From: wolfe@wolves.uucp (G. Wolfe Woodbury)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Authorship/Creativity (was: Pagan Fiction)
Date: 26 Aug 92 04:25:04 GMT
Reply-To: wolfe@wolves.durham.nc.us
Organization: Red Wolfe @ The Wolves Den
X-Md4-Signature: dbc36d6058141c34c95c88bb57e2cebd

<11190029@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM> reykja@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Reykja Sigurdsson) writes:
>
>          I think he wanted to present some ideas and did an effective 
>job of that. After all, he discussed things in some of his books whihc
>were just plain unacceptable at the time they were published. He talked
>about polyamory in Love Is ....(Can't recall the rest of the title. I 
>read it too long ago.) 

	"Time Enough for Love" (The Notebooks of Lazarus Long)
	IMO the beginning of Heinlein's recognition of his own mortality and
an attempt to get his cosmological house in order.

>         Revolt in 2100 had a lot to do with freedom of thought and, in
>that regard, he was anything but militaristic. I think he definitely wants
>to promote libertarian ideas though. 

	Well, individualism, if not real libertarianism.  As near as I can
tell, Heinlein had little respect for Ann Rynd (sp?) and the
"libertarian manifesto" of _Atlas_Shrugged_.   The main thrust of the
final books was that of Authorship.

>         Anyone read "Job"? That was a very interesting idea -- that all
>the dieties are on some planet somewhere -- sort of a 'free market' of 
>religious ideas and they are competing for followers. 
>
>         Who knows? Maybe it really is that way and we are all just
>'potential customers." ;-) 

	Just a wee bit scrambled.  The point was that the various
universes that "humans" inhabit may be nothing more than works of
"art" by some higher order race.  The premise was that any
particularly strong work of creation inspires or effect an actual
creation of that world somewhere in a matrix of dimensions.

	The theme was well developed in _The_Number_of_the_Beast_
where a physicist/inventor develops a mechanism whereby the occupants
of the (artificially intelligent) car in which it is installed can
visit these other universes. [The device utilizes a set of six axes to
organize these universes, and the number of combinations was 6**6**6.
where ** represents exponentiation.]  Among other universes that were
located, Oz, Lilliput, and Middle Earth.

	In _Job,_A_Comedy_of_Justice_, the poor shnook protagonist is
developed as a "fall guy" for "Yahweh", who this time around, fails to
gain the interest of "Lucifer" to be the "tormentor."   Failing to get
the "Satan" into the act, the antagonist is "Loki".   (The quotes are
there to emphasize that they are characters, not what some might
perceive as figures from the mythical reality of life.)

	It turns into a theological treatise on the conception of
"Authorship" when it turns out that these "gods" have a set of
standards by which their works are comparitively judged, and
"Yahweh's" work is pointed out to be of poor quality.

	In either _To_Sail_Beyond_the_Sunset, or _The_Cat_Who_Walks_
Through_Walls_,  Lazarus Long sets up an organization that manipulates
these alternative realities so that he can rescue his mother.  To do
so, he has to borrow characters from _The_Rolling_Stones_ and
_The_Moon_is_a_Harsh_Mistress and graft them onto his Methusela's
Children _History_of_the_Universe_ cosmology.

	The ending of _The_Number_of_the_Beast ties all sorts of silly
stuff into one glitzy, mushy, oddly happy ending.

	This is, of course, the particular slant I have on his works.
There was/is a trend for some of the SF "greats" to create "closure"
on their universes.  Heinlein did it, and Asimov managed to tie the
"Robots" and "The Foundation" universes together.  (Who came first? I
don't particularly care!)  Other authors have been also careful to
ensure that all their works can be tied together in a "consistent"
universe.  Anne McCaffrey managed to tie Pern back into some of the
other universes that she had written in, and even into someone elses
universe (MZB's Darkover?)

	The whole thing sort of ties in with my somewhat mushy
concepts of "creation" as the earmark of "divinity" that I mentioned
in the post on "technopagans"  (Did anyone see that? I'm a little
non-plussed that there were no followups or comments!  Is this post
getting seen?)

[Personal note:  I'm so glad this group is here!  I'm running into a
depressive phase of my M/D cycle, and this group is one of the current
anchors that helps me stay oriented!  Blessings on you ALL for just
being here.  Wolfe]
-- 
G. Wolfe Woodbury @ The Wolves Den UNIX, Durham NC         [use the maps!]
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