Another new Heinlein novel!

This great news was posted on alt.fan.heinlein:

Brethren and sistren, I've been saying for thirty years now that shared joy increases. If so, we're all gonna be neck-deep in the stuff in a second. I am collaborating on a novel with Robert A. Heinlein. No, really. I have just been given final approval by the Heinlein Trust to write a novel based on a detailed outline created by Robert in 1955. It will be billed as "Robert A. Heinlein's VARIABLE STAR, by Spider Robinson." The book proposal is even now being prepared for market by my (and Robert's) agent Eleanor Wood. The first 10,000 words are already written. I don't suppose any of you need to be told what this means to me, nor could I express it. Honoured . terrified . exhilarated . all those are in there, and more. Some writers enjoy writing. I'm the other kind: I enjoy *having written*. But these last few weeks, for almost the first time in thirty years, the writing itself has been a pure and holy joy. Which I share now with you. Wish me luck. --Spider Robinson

Spider is known to one and all as the creator of the Callahan's Bar series (my favorites), and he also penned a chapter in "Requiem." He's a member of The Heinlein Society and will do a wonderful job. I can barely contain myself waiting for publication of the recently discovered first Heinlein novel, 'For Us, The Living."

Powered armor in the news

Courtesy of this article about the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA):

One such DARPA effort - Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation - could transform today's infantry "grunts" into high-tech supersoldiers similar to those imagined by Robert Heinlein's 1959 science-fiction classic Starship Troopers. The $40 million program - already midway through its six-year run - is experimenting with power suits meant to increase by orders of magnitude the toughness and lethality of the average foot soldier. DARPA's plans call for the exoskeleton to be built around a "haptic interface," a series of sensors distributed throughout the suit to read and amplify even the smallest of human muscle movements. According to the agency's Web site, soldiers encased in this futuristic battle armor will be able to "handle more firepower, wear more ballistic protection, carry larger-caliber weapons and more ammunition, and carry supplies greater distances." They might also be able to jump to extreme heights and even fly short distances. Peter Parker's "spidey sense" is tingling just thinking about it. The exoskeleton research has met with at least a few notable, if modest, successes. At the University of California (Berkeley) Human Engineering Laboratory, a team of researchers has built what might ultimately become the legs of tomorrow's robo-warrior. According to the lab's Web site, the "Lower Extremity Enhancer" gives its owner the "ability to carry weights on the order of 120 pounds over any sort of terrain for extended periods of time without undue effort."

Good space blog

Visit The Eternal Golden Braid, a Blogspot site operated by recent commentor Fred Kiesche. It's got a ton of posts about space, space exploration and the Golden Age of science fiction. No wonder he visits heinleinblog.

Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, (1910-2003) publisher of Heinlein works

From Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America:

Lloyd Arthur Eshbach died Oct. 29 at 3:50 a.m. in the Evangelical Congregational Church Retirement Village in Myerstown, PA where he had resided since March 2001. Born June 20, 1910 in Palm, Pennsylvania, Eshbach, grew up in Reading. He discovered science fiction at age 15 and began writing letters to the magazines, then his own stories. In 1929, the third story he wrote sold to Science Wonder Stories. Continuing to write stories and articles, Lloyd briefly published two magazines in the early 1930s, Marvel Tales and The Galleon. In 1946 he founded Fantasy Press a small press which published the work of authors such as E. E. Smith, Jack Williamson, Robert Heinlein and John W. Campbell Jr.

From Locus Online:

He was best known as a publisher, having founded Fantasy Press in 1946, one of the earliest small presses that preserved in book form novels and stories first published in the early SF magazines, including works by A.E. van Vogt, John W. Campbell, L. Sprague de Camp, Stanley G. Weinbaum, and P. Schuyler Miller, as well as the first nonfiction book about science fiction, an anthology of essays titled Of Worlds Beyond: The Science of Science Fiction Writing (1947) with contributions from Robert A. Heinlein, Jack Williamson, Edward E. Smith Ph.D., and others.

Heinlein-esque manga

From an Anime News Network review:

So the question then becomes, just what is Five Star Stories? As the title suggests, the storyline revolves around the various political, military, and social interactions within a galaxy of five stars and six inhabitable planets. More so than most other manga, it draws on two Western traditions, that of the “future history” and of the realist novel of the 19th century. The “future history” genre, seen in the science fiction writings of authors like Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Cordwainer Smith, establishes a timeline of human development for thousands of years from a given start point; stories illustrate both the everyday and the truly enormous events over a span of thousands of years.

For those who don't know, manga refers to Japanese comic books, characterized by characters with exaggerated eyes and larger-than-normal heads. It's a very cartoonish style, but sometimes with very sophisticated storylines. I'm not sure that Heinlein could be adapted very easily to comic book format. I think some of the juveniles could be done, maybe "Starship Troopers."

Director Jon Davison, quoted on Ain't It Cool News (WARNING: slow server):

Having just done “Starship Troopers 2” a direct to DVD title, I can only equate the experience to making drive-in exploitation movies in the 70's for Roger Corman. Fast, cheap and with little adult supervision. Most studio movies experience a lot of "input" from executives and are tooled for a broad market. The classic drive-in movies were solely the product of whoever was standing near the camera. Perhaps the direct to titles are the equivalent of today's B pictures; to be approached with lower expectations in the hope of finding little gems. I'm too close to it really judge it at this point but I think people will be surprised at the quality of the special effects. Some of the shots are better than most of the ones in the summer movies. I'm very interested in hearing what the fans say on the internet after they see it. The reaction to this movie will exist only on the internet. It will be reviewed in very few hardcopy rags. It's really a web only movie. And as we all know, some of these fans can be brutal.

I don't even own the DVD to the first monstrosity. Looks like I won't be buying this one either.

Gravity is a harsh mistress

From Space.com:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Safely back on the ground in Kazakhstan, NASA astronaut Ed Lu enjoys a well earned nap aboard a Russian helicopter in this image captured by NASA photographer Bill Ingalls and released by the space agency today. Lu and fellow Expedition Seven crewmember Yuri Malenchenko landed on the Kazakh steppes at 9:41 p.m. EST on Oct. 27, having spent 185 days in space. Also on board was European Space Agency astronaut Pedro Duque.

Lu has to be feeling a bit of what Mannie and Prof. de la Paz felt when they experienced Earth's gravity for the first time.