The Heinlein Project

[editrx]

I would be curious to hear from people as to their honest opinions about the quality of the first seven volumes of the complete works of Heinlein that came out from Meisha Merlin (if they have direct experience of them). Please, no trollish comments, just real ones. I don't have an opinion here, I just wonder about people's experience of the books

Comments

[bevhale]

I'm torn. On the one hand, I think anyone who touches a Heinlein to change it is evil. On the other hand, if you are looking to add readers you are much younger, some of the old spellings might be disconcerting.

I love Heinlein, I have all the originals and I love them. I'd buy them just to have all the Heinleins in one place, and I doubt that antiquated spelling would bother me.

[redbird]

On the one hand, I think anyone who touches a Heinlein to change it is evil.

Few if any of his books or stories were published exactly as they came from his typewriter, of course. There are plausible arguments either way, but I don't think "Campbell and Tarrant good, all more recent editors evil" works.

[bevhale]

true, and I know that most writers (myself included) need editors. But I've read both versions of Podkayne and I like Heinlein's version better. I'm not so much bothered by changes in spelling, but I worry about copyeditors who try to improve a book---sometimes it's more about their own writing than the author's.

[editrx]

These are supposed to be "definitive" editions. Scholarly, in fact.

[editrx]

Ah, but that was about editors, not copy editors. But as one of both tribes, I can say that many of them deserve drawing and quartering -- at times. :-)

[roadnotes]

I'd be much more interested in a set that were period pieces, as it were, that cleaned-up and modernized ones. The reminders of when things were written, and the styles, would please and amuse me.

[twistedchick]

I would want to read them in the style of the period in which they were written.

[nekosensei]

Yes...I agree...

[hugh_mannity]

Definitely.

There's a "flavour" (for want of a better term) that is lost if the writing is modernised.

Furthermore, where science and technology have moved on or moved in a different direction from that of the original period, retaining the original language helps preserve the "willing suspension of disbelief". A prime example would be the divergence of computing from the expectations we had of it in the 1950s.

[anonymous]

I am shocked to hear that Meisha was editing to a current standard. I had actually thought this was a literary edition, and therefore proofed to the official edition. I am far more likely to buy the series knowing that the edition is not copyedited.Btw, congratulations on getting the project- very exciting.
Best, Gail