Quotulatiousness

July 1, 2020

British Railways: Goodbye To Steam aka Railway Modernisation (1958) | British Pathé

Filed under: Britain, Economics, History, Railways, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

British Pathé
Published 13 Apr 2014

This archive footage from 1958 depicts British Railways’ journey to modernisation and the transition away from steam-powered trains.

For Archive Licensing Enquiries Visit: https://goo.gl/W4hZBv

#BritishPathé #History #Railway #Trains #BritishRailways

(FILM ID:1549.07)
Full title reads: “Goodbye To Steam”

Intertitle reads: “British Railways meet the challenge of the age of abundant power”

Angle shot, railway engine going past camera. GV Outside one of the large London Railway stations showing railway lines and train coming out of station. CU Man in signal box, pan to show him pulling levers. CU Signal going up. GV Train coming towards camera. GV Steam train. GV Aerial shots steam train. CU Man filming from plane. CU man in plane fitting equipment and then giving thumb’s up sign. GV Aerial shot, railway lines. CU Man filming from plane. Steam train going along line. SV Draughtsmen in office. CU Men looking through magnifier at a plan. CU Magnified picture of plan, zoom to show Railway chiefs seated round table with plan, among them is Sir Philip Warter. SV Elevated, railway chiefs looking at plan. CU One of the railway executives. SV Man with model of section of railway line which he places on the table and the railway executives study it. CU Sign reading “Kent Coast Electrification Widening to Provide Four Tracks”, pan to show railway line with only two tracks. GV Kent Coast line with men on bridge. SV Bridge with surveyor. CU Surveyor looking through theodolite. GV Tracking shot of men working. GV Men working at side of railway line with clouds of smoke coming from wood. CU New diesel engine. CU Sir Brian Robertson talking to train driver. CU People watching. CU Sir Brian Robertson blowing whistle. CU Int. diesel engine with driver operating controls. SV Diesel train moving out of station. CU Driver of diesel train. CU. Sir Brian Robertson sitting in carriage. LV Through window of diesel cab as train enters tunnel. SV Three engines on lines. CU Front of one of the engines with plate reading “Cornish Riviera Express”. CU Driver. SV Cornish Riviera Express in station. SV Woman taking in washing because smoke is billowing up from railway lines beside her garden. GV Cornish Riviera Express coming towards camera.

CU Front of steam train “The Bristolian”. SV along top of engine as blows off steam. CU Hand pulling chain. CU valve. GV Platform. CU shovelling coal. GV As train goes along. CU Driver of train. CU Driver. CU Fireman. CU Fire with coal being shovelled. SV Looking over coal tender. SV From driver’s cab of train going under bridge and out the other side. CU Driver. GV From driver’s cab of railway lines with another steam train. SV Int. class for instruction of diesel engine drivers. CU Lecturer talks about metal object. CU Men looking at machinery. SV Royal Scot in station. CU Driver of Royal Scot. GV Activities on platform in which Royal Scot is standing. GV Royal Scot leaving station. GV Building with sign, “English Electric Co. Ltd. Preston”. GV Int. of workshop showing men working on armatures. GV Ext. of building with “Vulcan Locomotives” painted on wall. GV Int. of workshop showing men working on railway engines. CU Man working inside railway engine. GV Workshop. SV Diesel train in station. CU Driver of diesel. GV railway lines in front of train as it moves along. SV Int. dining car in diesel train with attendant pouring coffee. GV Looking through cab window of railway lines in front of train as it goes under bridge and straight past station. CU Glass panel in door with “York Signal Box, Strictly Private”, door opens. SV Man sitting at control panel of box, he reaches over to controls. CU Man’s hands working controls. CU Plan on wall showing different lines and points. CU Hand pushing buttons. CU Signals. CU Point on lines. GV Steam train along lines. CU Train in museum. CU Compartment of old train. SV Ancient train “Locomotion 1828”. SV Diesel Locomotive. CU “Deltic” written on side. GV Deltic. GV Train in station. Various shots in Deltic carriage. SV Coal trucks. SV Railway worker attaching pipe to train. GV Calder Hall Nuclear / Atomic Power station. GV Electrical pylons and cables. GV Diesel train “Sir Brian Robertson” in platform with crowds. GV Crowds. SV “Sir Brian Robertson” unveiled by Mr Grand, General Manager of the Western Region of British Railways. SV Crowd. SV Sir Brian Robertson by train. CU Sign “Sir Brian Robertson”. GV The “Sir Brian Robertson” leaving Paddington Station. SV Steam train letting out smoke. CU Signals. GV Steam train. CU Train over the points. GV steam train leaving clouds of smoke.

BRITISH PATHÉ’S STORY
Before television, people came to movie theatres to watch the news. British Pathé was at the forefront of cinematic journalism, blending information with entertainment.

June 29, 2020

The End of the Line

Filed under: Cancon, History, Railways, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

NFB
Published 2 Sep 2015

This documentary short offers a nostalgic look at the steam locomotive as it passes from reality to history. In its heyday, the big smoke-belching steam engine seemed immortal. Now, powerful and efficient diesels are pushing the old coal-burning locomotives to the sidelines, and the lonely echo of their whistles may soon be a thing of the past.

Directed by Terence Macartney-Filgate – 1959.

May 27, 2020

American passenger trains before Amtrak

Filed under: Business, Government, History, Railways, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

George Hamlin reflects on the state of the US passenger rail system before the formation of Amtrak in 1971:

… non-commuter U.S. passenger trains can be said to have been under siege essentially for my entire lifetime, beginning not long after the end of World War II. Many railroads spent large sums to re-equip with streamlined lightweight equipment after the war, only to see what was originally couched as an investment turn into essentially a drain on their companies’ treasuries.

And the “rewards” for this? Passengers decamped to the rapidly-expanding airlines, and their personal automobiles. The decisive blow came in 1956, with the passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act, which led to the Interstate Highway System.

Quoting from Joe Welsh’s Pennsy Streamliners, The Blue Ribbon Fleet (page 138), “Referring to the challenge, [PRR President] Symes wrote ‘There is such a thing as planning an orderly retreat in the face of superior forces.’ Clearly, the bugle had been sounded.”

In 1958, an Interstate Commerce Commission Hearing Examiner predicted that there would be no intercity passenger trains by 1970; he only missed by four months, effectively (and didn’t count on the Southern Railway, Rio Grande and Rock Island shying away from the government’s largesse). In 1959, TRAINS magazine devoted an entire issue to what was now clearly a crisis; the cover bore the legend “Who Shot the Passenger Train?”, complete with simulated bullet hole.

The 1960s in the U.S. could well be described as the “train-off” decade from a transportation history perspective; get, and read, Fred Frailey’s Twilight of the Great Trains, for a blow-by-blow analysis. The 1970s quickly produced the Penn Central bankruptcy, which proved to be the catalyst for government intervention; less than a year later, Amtrak was on the scene.

And since, it has frequently found itself in a “Perils of Pauline” existence, ranging from lack of funding to buy equipment, in many cases, to several bouts of route eliminations, to micro-management by politicians that don’t seem to be willing to provide consistent operational funding so that the company can make reasonable plans.

PRR E8A 5803 with Train 72, The Red Bird, passing the Hartsdale, Indiana tower and crossing the NYC and EJ&E on November 26, 1965.
Photo from the Roger Puta collection via Wikimedia Commons.

May 1, 2020

Federal Express runaway train incident 67 years later

Filed under: History, Railways, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Thunderbolt 1000 Siren Productions
Published 17 Jan 2020

2 days late and I lost several hours of sleep but holy hell it’s worth it now that it’s done! Enjoy this pretty interesting story on a runaway GG1 just days before Eisenhower’s inaguration
Please don’t shoot me for the Trump pics 😐
Next to come up is Glendale and *passes out*

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March 8, 2020

Britain’s Post-WWII Naval Decline

Filed under: Britain, History, Military — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Sal Viscuso
Published 1 Dec 2013

Max Hastings describes the declining British post-WWII role in global affairs.

February 29, 2020

Dardick Model 1500: The Very Unusual Magazine-fed Revolver

Filed under: History, Technology, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 12 Nov 2019

This is Lot 1953 in the upcoming RIA December Premier auction.

The Dardick 1500 was a magazine-fed revolver designed by David Dardick in the 1950s. His patent was granted in 1958, and somewhere between 40 and 100 of the guns were made in 1959, before the company went out of business in 1960. The concept was based around a triangular cartridge (a “tround”) and a 3-chambered, open-sided cylinder. This wasn’t really of direct benefit to a handgun, but instead was ideal for a high rate of fire machine gun, where the system did not need to pull rounds forward or backward to chamber and eject them. In lieu of military machine gun contract, Dardick applied the idea to a sidearm.

The Model 1500 held 15 rounds, inside a blind magazine in the grip. It was chambered for a .38 caliber cartridge basically the same as .38 Special ballistically. A compact Model 1100 was also made in a small numbers, with a shorter grip and correspondingly reduced magazine capacity (11 trounds). A carbine barrel/stock adapter was also made. The guns were a complete commercial failure, with low production and lots of functional problems. Today, of course, they are highly collectible because of that scarcity and their sheer mechanical weirdness.

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I’ve always had an interest in the Dardick, from their appearance in some of L. Neil Smith’s science fiction novels. I linked to an earlier article of his, and commented:

As Neil pointed out in one of his books, the Dardick was the answer to a bad crime writer’s prayers: it was literally an automatic revolver. (For those following along at home, an “automatic” has a magazine holding the bullets which are fed into the chamber to be fired by the action of the weapon: fire a bullet, the action cycles, clearing the expended cartridge and pushing a new one into place, cocking the weapon to fire again. A “revolver” holds bullets in the cylinder, rotating the cylinder when the gun is fired to put a new bullet in line with the barrel to be fired. The Dardick is the only example I know of that combines both in one gun.)

October 2, 2019

QotD: Senator Joe McCarthy

Filed under: Books, History, Media, Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

I’ve been reading M Stanton Evans’s excellent and scholarly Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies (published some 12 years ago) and marveling at the sheer extent of a shameless campaign of vilification, lies and sabotage to which McCarthy was subjected both during his brief public career as America’s number one “Red hunter” and ever afterwards, to the obvious extent that his name has become synonymous with a sinister and unprincipled persecution akin to witch trails. Ann Coulter has called Evans’s 600-plus pages tome, “the greatest book since the Bible”, and while I probably wouldn’t go to such an extent of praise, this book must surely rank as one of the best revisionist histories of recent times.

Pretty early on in the reading, it has occurred to me that the collusion between Democrat politicians, government departments and agencies, and liberal press to cover up the official sins of commission and omission, derail McCarthy’s investigations thereof, blacken his name, and destroy him personally and politically runs according to a very familiar script. It’s essentially what the progressive political and cultural elites have done to any number of conservative politicians and activists seen as a threat to their power and reputation. Donald Trump is merely the latest in a long and distinguished line.

To paraphrase Shakespeare’s Marc Antony, I came here not to praise Donald but to see how the left is trying to bury him. Until reading Evans’s book, I have not quite realised how similar and similarly underhand, vicious and persistent the campaign against Joe McCarthy had been. The “Swamp” is real; it was real in the 1940s and 1950s, and it is just as real now and just as committed to destroying any outside threats to its continuing position and influence. This is not a conspiracy theory; this is simply how power structures work to protect and perpetuate themselves. The viciousness is a function not just of the unshakable self-belief in one’s intellectual and moral rightness and superiority but also of a certain form of snobbery directed by the members of the “in-crowd” – what once used to be known as the Liberal or the East Coast Establishment and now more broadly, among many other names and designations, as the “coastal elites” – against outsiders who don’t share their sophisticated social, educational or professional background. The Swamp managed in the end to defeat McCarthy and turn him in the historical and popular memory into one of the great villains of American history; the book is still open on Trump’s ultimate fate and legacy. None of this is to suggest that McCarthy or Trump are flawless human beings and faultless political figures; quite the contrary. But the campaigns of destruction they are subjected to ultimately have little to do with their specific failings and mistakes. It’s a total war.

Arthur Chrenkoff, “Before there was Trump, there was Joe McCarthy”, Daily Chrenk, 2019-09-30.

August 14, 2019

1950s Willys Jeep Promotional Film – The Jeep Family Of 4 Wheel Drive Vehicles

Filed under: Business, History, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

PeriscopeFilm II
Published on 3 Sep 2015

Willys, the “World’s Largest Manufacturer of Utility Vehicles,” presents the Jeep Family of 4-Wheel Drive Vehicles and Special Equipment, a circa 1954 black-and-white film promoting Jeeps produced for civilian use. Following the success of Jeeps during World War II, the film opens with an explanation of how the vehicles soon their way to civilian use. Some of the vehicles seen in this film are used by construction companies, farmers, firefighters, and even at airports to tow aircraft and move cargo trailers and plow snow. At mark 02:49 the film introduces other types of Jeep equipment, such as a generator that turns the vehicle “into a mobile source of electric power to operate saws, communication equipment, motion picture equipment, flood and spotlights. And indeed any electrical equipment that must be moved around over bad terrain or in bad weather.” Scenes also capture telephone company repair crews, oil field crews, plus local and state road crews and construction companies. A Jeep is shown at a cemetery at mark 04:03 moving sand, shrubs, and burial equipment around the grounds in addition to lifting memorial markers. The viewer learns about variable engine speeds beginning at mark 05:55 with an up-close look at an engine and a discussion of its power, as well as various ways that power can be tapped for various operations. As it continues the film touts the Jeep rotary cutter (mark 07:45) as high brush is cut down, a hammer mill (mark 08:15), and a trencher (mark 08:30). There are forklift attachments, front and rear winches, as a front winch is shown pulling a dead tree from the ground (mark 10:10). The sales pitch rolls on at mark 11:42 showing some Jeep steel tops including the half-cab, master, and standard top — “each one designed for a special purpose but all three designed to stand up in rough hard service year after year.” Mark 12:00 begins an explanation of the vehicle’s 4-wheel drive capabilities, meaning that the vehicle “can go anywhere to do its job” including remote camping and hunting spots, while by mark 13:48 there’s a look at a Willys sedan delivery vehicle as grocery store employees are shown loading items into the back, and the Willys pick-up trick at mark 14:52. Other models are shown hauling grain and livestock, as well as an ambulance (mark 17:00).

Jeep is a brand of American automobiles that is a division of FCA US LLC (formerly Chrysler Group, LLC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. The original Jeep was the prototype Bantam BRC. Willys MB Jeeps went into production in 1941 specifically for the military, arguably making them the oldest four-wheel drive mass-production vehicles now known as SUVs. The Jeep became the primary light 4-wheel-drive vehicle of the United States Army and the Allies during World War II, as well as the postwar period. The term became common worldwide in the wake of the war. The first civilian models were produced in 1945. It inspired a number of other light utility vehicles, such as the Land Rover. Many Jeep variants serving similar military and civilian roles have since been designed in other nations. Willys-Overland and Ford, under the direction of Charles E. Sorensen (Vice-President of Ford during World War II), produced about 640,000 Jeeps towards the war effort, which accounted for approximately 18% of all the wheeled military vehicles built in the U.S. during the war.

From 1945 onwards, Willys took its four-wheel drive vehicle to the public with its CJ (Civilian Jeep) versions, making these the first mass-produced 4×4 civilian vehicles. In 1948, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission agreed with American Bantam that the idea of creating the Jeep was originated and developed by American Bantam in collaboration with some U.S. Army officers. The commission forbade Willys from claiming, directly or by implication, that it had created or designed the Jeep, and allowed it only to claim that it contributed to the development of the vehicle. However, American Bantam went bankrupt by 1950, and Willys was granted the “Jeep” trademark in 1950.

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com

June 4, 2019

Railroad Town

Filed under: Cancon, History, Railways — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

NFB
Published on 7 Aug 2017

This short documentary is a delightful trip back to an era in which railroad was king.

Directed by Don Haldane

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April 10, 2019

M37: The Ultimate Improved Browning 1919

Filed under: History, Military, Technology, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 8 Mar 2019

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

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In November of 1950, the US Ordnance Department requested an improved version of the Browning 1919 air cooled machine gun for use in tanks. The new version was to be able to feed from either the left or right, a feature which was unimportant for an infantry gun but much more relevant when mounting guns into the tight spaces of an armored vehicle. An interim conversion of existing guns to the M1919A4E1 pattern came first, followed by manufacture of all-new guns by the Rock Island Arsenal and Saco-Lowell company from 1955 until 1957.

The design of the gun fell to Bob Hillberg at High Standard. He came up with a clever set of reversible plugs to change the bolt between left and right hand feed, as well as a captive recoil spring, manual safety, improved top cover and rear cover latches, and several other strengthened parts. He also incorporated a charging handle extension with integral manual hold open and a link ejection chute that could be mounted to either side of the gun. His T153 design was formally adopted as the M37, in caliber .30-06. A 7.62mm NATO version (the M37E1) followed as well. The M37 would serve into the late 1960s on the M48 and M60 tanks as well as several helicopters.

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January 13, 2019

Canada’s role in India’s nuclear weapons development program

Filed under: Books, Cancon, China, History, India, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Canadian nuclear technology was critical to India for helping them develop their first nuclear weapons (although the Canadian reactor was supposed to be used only for civilian purposes):

Maybe you have heard the story of how India got the Bomb with Canada’s inadvertent help. We sold India a nuclear reactor called CIRUS in 1954 on an explicit promise that the facility would only be used for peaceful purposes. When India astonished the world with its first nuke test in May 1974, having upgraded the fuel output from CIRUS, it duly announced that it had successfully created a Peaceful Nuclear Explosive. The permanent consequence was, for better or worse, a nuclear-armed Subcontinent.

This is old news to enthusiasts of Cold War history. Here’s the new news: it almost happened twice. Canadian technology was almost used by another country to break into the nuclear club.

In November, historians David Albright and Andrea Stricker published a new book called Taiwan’s Former Nuclear Weapons Program: Nuclear Weapons On-Demand. The book pulls together the previously sketchy story of Nationalist China’s covert nuclear research, which had its roots in the postwar exodus of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang party (KMT). Albright and Stricker describe decades of effort by the offshore Republic of China on Taiwan to play a double game with nuclear weapons.

At first Taiwan engaged in sneaky nuclear research — it turns out that if you research nuclear safety you learn a lot about nuclear explosions — and it tried to create a plutonium stockpile on the sly. But their scientists left too many clues: a plutonium-based nuke requires processed plutonium metal, and that is hard to make without raising suspicions. The Indian test of 1974 was an important wake-up call to the world, and the nonproliferation establishment and the U.S. Department of State started to get nervous about Taiwan.

After a 1977 confrontation with American officials, who could hardly be ignored by the vulnerable Republic of China, the KMT deep state tried subtler methods to create the “on-demand” weapon described in the title. Taiwan committed formally to nonproliferation and full U.S. inspections of their facilities, but sought to be able to make low-yield nukes within three to six months in the event of a Communist invasion from the mainland.

December 7, 2018

QotD: Why did our grandparents adopt “mass market” foods?

Filed under: Food, Health, History, Quotations, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

If those authentic old foods were so great, how come our ancestors were so eager to switch to processed foods? The culprit most often identified is the power-mad food scientists of yesteryear, who convinced the housewives of previous generations to give up the good stuff in favor of tasteless packaged foods. The people who write these theories have apparently not spent much time observing today’s food scientists in their tireless quest to get people to stop eating the junk they like to eat now. If they had, they might have asked why yesterday’s food scientists had so much more power to alter dietary habits. And after they asked that question, they might have come to the conclusion that our ancestors switched because they liked the new foods better than whatever they were eating before.

That’s because so much of what we eat now as “authentic” is mostly some combination of peasant special-occasion dishes and the rich-people food of yesteryear, fused with modern technology and a global food-supply chain to become something quite different from what our ancestors ate, or the ancestors of people half a world away ate. And that’s OK. The baguette is delicious, and so is that pricey “peasant” loaf. But they are no better for having been invented decades ago than something that was invented last week, nor would they be better still if Caesar’s legions had been carrying them across Europe.

Megan McArdle, “‘Authentic’ Food Is Not What You Think It Is”, Bloomberg View, 2017-02-24.

October 23, 2018

QotD: The boomers

Filed under: Britain, History, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

How did my generation do? Well, we get blamed for being selfish and self-obsessed and soft and pushing up house prices and saddling the next generation with hideous debts and nowhere to live and I suppose that’s not entirely unfair.

We are ridiculously obsessed with food, buy too many things and have too many clothes. But we didn’t start a war. Well, not a big one. And we didn’t nuke anyone. We defused the Cold War. We believed in the collective good. Although we came to confuse gestures with actions and we think going on a march and writing a letter are the same as doing something, making the world better.

We were the generation that were relentlessly for civil rights, human rights, gay rights, disability rights, equality, fairness. We were implacably against racism and censorship. We defended freedom of speech, religion and expression. We will leave the world better fed and better off than when we arrived in it.

Britain is a far happier, richer and fairer place than it was 60 years ago. And if you think that’s wishful self-promotion, you have no idea how grim and threadbare Britain in the Fifties was. You weren’t there, you don’t remember.

A.A. Gill, “Life at 60”, Sunday Times, 2014-06-29.

September 22, 2018

The Distant Early Warning Line

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published on 23 Apr 2018

The History Guy examines how the Cold War transformed Canada with the establishment of the U.S. Air Force’s distant early warning or dew line.

The History Guy uses images that are in the Public Domain. As photographs of actual events are often not available, I will sometimes use photographs of similar events or objects for illustration.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheHistoryGuy

The History Guy: Five Minutes of History is the place to find short snippets of forgotten history from five to fifteen minutes long. If you like history too, this is the channel for you.

August 28, 2018

Stross in conversation with Heinlein

Filed under: Books, History, Space, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Charles Stross explains why so many Baby Boomer SF writers fall so far short when they write in imitation of Robert Heinlein:

Robert A. Heinlein at the 1976 World Science Fiction Convention
Via Wikimedia Commons.

RAH was, for better or worse, one of the dominant figures of American SF between roughly 1945 and 1990 (he died in 1988 but the publishing pipeline drips very slowly). During his extended career (he first began publishing short fiction in the mid-1930s) he moved through a number of distinct phases. One that’s particularly notable is the period from 1946 onwards when, with Scribners, he began publishing what today would be categorized as middle-grade SF novels (but were then more specifically boys adventure stories or childrens fiction): books such as Rocket Ship Galileo, Space Cadet, Red Planet, and Have Space Suit, Will Travel. There were in all roughly a dozen of these books published from 1947 to 1958, and as critic John Clute notes, they included some of the very best juvenile SF ever written (certainly at that point), and were free of many of the flaws that affected Heinlein’s later works — they maintained a strong narrative drive, were relatively free from his tendency to lecture the reader (which could become overwhelming in his later adult novels), and were well-structured as stories.

But most importantly, these were the go-to reading matter for the baby boom generation, kids born from 1945 onwards. It used to be said, somewhat snidely, that “the golden age of SF is 12”; if you were an American boy (or girl) born in 1945 you’d have turned 12 in 1957, just in time to read Time for the Stars or Citizen of the Galaxy. And you might well have begun publishing your own SF novels in the mid-1970s — if your name was Spider Robinson, or John Varley, or Gregory Benford, for example.

Then a disturbing pattern begins to show up.

The pattern: a white male author, born in the Boomer generation (1945-1964), with some or all of the P7 traits (Pale Patriarchal Protestant Plutocratic Penis-People of Power) returns to the reading of their childhood and decides that what the Youth of Today need is more of the same. Only Famous Dead Guy is Dead and no longer around to write more of the good stuff. Whereupon they endeavour to copy Famous Dead Guy’s methods but pay rather less attention to Famous Dead Guy’s twisty mind-set. The result (and the cause of James’s sinking feeling) is frequently an unironic pastiche that propagandizes an inherently conservative perception of Heinlein’s value-set.

It should be noted that Charles Stross is politically left, so calling something “conservative” is intended to be understood as a pejorative connotation, not merely descriptive.

But here’s the thing: as often as not, when you pick up a Heinlein tribute novel by a male boomer author, you’re getting a classic example of the second artist effect.

Heinlein, when he wasn’t cranking out 50K word short tie-in novels for the Boy Scouts of America, was actually trying to write about topics for which he (as a straight white male Californian who grew up from 1907-1930) had no developed vocabulary because such things simply weren’t talked about in Polite Society. Unlike most of his peers, he at least tried to look outside the box he grew up in. (A naturist and member of the Free Love movement in the 1920s, he hung out with Thelemites back when they were beyond the pale, and was considered too politically subversive to be called up for active duty in the US Navy during WW2.) But when he tried to look too far outside his zone of enculturation, Heinlein often got things horribly wrong. Writing before second-wave feminism (never mind third- or fourth-), he ended up producing Podkayne of Mars. Trying to examine the systemic racism of mid-20th century US society without being plugged into the internal dialog of the civil rights movement resulted in the execrable Farnham’s Freehold. But at least he was trying to engage, unlike many of his contemporaries (the cohort of authors fostered by John W. Campbell, SF editor extraordinaire and all-around horrible bigot). And sometimes he nailed his targets: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as an attack on colonialism, for example (alas, it has mostly been claimed by the libertarian right), Starship Troopers with its slyly embedded messages that racial integration is the future and women are allowed to be starship captains (think how subversive this was in the mid-to-late 1950s when he was writing it).

In contrast, Heinlein’s boomer fans rarely seemed to notice that Heinlein was all about the inadmissible thought experiment, so their homages frequently came out as flat whitebread 1950s adventure yarns with blunt edges and not even the remotest whiff of edgy introspection, of consideration of the possibility that in the future things might be different (even if Heinlein’s version of diversity ultimately faltered and fell short).

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