Heinlein Wrote Fantasy?
It's true, the master of hard-SF wrote a few fantasy stories.
New Troy has a review by Robert Wilfred Franson of The Man Who Traveled in Elephants, one of Heinlein's fantasies (collected here and here).
Franson points to this vignette shared by Spider Robinson about the story in Requiem: and Tributes to the Grand Master:
[Says Robinson, presenting a battered old paperback for Heinlein to autograph]: "Mr. Heinlein, sir, I fetched this particular book because it contains my single personal all-time favorite story of yours of all time, sir."
He is used to people gibbering at him; he nods and waits politely. "It's called 'The Man Who Traveled in Elephants' --" and his face sags slightly and I panic oh hell what did I say wrong fix it fix it "-- I mean, hell, that's just my opinion, who am I --" and then I break off, because whatever he is doing with his face is the opposite of frowning.
"That," he says slowly, "is my personal favorite--and no one's ever had a nice word to say for it until now."
As they say, read the whole thing.
Posted by JohnL at March 29, 2004 11:01 PM