Notes on the upcoming monster-sized authorized Heinlein biography

Over on Tor.com, senior editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden has some notes on the upcoming monster authorized Heinlein biography, whose first volume, Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1 (1907-1948): Learning Curve goes on sale on August 17th. I've been ploughing through my advance copy as quickly as I can. It's exhaustive and often exhilarating, and rewards close attention and perseverance, as when twenty pages of close detail on life in the US Navy in the 1920s turns out to be scene-setting for an erotic account of Heinlein's time among the free-love set in Greenwich Village while on shore leave.

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.

The Heinlein Biography Approacheth: An Announcement, some Pointers, and a digressive Disquisition on the Nuanced Differences between two Web Sites sharing in common a certain Widely-Recognized Brand