It probably comes from how much of his early stuff was short fiction
So I was talking to @gewt about Job: A Comedy of Justice and I came up with a theory that I think explains why Heinlein's late-period work is so kinda-terrible and why I still enjoy it so much

It probably comes from how much of his early stuff was short fiction
Rule One: You Must Write
Rule Two: Finish What Your Start
Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market
Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold
I still love all of these books. I still enjoy them!
But at the same time, each of those little pieces of the plot? they're okay. not great, but okay.
So I think that's why I still enjoy these books. On the small scale, close up, they're fun.
his approach to writing was very much You Sit Down and you Write The Thing and you tell your agent Publish This Thing and if they come back "The Editor says Fix X" then you Fix X, otherwise you Move On To The Next Thing.
They're terrible, yes, but only in the bigger picture. They're the sci-fi literature equivalent of the "popcorn flick"
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This is ridiculous. Students were asked for their views on this example and several others. The study findings and conclusions were about student responses not the substance of each case. Could\u2019ve used hypotheticals. The responses not the cases were the basis of the conclusions.
— Eric Kaufmann (@epkaufm) February 17, 2021
Here is the incident Kaufmann incorporated into his study, as told by a Cardiff professor who was there. As you can see, the incident involved the university intervening to *uphold* free speech principles:
The UK govt\u2019s paper on free speech in Unis (with implications for Wales) is getting a lot of attention.
— Richard Wyn Jones (@RWynJones) February 16, 2021
Worth noting then that an important part of the evidence-base on which it rests relates to (demonstrably false) claims about my own institution
1/https://t.co/buoGE7ocG7
Here is the first mention of the Greer at Cardiff incident in Kaufmann's report. It refers to the "concrete case" of the "no-platforming of Germaine Greer". Any reasonable reader would assume that refers to an incident of no-platforming instead of its opposite.

Here is the next mention of Greer in the report. The text asks whether the University "should have overruled protestors" and "stepped in...and guaranteed Greer the right to speak". Again the strong implication is that this did not happen and Greer was "no platformed".

The authors could easily have added a footnote at this point explaining what actually happened in Cardiff. They did not.
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Like company moats, your personal moat should be a competitive advantage that is not only durable—it should also compound over time.
Characteristics of a personal moat below:
I'm increasingly interested in the idea of "personal moats" in the context of careers.
— Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) November 22, 2018
Moats should be:
- Hard to learn and hard to do (but perhaps easier for you)
- Skills that are rare and valuable
- Legible
- Compounding over time
- Unique to your own talents & interests https://t.co/bB3k1YcH5b
2/ Like a company moat, you want to build career capital while you sleep.
As Andrew Chen noted:
People talk about \u201cpassive income\u201d a lot but not about \u201cpassive social capital\u201d or \u201cpassive networking\u201d or \u201cpassive knowledge gaining\u201d but that\u2019s what you can architect if you have a thing and it grows over time without intensive constant effort to sustain it
— Andrew Chen (@andrewchen) November 22, 2018
3/ You don’t want to build a competitive advantage that is fleeting or that will get commoditized
Things that might get commoditized over time (some longer than
Things that look like moats but likely aren\u2019t or may fade:
— Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) November 22, 2018
- Proprietary networks
- Being something other than one of the best at any tournament style-game
- Many "awards"
- Twitter followers or general reach without "respect"
- Anything that depends on information asymmetry https://t.co/abjxesVIh9
4/ Before the arrival of recorded music, what used to be scarce was the actual music itself — required an in-person artist.
After recorded music, the music itself became abundant and what became scarce was curation, distribution, and self space.
5/ Similarly, in careers, what used to be (more) scarce were things like ideas, money, and exclusive relationships.
In the internet economy, what has become scarce are things like specific knowledge, rare & valuable skills, and great reputations.