The Man from Mars was then set aside, and “Gulf” was written to meet JWC’s deadline, as it must be sent off to New York before we departed for Hollywood. We planned to drive to California at the end of May, and had no idea just when we would return to Colorado.
March 24, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I agree to all changes [on Red Planet]. Let’s go ahead with the contract. Please ask her to send me the original manuscript. Please ask her to make her instructions for revision as detailed and as specific as possible. She should bear in mind that, since these revisions are being made to suit her taste and her special knowledge of requirements of the market, my taste and my limited knowledge of them cannot be a guide to me in making revisions-else I would have submitted a manuscript satisfactory to her in the first place.
I note with wry amusement that she no longer speaks of the book as “fairy tale quality,” “not our sort of science fiction,” “lack of controlled imagination,” “strange shaped Martians,” etc. The only point she still makes which she originally made is about Willis and (pardon my blushes!) s-x. Okeh, s-x comes out; it was probably a mistake on the part of the Almighty to have invented s-x in the first place.
I capitulate, horse and foot. I’ll bowdlerize the goddamn thing any way she says. But I hope you can keep needling her to be specific, however, and to follow up the plot changes when she demands the removal of a specific factor. I’m not just being difficult, Lurton; several of the things she objects to have strong plot significance…if she takes them out, the story ceases to be. Removing the details objected to about Willis is a much simpler matter; it’s offstage stuff and does not affect the story line until the last chapter.
If she forces me to it, I’ll take out what she objects to and then let her look at the cadaver remaining-then perhaps she will revise her opinion that it ” — doesn’t affect the main body of the story — ” (direct quote).
I concede your remarks about the respect given to the Scribner imprint, the respect in which she is held, and the fact that she is narrowly limited by a heavily censorship-ridden market. I still don’t think she is a good editor; she can’t read an outline or a manuscript with constructive imagination.
I expect this to be my last venture in this field; ’tain’t worth the grief.
April 18, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
The revised version of Red Planet will be in your hands by the end of the month and you may tell Miss Dalgliesh so. I am complying with all her instructions and suggestions.
April 19, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Alice Dalgliesh
The manuscript of Red Planet is being returned, through Mr. Blassingame. You will find that I have meticulously followed all of your directions, from your letter, from your written notes, and from your notations on the manuscript, whether I agreed with them or not. I have made a wholehearted attempt to make the changes smoothly and acceptably and thereby to make the story hang together. I am not satisfied with the result, but you are free to make any additional changes you wish wherever you see an opportunity to accomplish your purposes more smoothly than I have been able to do.
Most of the changes have been made by excising what you objected to, or by minor inclusions and variations in dialog. However, on the matter of guns, I have written in a subscene in which the matter of gun licensing is referred to in sufficient explanatory detail to satisfy you, I think.
The balance of this letter is side discussion and is in no sense an attempt to get you to change your mind about any of your decisions concerning the book. I simply want to state my point of view on one matter and to correct a couple of points.
At several different times you have made the point that this book was different from my earlier books, specifically with respect to colloquial language used by characters, with respect to firearms, and with respect to aggressiveness on the part of the boys. I have just checked through Rocket Ship Galileo and Space Cadet-as published-and I do not find any of these allegations substantiated. In both books I made free use of such expressions as “Yeah,” “Nope,” “Huh,” “Stinker,” and similar sloppy speech. In both books the boys are inclined to be aggressive in the typical, male-adolescent fashion. See pages 8, 23, 42, 107, 200, and 241 of Space Cadet and all of Rocket Ship Galileo from page 160 to the end-not to mention a couple of minor brushes earlier. In re guns, Space Cadet cannot be compared with the other two books as all the characters are part of a military organization from one end to the other, but Rocket Ship Galileo can be compared with Red Planet. In Rocket Ship Galileo they are handling dangerous explosives in chapter one. From page 62 to the end they are all heavily armed at all times-and no mention is ever made of licensing them. On pages 165-6 Art and Ross each kill a man; a few pages later Morrie kills about eighty men. On page 167 dialog makes clear that they are long used to guns. I bring up these points to correct matters of fact; I do not like being accused of having switched the mixture on you.