Monday, March 25, 2019

Greg Benford on Robert Heinlein

Aaron emails to point out a very interesting interview at Wired.  It seems that Greg Benford knew everyone.

It seems that Heinlein was a good shot.

6 comments:

Beans said...

Not surprising, and he expresses his love for John Moses Browning's 1911 platform in several of his books and stories.

Can't remember what story, but RAH wrote about a society that people could be armed, and it being in the future, used ray-guns or such. One complete anachronist had a 1911 made, in JMB's own caliber, and proceeded to whack a bunch of people with it during a surprise uprising of badthink.

Unknown said...

American Rifleman at one point ran a brief article (with photo) about RAH's personal 1903 Springfield.

There's a quote in the article: "I want to keep that Springfield (with plenty of ammo in the house) as long as there is any chance that I might need it to shoot commies."

==Dwight

.45ACP+P said...

I have long known of a connection between Heinlein and a 1903 Springfield rifle. It was considered one of his treasures.

Atom Smasher said...

@beans The novel you're thinking of is Beyond This Horizon, published in 1942. The character in question enthusiastically describes the anachronistic 1911 to his friend with "and it makes a hole big enough to throw a small dog through" which is my favorite description of anything "gun", ever.

Reg T said...

Beans - the novel was _Beyond This Horizon_ The character who preferred the 1911A was the main character, Hamilton Felix. Good book. I've read them all, and even his juvenile novels were pretty good.

Reg T said...

Sorry, Atom. I didn't read down before seeing that you had already nailed it.