PROPHECY

September 24, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

EDITOR'S NOTE: With the motion picture about to start shooting, and with Robert at work on the next juvenile for Scribner 's, a request came in from Cosmopolitan for an article about prediction of what the U. S. would be like in the year 2000. In this letter Robert was asking for information about what sort of article the editors would like-he made some suggestions about it.

When the article was finished, Cosmopolitan turned it down. It sold to Galaxy and was published as ' 'Pandora's Box." The article was periodically updated, and the most recent version can be found in Expanded Universe.

...Under "treatment" come a couple of other questions: This article is to be prophetic. Fine-that's my business; I make my living as a professional prophet of what science will bring to us. But such an article-nonfiction-must consider and to some extent report the present status in various fields before the author can go out into the wild blue yonder with predictions. Therefore, I inquire how much reporting do they [Cosmopolitan] want of the sort which one finds in Scientific American, Science News Letter, Nature, etc., and how much speculation or prediction do they want? The two things are closely related, but are not the same thing. Also, how far in the future shall I go? (For example, everybody knows that the cancer men, radiation men, and biochemists stand an excellent chance of perfecting selective radiation treatment of certain types of cancer in the very near future by finding ways to bond short half-life isotopes to some compound which a particular type of cancer will pick up selectively.)

Or should I go well into the future and consider the necessary statistical effect of food supply, geriatrics, life-span research, public health, etc., in forcing the development of a brand-new art, planetary engineering, as it affects the growth of colonies on the planet Mars?

The synthesizing prophet has another advantage over the specialist; he knows, from experience and by examining the efforts of other prophets of his type in the past that his ' 'wildest" predictions are more likely to come true than the ones in which he lost his nerve and was cautious. This statement is hard to believe but can be checked by comparing past predictions with present facts. (Show me the man who honestly believed in the atom bomb twenty years ago-but H. G. Wells predicted it in 1911.) (The "wild fantasies" of Jules Verne turned out to be much too conservative.)

How can one spot a competent synthesizing prophet? Only by his batting average. If Cosmopolitan thinks my record of accomplished predictions is good enough to warrant it, then let's by all means go all out and I'll make some serious predictions that will make their hair stand on end. If they want to play safe, I'll do an Inquiring Reporter job and we'll limit it to what the specialists are willing to say. But I can tell them ahead of time that such an article will be more respectable today and quite unrespected ten years from now-for that is no way to whip up successful prophecy.

...I would proceed as follows:

First, I would cut down the field by limiting myself to (a) subjects in which the changes would matter to the readers personally and not too remotely. A new principle in electronics I would ignore unless I saw an important tie into the lives of ordinary people, (b) subjects which are dramatic and entertaining either in themselves or in their effects. Space travel is such a subject, both ways. So is life-span research. On the other hand, a cure for hoof-and-mouth disease, while urgently needed, is much harder to dramatize, (c) subjects which can be explained. The connection between parapsychology and nuclear engineering is dramatic potentially but impossible to explain convincingly.

Since the article is for popular consumption I would wish to hook it, if possible, with some startling piece of quoted dialog, use illustrative anecdote if possible, and end it with some dramatic prediction.

December 20, 1955: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Please tell Howard Browne [editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic] that I accept his incredible offer and that ms. will arrive by 10 January-but that I expect a copy of that celebration issue, inscribed by him to me, or I shall go into the corner and stick pins in wax images.

I can't imagine what I could possibly say that would be worth $100 for two pages; that isn't even long enough for a horoscope. But if they want to throw away their money in my direction I will go along with the gag and do my damndest to entertain the cash customers. Fortunately, I shall be dead before my "prophecies" can be checked on.

January 5, 1956: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Here is the ms. for Howard Browne. I discovered that 500 words were too cramping for what I wanted to say, so I called him yesterday (I assumed that you were at Ilikite, it being Wednesday) and got his authorization to let it run to its present length. No increase in the fee, of course, as the added length was entirely for my convenience.

PUBLISHERS

July 5, 1963: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

As to Scribner's and Doubleday, I intend to let each of them get away with it and not argue further. But my opinion has not changed. Each of them is deviating from the contract as written and in each case to my financial loss. They would not let me deviate from contract if it cost them sizable amounts of money. Doubleday talks as if the 50-50 split on pocketbook were a law of nature. Nuts and nonsense; it is merely an extortion that writers usually have to put up with. The entire history of the Authors' Guild and of divisible copyright is one of slowly getting rid of these grabs which publishers defend under the theory of "usual practice." If the "usual contract" did not contain these grabs, trade book publishers would have to work hard at selling the trade edition. Doubleday has never once done a decent job for me of selling the trade edition (take a look at your records) -- no, not once. Instead they have signed a "sweetheart" contract with one of their own subsidiaries, printed a very cheap edition which they called a trade edition but which was in fact a book club edition-and the nominal royalty in the contract meant nothing; the extremely low royalty in the "sweetheart" contract was the one that counted. Then they had half of the NAL edition as well-except this one book and now they have grabbed that, too, without my consent. No, I do not like Doubleday. Okay, they get this few hundred dollars-but I will never sign another contract with them.

Scribner's is a different case; they have a real sales organization for selling the trade edition, they do sell it and make money on it, for themselves and for me-and I am sorry on that account that they ever dropped me...But, nevertheless, their contract does not permit them to cut my royalty just because they choose to put out, under their own imprint, a softcover edition. Nor does it cut any ice with me that the percentage royalty is higher than it would be if they farmed it out to, say,

NAL-because I am convinced that if they did farm it out to NAL, the dollar return would be much higher, even though the percentage was lower. I may be wrong and time will tell-but, so far, their venture into softcov-ers, at three times the price of an NAL softcover, seems to be going over like a lead balloon.

As may be-each of these publishers is rewriting a contract to suit himself and against my explicit objections...and I shall argue no further with them; life is too short. They can keep their grabs and be damned.

MAGAZINES

March 9, 1963: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I don't think Fantasy and Science Fiction is riding the edge; I think they are just stingy. They claim 56,000 paid circulation. In view of their rates and their cheap production, plus some revenue from France and Germany, they should be showing a clear profit each month. Back in December -- told me that the publisher would happily pay me in advance. As it is, they got a bargain-copy for $1,500 that they normally pay $1,800 for, to any writer, known name or not. Still, it is pleasanter than offering copy to John Campbell, having it bounced (he bounced both of my last two Hugo Award winners) -- and then have to wade through ten pages of his arrogant insults, explaining to me why my story is no good.