But if a writer does not entertain his readers, all he is producing is paper dirty on one side. I must always bear in mind that my prospective reader could spend his recreation money on beer rather than on my stories; I have to be aware every minute that I am competing for beer money-and that the customer does not have to buy. If I produced, let us say, potatoes or beef, I could be sure that my product had some value in the market. But a story that the customers do not enjoy reading is worth nothing.

So, when anyone asks me why I write, if it is a quick answer, standing up, I simply say, "For money." Any other short answer is dishonest-and any writer who forgets that his prime purpose is to wangle, say 95 cents out of a customer who need not buy at all simply does not get published. He is not a writer; he just thinks he is.

(Oh, surely, one hears a lot of crap about "art" and "self-expression," and "duty to mankind" -- but when it comes down to the crunch, there your book is, on the newsstands, along with hundreds of others with just as pretty covers-and the customer does not have to buy. If a writer fails to entertain, he fails to put food on the table-and there is no unemployment insurance for freelance writers.)

(Even a wealthy writer has this necessity to be entertaining. Oh, he could indulge in vanity publication at his own expense-but who reads a vanity publication? One's mother, maybe.)

That covers the first two reasons: I write for money because I have a household to support and in order to earn that money I must entertain the reader.

The third reason is more complex. A writer can afford to indulge in it only if he clears the first two hurdles. I have written almost every sort of thing-filler paragraphs, motion picture and TV scripts, poetry, technical reports, popular journalistic nonfiction, detective stories, love stories, adventure stories, etc. -- and I have been paid for 99% of what I have written.

But most of the categories above bored me. I had enough skill to make them pay but I really did not enjoy the work. I found that what Idid enjoy and did best was speculative fiction. I do not think that this is just a happy coincidence; I suspect that, with most people, the work they do best is the work they enjoy.

By the time I wrote Stranger I had enough skill in how to entertain a reader and a solid enough commercial market to risk taking a flyer, a fantasy speculation a bit farther out than I had usually done in the past. My agent was not sure of it, neither was my wife, nor my publisher, but I felt sure that I would sell at least well enough that the publisher would not lose money on it-would "make his nut."

I was right; it did catch hold. Its entertainment values were sufficient to carry the parable, even if it was read Mrictly for entertainment.

But I thought that the parables in it would take hold, lot), at least for some readers. They did. Some readers (many, I would say) have told me that they have read this fantasy three, four, five or more times-in which case, it can't be the story line; there is no element of surprise left in the story line in a work of fiction read over and over again; it has to be something more.

Well, what was I trying to say in it?

I was asking questions.

I was not giving answers. I was trying to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines. In consequence, each reader gets something different out of that book because he himself supplies the answers.

If I managed to shake him loose from some prejudice, preconception, or unexamined assumption, that was all I intended to do. A rational human being does not need answers, spoon-fed to him on "faith"; he needs questions to worry over-serious ones. The quality of the answers then depends on him...and he may revise those answers several times in the course of a long life, (hopefully) getting a little closer to the truth each time. But I would never undertake to be a "Prophet," handing out neatly packaged answers to lazy minds.

(For some of the more important unanswered questions in Stranger see chapter 33, especially page 344 of the hardcover, the paragraph starting: "All names belong in the hat, Ben.")

Starship Troopers is loaded with unanswered questions, too. Many people rejected that book with a cliche --"fascist," or "militaristic." They can't read or won't read; it is neither. It is a dead serious (but incomplete) inquiry into why men fight. Since men do fight, it is a question well worth asking.

My latest book, / Will Fear No Evil, is even more loaded with serious, unanswered questions-perhaps too laden; the story line sags a little. But the questions are dead serious-because, if they remain unanswered, we wind up dead. It does not affect me personally too much, at least not in this life, as I will probably be dead before the present trends converge in major catastrophe. Nevertheless, I worry about them. I think we are in a real bind...and that the answers are not to be found in simplistic "nature communes," nor in "Zero Population Growth," which does not embrace the entire globe.

There may be no answers fully satisfactory...and even incomplete answers will be very difficult.

I find that I have written an essay to myself rather than a letter. Forgive me-perhaps I have reached the age at which one maunders. But I hope I have convinced you that Stranger is dead serious...as questions. Serious, nontrivial questions, on which a man might spend a lifetime. (And I almost have.)

But anyone who takes that book as answers is cheating himself. It is an invitation to think-not to believe. Anyone who takes it as a license to screw as he pleases is taking a risk; Mrs. Grundy is not dead. Or any other sharp affront to the contemporary culture done publicly-there are stern warnings in it about the dangers involved. Certainly "Do as thou wilt is the whole of the Law" is correct when looked at properly-in fact, it is a law of nature, not an injunction, nor a permission. But it is necessary to remember that it applies to everyone -- including lynch mobs. The Universe is what it is, and it never forgives mistakes-not even ignorant ones...

AFTERWORD

Before the cut version of / Will Fear No Evil was ready for publication, Robert was taken ill. For two years he was laid up with various illnesses and operations. At last, in 1972, he was well enough and very eager to begin writing again.

His next book was Time Enough for Love.

In addition to changes in the times and customs, Robert now had a reputation that allowed him to do such books as he preferred to do. It is possible that, at least in part, Stranger had had some effects upon the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies. It was in tune with the moods of the times. So his publishers did not object to the length of Time Enough for Love, and one thing I found curious-there was no objection at all to the incest scenes. Not even reviewers mentioned it.

The following two years were mostly taken up with study of advances in physical and biological sciences. How could one write science fiction without keeping up with what was being discovered in those fields? These studies were undertaken for two articles for the Britan-nica Compton Yearbook: "Dirac, Antimatter and You," and "Are you a 'Rare Blood.' "

Another serious illness occurred in 1978. Following hi" recuperation from that, Robert went to his computer •nd wrote The Number of the Beast. Aside from a very few flags on the copy-edited manuscript, he was asked to cut by 2,000 words (!) out of an estimated 200,000 worth. That was, of course, an easy task.

Expanded Universe followed, at the behest of James Baen. To our surprise, this book generated far more mail than any other book Robert had ever written. For two years, I was tied to the computer answering the fan mail which resulted from its publication.