I can definitely echo the others opinions on the speed of the chapters. I kept purposefully not reading the book so I would have something to say when the thread rolled around, but it just lead to me being completely out of sync. This is very arbitrary, but I think if we were doing 6 chapters per week it would fit better. Idk though, everyone reads at a different speed.
I was 3 chapters ahead most of the time, now I'm 3 chapters behind because I ended up a little too enthralled with other books.
I found the bit where they got him to explain his marriage as a pretense for arresting him one of the most human interactions I've ever read. "Yes, tell us more about your 'customs', we just need you to admit to breaking laws once more, and look into the camera while you do it..."
I love the complete sham of a congress they set up to be "elected", reminds me of ours. It was also wonderful to see him immediately realize "Wait, we fed the results of the election into Mike, and I'm supposed to trust that even remotely?".
Then Heinlein calls "tricking the other side into striking first" as the "pearl harbor" stategy, holy mother of based revisionist history I didn't expect that. Even when I talk to people about false flags and pretense for war, they much more easily accept chicanery around WW1 than WW2.
Really liked the Profs speech on government and tradition and taxes, very anarchist. The only thing better than that was them following up and telling him "Well, if that's the constitution you want, you're going to need to be king to create it". The ways Heinlein flits between anarchy and monarchy while treating democracy as a tool to fool the people, feels like the most modern thing about the book.
It feels like Heinlein is constantly avoiding describing combat, chapter 23 was so short! I can't blame him though, violence is always hard to write.
I wish I had read this before reading The Expanse, I would have been far less impressed by the idea of throwing meteors.
Especially for how early it was in the days of spaceflight, Heinlein always kept his orbital mechanics very scientifically accurate.
I can definitely echo the others opinions on the speed of the chapters. I kept purposefully not reading the book so I would have something to say when the thread rolled around, but it just lead to me being completely out of sync. This is very arbitrary, but I think if we were doing 6 chapters per week it would fit better. Idk though, everyone reads at a different speed.
I was 3 chapters ahead most of the time, now I'm 3 chapters behind because I ended up a little too enthralled with other books.
I found the bit where they got him to explain his marriage as a pretense for arresting him one of the most human interactions I've ever read. "Yes, tell us more about your 'customs', we just need you to admit to breaking laws once more, and look into the camera while you do it..."
I love the complete sham of a congress they set up to be "elected", reminds me of ours. It was also wonderful to see him immediately realize "Wait, we fed the results of the election into Mike, and I'm supposed to trust that even remotely?".
Then Heinlein calls "tricking the other side into striking first" as the "pearl harbor" stategy, holy mother of based revisionist history I didn't expect that. Even when I talk to people about false flags and pretense for war, they much more easily accept chicanery around WW1 than WW2.
Really liked the Profs speech on government and tradition and taxes, very anarchist. The only thing better than that was them following up and telling him "Well, if that's the constitution you want, you're going to need to be king to create it". The ways Heinlein flits between anarchy and monarchy while treating democracy as a tool to fool the people, feels like the most modern thing about the book.
It feels like Heinlein is constantly avoiding describing combat, chapter 23 was so short! I can't blame him though, violence is always hard to write.
I wish I had read this before reading The Expanse, I would have been far less impressed by the idea of throwing meteors.
Robert Heinlein is unfathomably based.
Got it