American Writers (One Hundred Pages at a Time)

"... Jonathan Hoag" is a great Robert A. Heinlein story that keeps getting me to think about and talk about Philip K. Dick. I loved it.

Part one of my review of the underrated novel THE GILDED AGE, by Mark Twain and another guy. It is one of the most sturdy investigations into America's political and economic culture. Sellers and Hawkins got something for you to buy.

"Goldfish Bowl" by Robert A. Heinlein is almost a H. P. Lovecraft story. One of his best pieces of short fiction that I read from him.

With this final episode on FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR, I finish up with Mark Twain's travel literature. Coming up is THE GILDED AGE and his later novels.

There is a lot happening in the second half of BEYOND THIS HORIZON by Robert A. Heinlein, but I skip over most of that to talk about Heinlein and the gun culture.

At the halfway point of Mark Twain's FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR, we shift our focus to British India and the cultural changes and continuities in India under British rule.

BEYOND THIS HORIZON by Robert A. Heinlein came out in early 1942 in ASTOUNDING. It is one of the best early Heinlein books and explores various themes he had been developing up to this time, including his vision for a post-scarcity society and a broadly available genetically engineered society. It is also famous for its commentary on gun culture.

The part of Mark Twain's FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR that I discuss in this episode explores the British colonization of Australia and carries on many of the themes from the first part of the book. It is a brutal and honest look at forced migrations, ecological change, and genocide.

In this episode I begin the final Mark Twain travelogue FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR. It is one of the greatest anti-imperialist texts of the 19th century, an excellent travelogue, and an example of Twain's most bitterly charged satire.

"Elsewhen" (also known as "Elsewhere") by Robert A. Heinlein is another borderline fantasy story that explores the unrealized potential of human beings. It also introduces the multiverse to his writing (a theme he will take up later).