Robert Heinlein - Grumbles From the Grave

...I told you about a week ago that I had finished the basic cutting on Man from Mars. In the meantime, I have hud a squad of high school girls count the manuscript, word by word, and totted up the results on an adding machine. The manuscript is now 160,083 words-and I mn tempted to type those excess eighty-three words on a poKicard...

I urn a bit disappointed as my estimates as I went along Imd led me to believe that I would finish up at around 155.000 words and then I could even sweat off most or all of another 5,000 words and turn it over to Putnam's Ml 150.000, which I know would please them better. But

I don't see any possibility of that now; the story is now as tight as a wedge in a green stump and, short of completely recasting it and rewriting it, I can't get it much tighter. I have rewritten and cut drastically in the middle part where Mr. Minton [at Putnam's] felt it was slow, and I have cut every word, every sentence, every paragraph which I felt could be spared in the beginning and the ending. As it is, it is cut too much in parts-the style is rather "telegraphese," somewhat jerky-and I could very handily use a couple of thousand words of "lubrication," words put back in to make the style more graceful and readable.

The truth is that it is the most complex story I have ever written, a full biography from birth to death, with the most complex plot and with the largest number of fully drawn characters. It needs to be told at the length of Anthony Adverse (which ran 575,000 words!): I am surprised that I have managed to sweat it down to 160,000.

My typist is now completing the third quarter of the ms. She is able to work for me only evenings and weekends; if her health holds up, I expect that she will finish about 12 to 15 February. In the meantime, I will work on further cutting and revision and should be able to eliminate a few words-more than a thousand but less than five thousand. If my typist finishes on time I will expect to deliver the manuscript to you by Monday the 20th of February (I doubt if you will want to reread it, but you may want to see how I have revised the sex scene that you were bothered about). That will give Putnam's in excess of three weeks more margin on production time in order to publish on or before the Science Fiction Convention in Seattle 2-4 September 1961. Or they can, if they wish, use the three weeks to read it and bung it back to me for revision of anything they don't like-and still keep their production schedule. I can't do extensive cutting in that time but I can certainly revise a scene or two, if needed.

March 17, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I 've just been talking to Mr. Cady at Putnam's. He tells me that Doubleday wants to issue my Sex and Jesus book us a SF book club choice and as an alternate for some other non-SF book club. Little as I like the Doubleday SF book club, I enthusiastically okayed this plan as it makes almost certain that Putnam's will make their nut and a bit of profit even if the trade edition doesn't do very well-which has been my principal worry. However, Mr. Cady seems to think that these book club sales will materially enhance the trade book sales-also, he teems to have great confidence in the book (more than I have) -- I hope he's right.

This change in plans will result, he tells me, in the book being sold by Doubleday as their June offering, with trade book publication as soon as possible, probably early July.

The final title will be set on Monday afternoon (Cady will phone me) and, Lurton, you are invited and urged to suggest titles-direct to him is simplest. (I assume that this letter will reach you in the early Monday mail.) The titles now in the running are: The Heretic

The Sound of His Wings (which has an SF tie-in through my "Future History" chart without being tagged as "science fiction" in the minds of the general public. All of these titles have been picked to permit the book to be sold as a mainstream novel, "Philosophical Fantasy" or some such.) A Sparrow Falls Born Unto Trouble (Job 5:7) That Forbidden Tree (Milton) Of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:17)

EDITOR'S NOTE: At this date, no one recalls just who came up with the Stranger in a Strange Land title.

*'

ECHOES FROM STRANGER

EDITOR 's NOTE: Putnam 's sales on Stranger were not very Hood during the first year after publication. It went immediately into the book club edition, a two-year contract, and there was a second two-year book club contract. In the second year following publication, it was out in a paperback edition from Avon. Sales went from humdrum to medium to spectacular. This book turned out to be a "sleeper. " Only word-of-mouth advertising could have accounted for this. At this time, it has been in trade edition for many years, still selling enough copies to make it worthwhile for the publisher to keep it in print. And it still \flls merrily in the paperback edition, which is now with 4

October 9, 1966: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Herewith is -- 's letter to you re dramatizing Stranger. I have no idea what is proper and reasonable in this matter and will continue to leave it entirely up to your judgment. But I'm beginning to think that additional rights to Stranger, such as stage, TV, and movies, might someday be worth something-possibly through Ned Brown, possibly through other channels. The fan mail on this book has been steadily increasing instead of decreasing and it clearly is enjoying quite a lot of word-of-mouth advertising. I recently learned that it was considered the "New Testament" -- and compulsory reading-of a far-out cult called "Kerista." (Kee-mf!) I don't know exactly what "Kerista" is, but its L.A. chapter offered me a $100 fee to speak. (I turned them down.) And just this past week I was amazed to discover a full-page and very laudatory review of Stranger in (swelp me!) a slick nudist magazine-with the review featured on the cover...And there is an organization in the mountain states called "Serendipity, Inc.," which has as its serious purpose the granting of scholarships-but which has taken over "water sharing" and other phrases from the book as lodge slogans, sorta. Or something. And there is this new magazine of criticism, GROK-l have not seen it yet but it is advertised in the Village Voice. And almost daily I am getting letters from people who insist on looking at me as some sort of a spiritual adviser. (I fight shy of them!) All in all, the ripples are spreading amazingly-and Cady may be right in thinking that the book could be exploited in other media. (I'll settle for cash at the bedside; I want no part of the cults.)

November 6, 1966: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I think I mentioned to you that the Esalen Institute wants me to lead a seminar late in June on "Religion in the Space Age," along with Alan Watts, the Zen Buddhist writer, and an Episcopalian priest. It takes just one weekend, and the place (Big Sur) is near here, and the fee ($500) is satisfactory. Nevertheless I probably will not accept, as I do not see how I could take part without mortally offending both the priest and the Zen Buddhist. I'll negotiate it directly by telephone to the director, as I am reluctant to state my real misgivings bluntly in a letter.

December 22, 1966: Lurton Blassingame to Virginia Heinlein

...and to receive the Grok buttons. Might be news release to give additional stimulus to book.

April 15, 1967: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

More about Stranger --

My brother Rex queried the shopkeeper from whom he had purchased several sorts of Stranger buttons, was told: "There are about a dozen different suppliers." He went on to say that one of them was a girl who was working her way through college making these buttons (no doubt other sorts than Stranger buttons).

This afternoon (now Sunday evening) a sculptor, -- of Los Gatos, called on us-to. show us a figure he had just completed in bronze of the death of the Martian named Smith. He asked permission to bring it over at once as he was taking it to his agent in San Francisco in negotiating a commission for an heroic-size crucifixion job for a church. ( -- is a successful sculptor, not a starving artist.) But [he] wanted me to see it first.