Cyril Maithily Gupta's Blog

Farnham’s Freehold from Robert A Heinlein has upset me a little. Robert Heinlein finds it very hard to be uncontroversial I guess. He apparently wrote every book with a mission to show a different and not necessarily beautiful facet of this world.

It says on the cover of this book that it is science-fiction’s ‘Most controversial novel’. Most controversial? I don’t think it deserves that title, there have been others with more dangerous themes. But it certainly would have been very controversial in the 60s when it was written. But I think it was controversial for all the wrong reasons.

Back in the 60s when the black people of America had only just gained a better standing in the society, a novel like Farnham’s Freehold which turns racism head-over-heels would certainly cause a ruckus. After all which white person could come to terms with a society of black rulers who have mindless white slaves who they consider animals and have doctors called ‘vets’ to treat them. Heinlein’s concoction was a slap on the face to white-supremacists. It was a mirror of the most ugly sorts showing them what they were by exaggerating the treatment they mete out to blacks, only this time the recipients were white.

So it was controversial and it had more than a few people fuming and damning. But that’s not what got my goose. Living in India and in this millennia, I am a bit immune to color-racism, but living in India there is a different picture of family that I have. I think people totally missed that point. They totally didn’t bring family into picture when they struck up a controversy. The family portrayed in Heinlein’s book is more than dysfunctional, it’s a victim. It’s a victim of an overbearing, ego-maniacal, paranoid father figure who apparently doesn’t give a damn about the rest of the people in the family even though he pretends to think that he does. That guy is also the book’s protagonist.

Only in a Heinlein book can a protagonist be so vile, disgusting, selfish, uncaring, and totally get away with it. I didn’t feel much sympathy for the lead in the novel at all even though Heinlein made an effort to make him seem fair and just in many places. But that’s a useless sort of a complain, because why should anyone expect any lead character of any book to be a moral example?

Leaving the characters be, the most interesting aspect of the book is how it compares the contemporary civilization with a possible future, and how the customs and rituals of the imaginary civilization seem so horrific while our own savage and unfair practices can be easily ignored.

Going back two thousand years we are appalled at the savagery of human civilization. Heinlein makes you appalled at the savagery two thousand years on, while the people in the future of Heinlein’s book are just as appalled at ours.

I received ‘The Orphans of the Sky’ by R A Heinlein yesterday. The book is pretty small, pocket-book sized. It didn’t take me long to finish it off again. Again because I have read it once earlier a long time ago and didn’t remember the title so I ordered it again.

I am left with a deep sense of dissatisfaction not because the book was not good, but because I could remember the story before it unfolded and by ordering a book that I had already read earlier I missed reading a fresh Heinlein book. But on to the review:

The book is about a giant spaceship that has set sail for a distant star. It’s apparently a slower than light generations ship because too many years have passed. The residents of the ship have forgotten their origins and believe the ship is the entire world. Operating the ship has become a religion and the society has re-structured itself in accordance. The manuals of the ship’s operation are relics of the past, and hardly anybody understands physics anymore.

Adding to the complexities is a bunch of human beings mutated by radiation who’re outcasts from the society and live hiding in the unexplored areas of the ship. The story is about how one man discovers the truth and prods others to accept and take the ship to its destiny. He is not a politician unfortunately and fails in the game of power. He and some of his friends make it to a habitable planet, but most of the other residents of the ship are still ‘making the trip’.

This is an adventure story by Heinlein, but yet again the book reminded me of the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. It’s humorous only in parts, but the character Joe-Jim, a two-headed mutant of the story is quite like ‘Zaphod’ of Hitch-hiker’s guide to the galaxy. It is easy to see that Douglas Adams did base Zaphod on Joe-Jim. Zaphod has the same disrespect for others and disproportionate sense of self-worth just like Joe-Jim.

Heinlein has been inspiration to too many people. I can be no exception. I am a big fan of Heinlein’s writing style and I guess I’ve consciously or unconsciously used that style in my own writing. But more than that not a long time ago I had begun writing a fresh story that I called ‘Savants All’, which was also about a bunch of people who are trying to make a similar long journey, but they are immortal humans. The story was about their expectations, disappointments, a trip back home, and a war that was on a brink of being lost. I haven’t finished that story yet. But I hope I will one day.

I’ve been developing packaged software for most of my working life, my transition to web was late but it seems permanent because I am enjoying web development like I’ve never enjoyed it before. Thanks in parts to ASP.Net MVC that finally allowed me to take web development seriously.

Coming from the packaged application world, one difference I am enjoying very much is that a website gives a developer much more flexibility than a packaged app does. If I find a bug I can fix it now and all my users are updated immediately. I can take a website online earlier and allow the initial users to beta test it for me, telling me what’s wrong so that I can fix it.

In packaged software once you ship you’re done. At least for a while. Testing is a tougher job, and shipping is even tougher with all those installation issues that crop up. Updating the app is also very difficult and you’ve got to make it opt-in. It’s also costlier. On the Internet users expect to upgrade and flow with the changes but not on the desktop.

As a developer I find the net a more liberating platform because it puts me in control. Of course there’s a heightened security risk to take care of but there’s no piracy!

I’ve found myself working, improving, fixing web applications that I made a year ago, and I can immediately bring the fix online. That way it seems that a website application project seems to have no end in the development cycle. Which is not only fun, but keeps people like me in demand.