On August 17, Tor Books will publish the first half of William H. Patterson’s much-anticipated two-volume authorized biography of Robert A. Heinlein, Robert A. Heinlein In Dialogue with His Century: Volume I, Learning Curve, 1907-1948. In commemoration of this, Tor editor Stacy Hague-Hill has asked several of the great and the good of modern SF to identify their own favorite Heinlein novel and explain why. I’ve read all the pieces she got back, and they may intrigue and surprise you. They’re going up on the Tor/Forge blog, one a week, beginning with David Brin’s.
Wait, “Tor/Forge blog”? Then what are you reading right now, you very reasonably ask? What you’re reading is Tor.com, a unit of Macmillan USA set up to be a venue for original fiction, comics, and discussion of the entire field of SF and fantasy, in all media and from all sources. Tor.com is run by a small group of Macmillan employees, not all of whom work for Tor Books. Tor/Forge’s blog is run entirely by Tor employees, and it exists to unabashedly promote and draw attention to books published by Tor, Forge, and other imprints of the Macmillan-owned-publishing-company-known-officially-as-Tom-Doherty-Associates-LLC-but-unofficially-to-most-people-as-just-plain-Tor-Books. (Say that fast six times while standing on your head.) A lot of the Tor/Forge blog’s content is mirrored from the monthly Tor Books email newsletter (which you can subscribe to here), but it also features material, such as the pieces making up Stacy’s weekly Heinlein series, that’s unique to the blog itself.
Meanwhile, you ask, isn’t Tor.com planning to do something of its own to tie in with the imminent publication of Patterson’s massive Heinlein biography? Why yes, in fact, we are. And we’ll tell you about it as the book’s release approaches. Watch the skies.
