Actually, the first criterion is the only one she need worry about; I won’t offend on the other two points-and she knows it. She shouldn’t attempt to judge science-versus-fantasy; she’s not qualified. Even if she were and even if my stuff were fantasy, why such a criterion anyhow? Has she withdrawn Wind in the Willows from the market? If she thinks Red Planet is a fairy tale, or a fantasy, but gripping (as she says) to read, let her label it as such and peddle it as such. I don’t give a damn. She should concern herself with whether or not boys will like it. As a matter of fact, I don’t consider her any fit person to select books to suit the tastes of boys. I’ve had to fight like hell to keep her from gutting my first two books; the fact that boys did like them is a tribute to my taste, not to hers. I’ve read a couple of the books she wrote for girls-have you tried them? They’re dull as ditch water. Maybe girls will hold still for that sort of things; boys won’t.
I hope this works out so that we are through with her. I prefer pocketing the loss, at least for now, to coping with her further.
And I don’t like her dirty-minded attitude over the Willis business. Willis is one of the closest of my imaginary friends; I loved that little tyke, and her raised eyebrows infuriate me. [Willis is the young Martian adopted as a pet by the hero; it’s Willis who often gets him out of trouble.]
March 15, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
First, your letter: the only part that needs comment is Miss D’s remark about getting a good Freudian to interpret the Willis business. There is no point in answering her, but let me sputter a little. A “good Freudian” will find sexual connotations in anything-that’s the basis of the theory. In answer I insist that without the aid of a “good Freudian” boys will see nothing in the scene but considerable humor. In Space Cadet a “good Freudian” would find the rockets “thrusting up against the sky” definite phallic symbols. Perhaps he would be right; the ways of the subconscious are obscure and not easily read. But I still make the point that boys are not psychoanalysts-nor will anyone with a normal healthy sex orientation make anything out of that scene. I think my wife, Ginny, summed it up when she said, “She’s got a dirty mind!”
Somebody around this controversy does need a psychoanalyst-and it ain’t you and it ain’t me and it ain’t Willis.
March 18, 1949: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein
Book will have to be changed before it can go on the recommended library list. There is a certain amount of censorship in the juvenile field. Publishers must sign an affidavit when asking for books to be purchased by libraries, saying there is nothing in them which will offend either youngsters or parents. Dalgliesh is sending list of changes needed in Red Planet. Once those changes recommended by the juvenile librarian are made, Scribner’s will take book. Scribner’s is a respected house and excellent connection for RAH.
EDITOR’S NOTE Around this time, Robert was looking for an idea for the story ‘ ‘Gulf,” which he had promised ta John W. Campbell, Jr. for the special November 1949 issue of Astounding. We approached this task in a fashion today known as brainstorming. I would put up an idea and Robert would knock it down.
The title, “Gulf,” was the hitch. Eventually I suggested that it might be possible to do something like the Mowgli story-a human infant raised by a foreign race, kept apart from humans until he reached maturity. “Too big an idea for a short story,” said Robert, but he made a note about it.
Further brainstorming resulted in the notion Robert wanted to do a superman story for ‘ ‘Gulf.” What did supermen do better than their peers ? ‘ ‘They think better, ” I replied. So another note was made.
Then Robert disappeared into his study and wrote eighteen pages, single spaced, of notes on ideas which the Mowgli suggestion had started rolling in his brain. He worked on those pages the whole night, and came out with a batch of papers titled The Man from Mars [Stranger in a Strange Land].