Dean.... you liked Farnahans Freehold? I swear I’ll still respect you in the morning, but this is going to take some getting used to...

As I said on Handsome's site, I can see I'm going to have to write an article on "Why Farnham's Freehold is not a racist book."

I didn't love the book, but there were things about it I liked a lot. It's just one of those controversial books in my view that people have issues with because they're reading "political tract" into what should be seen as an interesting action-oriented thought-experiment, like Starship Troopers.

Oh, are we having another thread going off-topic on a Heinlein tangent?! Well, I'm odd, I actually did like Farnham's Freehold, in fact I've read it a good many times. Can't say just why I liked it, Hugh Farnham is peculiarly ineffectual and impotent for a lead Heinlein character, in fact it's hard to think of a sympathetic character in the entire book. And what was it with that bridge hand, seven no-trump, vulnerable, doubled, and redoubled?!!

But no, I never considered Farnham's Freehold a racist book. Guess I just ain't got a PC bone in my body...

Interesting link.

He thinks I'm pretty much a dangerous psychopath who any sane person should oppose politically.

Well, DUH! Like everyone didn't already know that.

You're too kind sir.

But I do have to point out that I'm only half the RANT team, Dietz Smith is the other half and we also provide a service by posting stuff from, well anyone really, there are a lot of folks who don't have their own blog and we give then food shelter and a place to call home.

But thanks for the plug, and the link. I'll try to say something totally beyond the pale soon.

Wow. I had no idea I had ever been your favorite blogger, Dean. I'm just finding this now, as May slowly decays into June. I mean, wow. I'm touched.

I don't think you're insane. I think you're deeply, deeply misguided. and you seem to have excellent taste in bloggers. Although I suspect you have a new favorite by now.

Don't you hate people who hang new comments in the archives where you'll never be aware of them?

Kind of an objective/subjective dichotomy thing... does this comment exist if no one ever reads it? ;)

The reason FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD is a racist book is not because in it, the Evil Niggers take over the world and enslave all the white people. That's just something humans do. However, what is unprecedented in any known historical slave state is for human beings to master other human beings AND THEN EAT THEM.

I realize Heinlein was going for shock value here, and he didn't intend to be racist, but the fact that his Evil Niggers do indeed eat non-blacks takes this book to an unprecedented level. Add in the fact that there are NO POSITIVE BLACK CHARACTERS AT ALL IN THE BOOK (I grant you, there are hardly any positive characters at all, but I suspect RAH meant Hugh and Barbara to be admirable and heroic, he just badly missed the boat) and little things like the black masters call all white women 'sluts' (I know, I know... it may seem no worse than white masters calling black slaves 'bucks' and 'wenches', but I maintain that it's a more shocking and degrading word; again, that's RAH's intent, but, well...)

I don't think RAH meant FF to be racist. But I feel that it is. In addition to just beinga really bad book, for the reasons Mr. Burgess notes, among many many others, which I note at length in the article you're on about.

I read most of my comments. I see this place as a forum as much as anything. ;-)

I think you're mistaken though. The character of the black handyman who wound up in the future with the Farnhams was thoughtful and intelligent, and sympathetic.

Furthermore, the "master" portrayed seemed highly sympathetic until Heinlein really reveals the full horror of the slavemaster viewpoint--which was very obviously modeled on the slavemaster viewpoint Heinlein would have read from history about the American slave era. Given Heinlein's loathing for slavery, which he wrote about in many other books, I found that portrayal especially profound--he makes you almost like the slavemaster for his intelligence and "liberalism" until you suddenly realize just what he is.

In the meantime, Farnham's handyman was not only a positive character all the way through, but he actually agonizes somewhat over his decision to stay in the new age society--but finally opts to stay because if he goes back home, he'll be treated like shit again. The fact that Heinlein was willing to put it that way was pretty risky but also pretty right on the money for the time he was writing.

Finally, as to the cannibalism, you miss the fact that white people are all cannibals in the book too. Indeed, the butchers and the cooks are all white people. It's something pervasive in the society, one which also practices selective breeding on its slaves to make them docile and stupid.

Racism? I'm sorry, I simply do no not buy it. Especially when we look at how Heinlein treated race in so many of his other books, both before Farnham's Freehold and after it.

As for your blog--I still like it, although you need a better font, and that long explanation at the top about how you don't do HTML or whatever is going to drive readers away, since it looks like your content hasn't changed! A few times I came by and said, "Well, he hasn't written anything lately," and it never occurred to me to scroll further down. You should work on that.

its ok