arthur Clarke was another favorite. Robert Silverberg too. I thought of the "scientific guys" as the "good guys," regardless of their politics.

Heinlein is not a conservative author, IMHO. He is (was) a libertarian author, and a libertarian is no more a conservative than a lizard is a fish.

I loved Kilgore Trout, and I turned out to be an anarcho-syndicalist, followed by a plain anarchist, and finally a Republican.

Heinlein, and a radical federalist. (Libertarian on the national level, up-to-the-states-and-localities lower down. If Berkeley wants to be a socialist republic, more power to 'em, just so long as I don't have to live there.)

As a 10 year old with his first real library card, I haunted military history. However, by chance I wandered into the fiction and saw the old Doubleday "rocket and atom" sticker on some books. I picked up "Foundation" and that started a lifelong addiction to SF. However, I also read Heinlein, Bradbury, Clarke, Laumer, and innumerable others. Still more than passing fond of Heinlein.

I ended up with a sideline as a writer, and had a chance a couple of years before he died to speak to Isaac Asimov on a talk radio show. I took the opportunity primarily to pay my respects to someone who had influenced my intellectual growth and writing ability. After noting that I did write articles, and that the best way to learn to be a good writer is to read good writers; I thanked him. He asked what I wrote. At the time I was a fairly regular contributor to various professional military journals. Dr. Asimov was audibly upset that I was in such a field. SIGH!

Liked both with slight edge to Asimov. Would guess that I am now a Conservative Republican,but others tell me I'm Libertarian. Who knew?

Interesting. I read and enjoyed Asimov, but I always found his fiction rather sterile, antiseptic and forgettable compared to Heinlein or Clarke. I still think he was an interesting thinker, but not a memorable artist, if that makes sense.

As I said to a friend recently, I can't recall a single book or story that I was assigned to read in grade school, but I sure as hell remember when I found the Heinlein juveniles in my elementary school library.

I second Will's comment. Spot on in my case, as well.

The only contemporary sci-fi author that I really enjoy is Neal Stephenson and his stories, if not his personal views or life, seem to be very libertarian.

I liked both, but I liked Heinlein better. I am a Republican, with Libertarian leanings on social issues. I would say that Asimov had consistently 'good' stories, while Heinlein wrote some truly amazing works, as well as some truly bizarre and borderline unreadable works.

Liked Heinlein's attitude but thought his books were kind of lame. Small-l libertarian. Asimov wrote about ideas, and often didn't flesh them out very much.

I never thought Heinlein to be so seminal at the time, and only later learned how important he was. My friends never counted him among their favorites - it was always Clarke (terrible, terrible writer), or Niven or Herbert or Ellison.
Oh well.

Then there's the towering figure of Stanislaw Lem, who I feel fairly certain is pretty untrusting of government in general.

Yikes. I agree with Krugman on something --- Banks is indeed excellent and one of my favorites.

And I'm a Heinlein guy myself, although I devoured quite happily more than a few of Asimov's works as well...

I liked both, but read Asimov more frequently, in middle school (all of it -- and I loved his short stories). I read Heinlein more often in high school, but by then had also picked up Orson Scott Card, Niven, Pournelle, Dick, LeGuin, Piers Anthony, Zelazny, and some others I'm probably missing.

In middle school, my fave sci-fi author was Douglas Adams, though. The sci-fi I read now tends to heavy whimsy, and I mainly read Austen and Dickens and other 19th century British authors for pleasure.

As for politics, I'm pretty standard conservative, with some libertarian elements (hands off the guns! Down with bureaucracy!).

My husband is 13 years older than me, and definitely was more into Heinlein than Asimov. I don't think he even read the Foundation series before last year. He also read alot of the cyberpunk and militaristic sci-fi. He's more of a "leave me the hell alone" kind of guy when it comes to politics... I think he described himself as an agrarian anarchist when I first met him. He's very pro-Heinlein.

Unclear, Jane.

I liked Asimov growing up, and I am also a big fan of Iain M Banks, like Krugman.

I didn't think much of Heinlen when I was young, and I reread Stranger in a Strange Land recently and found it to be *terrible*.

That said, I am probably on the conservative side of the conservative/liberal divide, although I prefer "classical liberal" myself.

-winterspeak

I loved both Asimov and Heinlein, though I loved Heinlein more . . . the later Foundation books dragged on me. But I agree with earlier commenters that Heinlein's output is much more volatile; a great deal of it is excellent, and then some of it is truly execrable (Stranger in a Strange Land, I Will Fear No Evil, The Number of the Beast)

I read science fiction starting about 7th grade. I read all I could get. Always liked Heinlein best, until he wrote Stranger in a Strange Land, which made me start to wonder.

I read all I could get until the books started having elves, unicorns, and swords. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

I read Atlas Shrugged at 16, and it changed my life. I started it again at 28, and couldn't wade through it.

The last couple of years it's been a steady diet of David Weber, and hoping that Jerry Pournelle starts writing real science fiction again. But even if he does, his politics have changed since his prime.

I'm a 51-year-old strongly small-L libertarian patriot. America, with its faults, is a shining beacon of liberty in a statist PC world, and its internal critics remind me of those people who ground Stephen den Beste down.

The "Kilgore Trout" book "Venus on the Half Shell" was written by Farmer and the name was taken form Vonegut (sp?).
Both myself and my daughter think we would love to have a prehensile tail. Wouldn't want to get it chopped off though.

I liked Heinlein very much as a teenager, but I didn't "get" a lot of his later works, including Stranger. If I read Stranger now maybe I'd like it better.

Jane gives a very perceptive summary of the difference between Asimov's and Heinlein's point of view. Asimov could be quite explicit about the "-cratic" part of "technocratic". In one of his stories, "The Dead Past", the government is suppressing a particular new technology. The protagonist spends the whole story digging until he finally discovers what is being kept under wraps, and broadcasts it to the world.

And then the government official he has outwitted shows him that the thing was kept secret for good reason, and that he has made everyone's life worse by uncovering it.

I came across Asimov first as a kid, but preferred Heinlein once I discovered him. (If I were stranded on a desert island with the collected works of one author of my choice, it would be Heinlein.) I'm a libertarian.

I loved the Foundation books when I was a pre-teen or so. They almost made me want to be an economist, too. Or at least the guy who invented that translator that would filter out all the BS.

I think the real division (if there is one you can sum up quickly) between the two is that Asimov is all about the scientists, and Heinlein is all about the military. I loved them both up until I hit college (not counting both authors' dodgy later works), but Asimov fell badly out of favor with me somewhere along the way.

I think Heinlein has the better prose -- there are some vivid analogies in there I can still remember decades after last reading some of those books -- and Asimov had more interesting ideas. But Asmiov seems to revolve around the idea that everything would be okay if we could just put the smart people in charge. Having seen smart people (including myself) in action, that seems utterly, laughably naive to me today. Heinlein's "swashbuckling individualism" is much more to my taste.

As for current names, Vernor Vinge and Elizabeth Bear spring to mind. I'm guessing Charles Stross is going to rank up there as well, though I haven't read any novel-length SF from him yet, just two exciting modern-day "hard fantasies". (I must get his _Accelerondo_ ASAP.)

I was a huge fan of Dune when I read it in high school. Then I saw the movie Lawrence of Arabia and saw that Dune was basically the same thing with spice replacing oil and a lot of foolish mysticism and anti-technology garbage added.

Still like Arthur C Clarke, Asimov, Heinlen, H Beam Piper, and EE Doc Smith but I haven't been able to read Frank Herbert since I made that connection.

Commented on at my blog (trackback didn't work) - http://www.di2.nu/blog.htm?20060315a

As I say in my post I'm strongly on the Heinlein side now but I wasn't when younger

"I was a huge fan of Dune when I read it in high school."

Dune was pro-monarchy while Heinlein was anti-government.

I read pretty much any and all SF I could get my hands on, and liked Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke all, although I particularly liked heinlein.

However, my favorite of all the "classic" writers is Poul Anderson, who was a particularly thoughtful writer and took pains to research the most current thinking in physical, biological, and social science in doing even a short story. The Time Patrol series, (especially The Shield of Time) which in another author's hands could have been hack potboilers, showed that he was thoroughly familiar with contemporary theorists on issues like the emergence of civil society and the Industrial Revolution. The more I read in these areas, the more I realize that Anderson had been following these debates.

What? Considering all the libertarians here I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you! Not one mention of L. Neil Smith who is without a doubt the most libertarian SF writer out there. Also one of my favorites for pure fun escapist SF.

Check out "The Probability Broach." I'm sure you can find it at any used book store. Think of it as Phillip Marlowe as written by Heinlein. Yes, it's very dated by now, but still a lot of fun. Also good is "Pallas"

Heinlein's later work is truly creepy. An angry old man hectoring you to acknowledge the social virtues of group sex is just not natural.

Very interesting comments. I am struck by the age difference that crops up--when I read Heinlein, Piers Anthony hadn't started writing yet.

Most authors have good books and bad books. My favorite Frank Herbert books are Whipping Star and The Dosadi Experiment--I just love Jorj X. McKie and the Bureau of Sabotage (BuSab), which is designed to keep government from being too efficient.

Samuel R. Delaney is also a very good author, but it took some enforced time aboard ship to be able to concentrate and read him as he deserves.

Asimov had some really good ideas, but overall his writing style suffers. Heinlein is fun to read because he writes so well, even when he started getting into the World As Myth novels without explaining what he was doing. Read all his adult novels in sequence and then go back and re-read The Number of the Beast and it finally makes sense.

Lois McMaster Bujold and her character Miles Vorkosigan are a pure delight. Elizabeth Moon and her characters (especially Brun) are also a lot of fun to read.

John Ringo is having a good time with his latest books and his character Mike Harmon.

Piers Anthony's non-Xanth books are also really good. Xanth is fun, but it can get tedious.

David Feintuch's books are not to be missed if you like military SciFi.

And of course, David Weber's Honor Harrington series is well done, even if I don't appreciate the tedious detail about the armament of the ships. I am simply amazed that any author can develop the psychological interactions between complex characters.

I could go on and on, but I don't have several hours to delve into all the SciFi I have read--it's my favorite form of relaxation.

BTW, I'm a Jeffersonian style small-"L" libertarian. Social moderate but fiscal conservative.

I preferred RAH, and I'm a cross-and-throne Christian Monarchist -- about as reactionary as one can be. Heinlein would have hated me!

(NB: I only like his kid books. Everything from STRANGER forward is, to me, unreadable.)

FWIW, my favorite SF writer is the late H. Beam Piper. My all-time favorite SF novel is, oddly, STAND ON ZANZIBAR, by the late (and very Left) John Brunner.

It is interesting that Krugman is reading Banks. In interviews, Banks has said that the "Culture" stories are intended to show a socialist utopia. Sounds right up Krugman's alley.....

The culture stories are post-economics. Robots do all the work, and the humans have at best a passing interest in or ability to make things run better. At least in the context of the stories, there's no scarcity, even in the face of ridiculously extravagant consumption. The economics of the Culture resemble old-style aristocrats more than anything.

I like the Banks's Culture novels, but I'm ambivalent toward the rest of his stuff.

I was a great fan of Asimov's in my formative years, and moved on to Heinlein after exhausting a large fraction of his writing. Heinlein's career pre-Stranger is very good; afterwards it gets preachy, forced, and contrived. Heinlein's big strength in the early part of his career is writing about future societies as being inhabited by recognizable human beings. His short stories and juveniles are excellent.

Asimov's fiction wasn't written as well as Heinlein's, but he had a real strength for gripping ideas and logical interplay. I'm a big fan of _The Caves of Steel_ and _The Naked Sun,_ as well as pretty much all of his short stories (and he wrote a ton). He was a better nonfiction writer than fiction writer though -- the best popular science writer ever, in my opinion.

To answer the question, I'd say I preferred Asimov growing up, and turned out conservative.

I don't think Herbert was in love with Monarchy, he was in love with crypto-Islamic theocracy. The monarchy was easily overthrown by the Mahdi and his religious zealots and then used in order to justify their rule to secular planets.

Do they still write science fiction these days? (I'm 47.) I enjoyed the book of swords by a science fiction writer (and the berzerker stories by Saberhagen) but it's not science fiction. Actually, I enjoy the discussion of the topic (some of the comments here are gems) more than the stories these days.

I don't really like political labels (they seem so dimensionless) but this might reflect some truth...

http://uncommoninsights.blogspot.com/2005/11/what-am-i.html

I think I'd like to read more future history type of stories not more than fifty years from now.

But remember, a lensman always keeps his word (and thanks for all the fish?) ...he went fishing you see and brought some of his catch back... too nerdy, huh?

I have a love/hate for Asimov and a slight preference for Heinlein.

Anyone ever heard of David Gerrold? His "War Against the Chtorr" series is one of my favorities.

Gerrod is a devotee of EST, the 70's pesudoscience that Scientology drew much of its inspiration from. He uses his books to explain the philosophy of EST.

Interstingly, I found them very convincing. I even emailed Gerrold to see whether EST seminars are still being offered (they are.) Haven't actually gone to one, and probably won't, but I really loved the books.

Heinlein is my favorite too. I didn't find Asimov as one-dimensional as other people seem to, but Heinlein's stuff was richer and more fun. And whether you agree with its philsophy or not, Starship Troopers was a pretty profound book. Also a lot of fun to read.

Banks!!! Iain M. Banks!!

He is the best prose stylist out there in science fiction, I mean he can actually write. He has what I call 'Graham Greene' ability, completely effortless, confident prose. Plus, hes probably the smartest guy in the world.

If you want to start with Iain M. Banks, try first the 'Player of Games' Jane. As a Civ lover, you will be completely facinated by the game in that book. Its about a empire that plays a game so complex that the winner of the tournement in this game gets to be emperor. When he describes the learning the language of the empire, and later, the moment of victory, you will know.

Do not pass this guy up. You may not like the 'Culture', but you might be impressed by it. Like Phillip K. Dick, he is better the more of his books you read.

Plus, try China Meiville.

I read piles of both Asimov and Heinlein growing up, and as far as I can tell, I didn't really pick on their philosophical differences. What I liked was that both of them had heroes who were scientists and engineers, who knew things and knew how to do things. That was enough for me.

But looking back, you're right that Asimov was much more of a technocrat - my guess is that this may have come partly from his growing up during the Depression.

As for the writing, Heinlein was much more of a natural storyteller, although I agree that he went off the rails. Only a generous stipend could induce me to try reading "The Number of the Beast" again. Asimov was a real bricklayer in prose, which is why he was able to turn out so much of it.

But then, many classic science fiction authors aren't good writers, in the way that I consider Nabokov, Amis, and Joyce (to name some that I admire) to be good writers. But how many writers are? Remember science fiction writer Ted Sturgeon's law - 90% of science fiction is crap, but 90% of everything is crap.

Put me down as somewhat left of center on average, but on some specific issues I'm all over the map. Heinlein was far and away the better storyteller, at least in my opinion. Asimov's Foundation trilogy may or may not be why I ended up an applied mathematician and systems analyst, but Heinlein is a lot more fun to read: "Glory Road" (I aspire to Rufo's job), "If This Goes On --" (I'd like to major in Applied Miracles, please), and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" (much more likely that one of the computers wakes up when we least expect it than that we build positronic brains).

I read both Heinlein and Asimov. I preferred Asimov's robot stories, as I thought that they had good ideas, and were pretty complex. I think he was all about the scientists, but he believed in human emotions more and the ability to create greater or odder things than humans intended. I resoponded to that.

Heinlein - loved some of his works - Farmer in the Sky especially, hated others.

I used to like Weber, but now I can't read him unless he has a coauthor like Steve White or John Ringo. His stuff has just gotten too ridiculous. Honor Harrington has become a charicture as opposed to a character. In addition, his other book I read as a standalone - the Excalibur Alternative - which was a great concept - was almost unreadable. Weber has what I call Lucas disease - no one edits him or checks him anymore because he's too big. Can also be referred to as Clancy disease or King disease.

Currently - love Mercedes Lackey, Jody Lynn Nye, Timothy Zahn - especially his standalones, John Ringo - with or without Weber, Eric Flint, and as always - Alan Dean Foster. In addition, Terry Pratchett who without a doubt is one of the funniest and wildest writers ever.

As for me - libertarian tendencies on economics, a bizarre mixture of libertarian/ social conservative tendencies on social matters. As my sister calls me, I'm the orignial army of one.

Shocked I tell you! Not one mention of L. Neil Smith who is without a doubt the most libertarian SF writer out there.

Possibly because he's also perhaps the worst writer ever to set finger to keyboard. I really, really wanted to like The Probability Broach and its sequels--the premise is a hard-core libertarian's wet dream--but they were so awful that my strongest reaction was to hope that no non-libertarian ever got hold of them.

Much as I love Heinlein, I agree with what people here have said about his later books. If I were on that desert island with his collected works, everything from Number of the Beast on (except Friday) would serve as kindling.

I'm old enough to have bought and read Stranger in a Strange Land when it was first published in paperback. Over the years, I've come to like the pre-1964 Heinlein best, but I probably felt differently way back then.

My first encounter with science fiction, ever, was Ray Bradbury's "Golden Apples of the Sun", the sole example of SF in the elementary school library. The first Heinlein book I read was Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, a juvenile novel that I took as rather patronizing and detested, rather like too many school assignments. I was about 12 then, and read better than most college graduates - I could handle anything from Victor Hugo to Winston Churchill's memoirs, so maybe the first mistake was picking up a book from the children's section. Funny thing is, when I reread HSWT as an adult, I liked it. But back then, it made me avoid Heinleins until I'd run through the town library's entire collection of Asimov, Bradbury, and several others. And then I discovered that I loved Heinlein.

Anyhow, as I became older and more experienced, Asimov's techocracy began to bother me. His trust in government is nearly unbelievable. Someone previously mentioned the time-scope story where it turned out that the government had very, very good reasons for banning the technology,

*** PLOT SPOILER WARNING ***

because it was nearly useless for historical research but since 1 microsecond ago is "the past" it was a great tool for spying - yeah, like a broken clock gets it right twice a day. Worse, any real government would have banned the tech for everyone else and used it for spying in their own interest. Worst of all is the First Law of Robotics: "nor allow a human to come to harm" guarantees that once robots reached a certain level of sophistication, they'd be putting humans into padded cells for their own protection. See Jack Williamson's "Humanoid" novels for an example of how that could go, if you can stand his turgid prose.

By contrast, Heinlein never lost touch of how real people act, even when he was trying to write a socialist utopian novel. His output was also much more variegated; read enough Asimov and you might get the feeling that you could read the first chapter and write the rest yourself, but Heinlein will surprise you. His only flaw was that in senility he either turned into a dirty old man, or forgot that the whole world actually didn't want to hear about how he liked group sex. But everything from 1939 to 1963 is great. Don't take the societies he constructs too literally, but do use them as a starting point for some thinking.

I never did really like Stranger, but Moon is an enduring classic - and the Foundation books weren't worth re-reading; I never did find Asimov that great as a storyteller, though the Robot books were interesting enough.

I heartily second the suggestion of Niven, though. And Pournelle, too.

I entirely agree with Mike W. about Stanislaw Lem, though; it's a pity he's not more popularly read, since his work is astounding.

(I can imagine why, though; a work like Fiasco is unlikely to be satisfying to most people in their teens, which is where most people seem to become SF fans, if they do. I'm sure I would have been comparatively unimpressed at the time, too.

But then I also can't imagine why people keep trying to make a movie of Solaris; I can't see how any of the interesting parts could translate to the screen. I haven't seen either film version, and they may be good films, but they can't be Solaris, properly.)

Well, my 3 favorite sci-fi authors in order are Vance, Heinlein and Asimov. I would consider myself a small-l guy, but I can't let something silly like politics get in the way of good entertainment. It's been said that the science fiction world can be divided between the libertarians and the socialists. There's undoubtably some truth to that.

As others have mentioned, Heinlein's earlier work is much better than his rantastic later novels. Personally, I really enjoy Asimov's ultra-simplistic style, but there's no doubt that Heinlein's characters are more 3-dimensional even if they're largely the same from book to book.

You have to enjoy the surprise endings in Asimov's later novels. Just read them all in the order they were published.

But there are no Asimov characters I really remember well except for the robot R. Daneel Olivaw. All the human characters are like cardboard.

But Heinlein characters I remember: Lazarus Long, Maureen Johnson, the kid in the book Citizen of the Galaxy, the kid in the book Tunnel in the Sky, I guess I liked those "juvenile" novels even though I can't remember the names of the characters.

It doesn't surprise me that Krugman finds inspiration in the Foundation series with its focus on an elite group of eggheads manipulating an entire civilization. I enjoyed the novels otherwise.

I read and re-read Stranger in a Strangeland before I left grammer school. Heinlein, along with Harlan Ellison, conveyed an emotional intelligence and a curiosity for (lust for) the exotic that was awe-inspiring even to a prepubescent bleeding heart liberal.
Asimov makes me think of machinery, but Heinlein is flesh and bone.

Agreed on Stanislaw Lem. _Solaris_ (the George Clooney version) is very good and thought provoking. It's probably too much to ask that a Polish science fiction writer ever attain real popularity.

I'm agnostic about how much "good writing" actually helps in science fiction. Current mainstream fiction is pretty conventional and dull, and it seems like a lot of that can be traced to the homogenizing influence of writers workshops and other "good writing" influences. It's also a common career path for science fiction writers that they start out as obsessive fans with burning ideas, write a couple of poorly written books with incredible concepts, then learn to write just as the ideas start to peter out. (Orson Scott Card would be a good example of this -- he's become a much better stylist as he's gotten older, but the ideas behind the work are much tamer than in Ender's Game or the Worthing Saga.)

You guys got almost all my favorites, except

E.E. Smith's Lensman and Skylark series.

H. Beam Piper's Little Fuzzy.

Clarke's Childhood's End

Ray Bradbury's anything.

Andre Norton's Postmarked the Stars (and other Dane Thorssen novels)

and more recent

Marty Steussy's Tiger Tiger (Nortonesque, but grittier)

Loved James Schmitz when I was growing up, and was very surprised to discover that the publication dates were a few decades earlier than I had thought. He had this interesting habit of turning out believable strong female protagonists at a time when most writers were turning out damsels in distress (or badly done strong female protagonists.)

My mother introduced me to Heinlein when I was ten but I didn't get to Asimov until college, something that outraged my mother. "I tried to get you to read Asimov," she said, and then I pointed out that we *owned* the Heinlein, but had to borrow the Asimov from the library. Never heard about that topic again.

Nobody's mentioned Modesitt. I find I prefer his science fiction to his fantasy by a slim margin, and his characters go to the school of Hard Choices, also known as Between a Rock and a Hard Place, or maybe just You're Screwed. They're always debating the morality of their actions, which as I had to explain to someone, is far more interesting than it sounds.

As to what side of the political system THAT puts me on, I guess it's the side of Your Actions Have Immense Consequences, So Choose Carefully.

As for Heinlein vs. Asimov, I think Heinlein's more interesting but I'll take both. And Baxter. And Brin. And C.J. Cherryh. And James Alan Gardner. And... well, that's why my blog is what it is.

Does anyone remember Lester Del Ray? My first science fiction was written by him.

I moved on to Heinlein, and like so many other respondents, favored everything up to Stranger In A Strange Land. I could still read it, but clearly things changed beginning with that one. I've never finished "The Number of the Beast."

Not too many mentions of Ray Bradbury, but maybe he's classified more as Fantasy; I don't know. But I thought his short stories were very original; things you weren't expecting.

Jack Finney wrote one or two. One of them was entitled "I'm Scared," or close that. I'm not including Body Snatchers, though.

I ended up with a sideline as a writer, and had a chance a couple of years before he died to speak to Isaac Asimov on a talk radio show. I took the opportunity primarily to pay my respects to someone who had influenced my intellectual growth and writing ability. After noting that I did write articles, and that the best way to learn to be a good writer is to read good writers; I thanked him. He asked what I wrote. At the time I was a fairly regular contributor to various professional military journals. Dr. Asimov was audibly upset that I was in such a field.

It is important to realize that the first two Foundation books are not really Asimov -- they are his editor's. If you've read the Early Asimov and then compared it to the short stories that became the Foundation "novels" you can see the marked difference.

After that, Asimov is a blend of a very conservative editor's style and his own rather shapeless self. He eventually drifted into his own voice.

As a result, you have a rather militaristic approach to some writing, that eventually fades into his core leftist anti-miliatristic self.

Makes for interesting transitions.

As for RAH, he wrote a novel that did not fly, then spent a couple years on his "first" short story, and then did children's books.

As the audience he obtained with children's books matured, he shifted.

Once he had enough market presence, he went back to the style of his first novel, and basically wrote more on his preference for group sex, libertarian approaches and polyamourous couplings including children, which seems to have not kept his audience terribly well.

It is a really interesting shift.

More interesting than who likes RAH better than Asimov or vice versa is which novels by either a person likes.

and then did children's books.
As the audience he obtained with children's books matured, he shifted.

Um. Heinlein wrote adult novels and short stories all during the 50s when he wrote his juvenile books for Scribners. (i.e. Double Star, Beyond This Horizon, the future history short stories.)

After reading the awful "I will fear no evil" I just couldn't, couldn't, pick up another Heinlein ever again.

"Robert Silverberg too."

Silverberg's the best, if only for (as an atheist) his treatment of themes of religion and spirituality, e.g. "Kingdoms of the Wall" or "Downward to the Earth".

"The culture stories are post-economics. Robots do all the work, and the humans have at best a passing interest in or ability to make things run better."

Yeah, Banks is a anarchistic socialist. However, as everything is actually run by the Minds, people have pointed out that humans in his novels are really pets.

Feersum Enjiin is a great non-Culture novel of his.

'America, with its faults, is a shining beacon of liberty in a statist PC world, and its internal critics remind me of those people who ground Stephen den Beste down."

Fortunately, as an entity, it's less thin-skinned than the tender flesh of SdB.

'Yeah, Banks is a anarchistic socialist. However, as everything is actually run by the Minds, people have pointed out that humans in his novels are really pets.'

Either that or the Minds are what gods should be like. Didn't one of the Minds say something like "We are more like gods, and on the far side." What I can never figure out is why humans don't upgrade to Minds in his stories, or why living longer than 400 years is disreputable.

"Have SpaceSuit: Will Travel" was my first Sci-Fi ever- which I read when I was 13. I then devoured EVERY Heinlein book in the school AND public library collection-although I gotta admit, "If This Goes On" slowed me down a fair bit. It did get the current political situation down, though.
Stranger was a little strange, but I did enjoy it mostly-same with "Glory Road", "Friday" and "JOB". The rest of the later stuff does seem to definately follow Sturgeon's law-90% crap. I still can't believe I made it all the way through "I Will Fear No Evil".
I read Asimov's short stories, liked them well enough, but I couldn't grind through the entire Foundation series-I ended up reading about the first 3 chapters of the first book and then the last one. I did find his later additions readable and did love the movie version of "I, Robot" for its hinting at these new plot developments.
One author I would like to mention is Harry Harrison. The Stainless Steel Rat series is brilliant and I think any one of the books would make an excellent movie.

Argh, where to start? I effectively share Heinlein's hometown (and the setting for innumerable scenes from his books, including big chunks of Time Enough for Love and most of To Sail Beyond the Sunset. I feel a disturbing kinship with John Lyle of If This Goes On --. I am Libertarian and, to the extent that I was inspired to become politically active by any single book, that book was The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

And yet The Foundation Trilogy (and any number of dry, technical pieces by Arthur C. Clarke) captured my imagination in a way that nothing by RAH ever did. I think it's best not to consider this as an either/or, but to view Asimov and Heinlein as two very distinct but also very American types, each with great perceptiveness about some things and big blind spots about others.

Wow. Only two passing mentions of Harlan Ellison?? Only two of Sturgeon??? Only one of Saberhagen???? Not one mention of Dickson??????? You people REALLY need to expand your reading lists. :lol:

Back on topic. I once attempted to read EVERYTHING that Asimov wrote, including his mysteries, chemistry textbooks, _A_Sensuous_Dirty_Old_Man_, and his history of Europe. A truly prolific writer on an incredibly broad range of topics. :) I never read anything of his that I didn't get something useful or enjoyable out of. You can't really appreciate what he was capable of until you read something other than his sci-fi.

I think I did read everything Heinlein ever wrote. Again, I always got something useful out his material. People who claim he became senile in his old age don't understand that he always thought that way. He just couldn't get editorial clearance to publish his ideas.

Case in point: The last 'novel' published was the first one he wrote back in 1939. I say 'novel' in quotes because it's more like an extended discourse on his political, economic, and social theories wrapped in a thin layer of story.

Again, I always walk away from a Heinlein story with something to think about. I may not always agree with him, but he does create some great storylines and images.

PS: I read book after book that Feintuch wrote until I finally realized that the guy must have something seriously wrong with his emotional state. His hero NEVER wins, only loses. Then he cries about it as if he's the only one who ever had to suffer! Frankly, Feintuch's whining finally got to be too much. I felt like I just wanted to smack him one and say, "Quit yer bellyaching and be a man!"

PS. I consider myself to be a small 'c' conservative with very liberal social tendencies. "Keep the government out of my pocketbook and my bedroom!" :)

The answer is no to both of your questions. As you see most Sci-Fi fans liked both Heinlein or Asimov, so can't be much of a predictor. I also enjoyed both authours when young, though i read far more Heinlein than Asimov, and became liberal-libertarian.

I would be curious how the works I enjoyed have aged.

Recently I read "Moon Is..." and "Starship Troopers" for the first time & thought they were weak novels. My favourite work by Heinlein was "Time Enough for Love", but i read it back in high school, so may not have a favourable opinion now.

Have always believed that the Foundation "trilogy" was the great work on Sci-Fi, and have always wished that Asimov did not write Foundation's Edge which i found embarrasing.

Hmmm... nobody's mentioned Steve Perry yet. "The Man Who Never Missed" was pulp, but it was readable pulp... And very libertrarian in some aspects, especially mistrust of the state.

I was never a big Heinlein fan, though I do generally like his pre-"Stranger" stories. I liked Asimov a lot, and especially the "Foundation" trilogy (didn't like his later SF, though -- after he started writing it again in the 70's). Never really thought about the politics of it, just liked the ideas and science. Unlike many of the other commenters, I didn't think Heinlein's writing style was that good; I liked Asimov's better.

Of the "big three", my favorite was Arthur C. Clarke, though. I thought (and still do) that he was by far the most imaginative of them, and had some truly remarkable ideas (like "Against the Fall of Night" or "Childhood's End").

A real favorite of mine who hasn't been mentioned yet is Alexei Panshin. It's a real shame he wrote so little.

I would group myself with the small-l libertarians.

I've read everything by Heinlein except for the reprint of his very first novel, though I have bought it. I've also read all of Asimov's SF and a fair amount of his non-fiction. As someone else noted it's not about a favorite writer (Frankly, I couldn't pick one.) but what do you like best of theirs. My favorites of Heinlein's in descending order are Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Citizen of the Galaxy, Tunnel in the Sky and Glory Road. One of my favorite SF convention memories was describing to George R.R. Martin my picture of the opening scene of a movie adaptation of Tunnel in the Sky and the following discussion about whether or not it should be a movie, mini-series or basis for a series. George wanted to do a series and had in fact looked into getting the rights which he described as a nightmarish legal tangle where I thought it should be left as a movie or mini-series. I notice that no one has mentioned Asimov's The Gods Themselves which many (including myself) consider his best novel. But it's true that Asimov's strength lay in ideas, not characters.

I've been reading SF for as long as I can remember (The beginning being superhero and SF comic books when I was 3. My mom said 3 while I definitely remembered as far back as 4.). My home library has over 5000 books, 2/3rds of which is SF. I've read pretty much every writer that's been mentioned here and many that haven't. I take the attitude that all but the worst of them have something to offer.

P.S. Hey, Jay, we're practically neighbors.

There's a contrast between Foundation etc. and The End of Eternity also by Asimov. In TEoE, all of history is planned by Planners who really are all-wise because they have time travel and can see what the effects of their actions will be ... and they still manage to make a mess of things.

The obnoxious part of the Foundation series (a small group planning society supposedly for the common good) can also be found in the Lensman series, or in Slan, or in Childhood's End, or ...

Liked both, with an emotional preference for Heinlein and an intellectual preference for Asimov. Politically moderate libertarian.

Asimov by a mile.

For my political views, read anything by Jane Galt.

John Varley was pretty good, until recently.

I'm a 50-ish mainstream conservative, raised by Unitarian parents who had me picketing in the late 1950's.

Forbidden from watching weekday TV until 1969, I devoured all the SF I could fine. Heinlein juveniles were superb. Three favorites: Glory Road, Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Starship Troopers. Read the latter at 13 and liked it. Read it after basic training in the Army and understood it.

Asimov was OK, and I thought his finest contribution was the three laws of robotics. Mixed bag on his story telling, and I've never had the urge to reread anything he wrote, in direct contrast to Heinlein.

Liked Dune, A Canticle for Liebowitz, the Stainless Steel Rat series, The Mote in God's Eye, Stand on Zanzibar, and many others. (I don't think Stand on Zanzibar was particularly leftist. When I think about it now, it seems to have foreshadowed a lot of the late 80's.)

For some quick fun, check out a short story collection by Spider Robinson, called Callahan's Cross Time Saloon. It's a whacked out combination of Cheers and Heinlein.

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