I wished the Grass would hurry
I finished Expanded Universe a few days ago. It was good; I haven’t had a chance to write about it until now.
This was actually a very exciting book. I’d thought at first that it was just a collection of Heinlein’s short fiction, which would be a good read, but I’ve read almost all of his output before, so it wouldn’t be anything new. However, it turns out that this is a collection of otherwise uncollected writings, some short fiction and a lot of essays and articles, with nearly all of it being stuff I’d never read anywhere else. New Heinlein is not something I find often, and I was thrilled when I realized what I’d found. The book isn’t only a collection of great Heinlein material; it’s also very well collected, with the works presented in chronological order, with fore- and afterwords by the author accompanying most pieces. It’s a really great way to look at Heinlein’s career as a whole, from his humble beginnings (he wrote his first short story to enter in a contest for $50, but ended up selling it to a magazine for $70), to the crazy ranting insanity of his dotage. I enjoyed the book immensely and would recommend it to any Heinlein fan.
Now I’m reading Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s A Flame in Byzantium. I have not enjoyed her books much in the past, and this is yet another whiny vampire book, but this one is turning out to not be that bad, so maybe there’s hope.