‘“Vancouver was a part of the United States where the people were so clever that they never paid taxes to Washington”’
Now that is confusing.
Yes, Vancouver, one city of that name, is part of the USA. It’s in Washington. The state.
Sow what was Heinlein going for?
Implying Lazarus was telling tall tales again, because everyone knows Vancouver is in Canada?
That British Columbia was part of the USA in that timeline?
I just realized the chutzpah of Heinlein when writing this.
―Hey, Heinlein, yu'r writing hard SF with spaceships and going to Mars and everything. What’s yur next book about?
―Oh, it’s got spaceships and all. They hav a FTL drive tho, that they got from some telepathic aliens, and i never even hit at how that works.
―O… Kay. Fine. “Hard” SF. Anyway. So, what’s it actually about?
…
Oh, 🤬.
Heinlein being Heinlein means Heinlein being transfobic.
I’ll not quote him here, because, ugh, but here is one paragraf just pure, distilled transfobia and nothing else.
‘“It was even before China destroyed¹ Europe”’
IDK, maybe it’s just me, but i think the destruction of a whole continent is worth more than a brief mention in literally hav a sentence.
There ar some oblique references to nuclear war in Heinlein’s future history, but he never bothers to really deal with it. It’s not the USA, so who cares.
¹That’s not “impoverished”, “ruined” or the like
Hmpf.
Looks like the interesting stories ar only hinted @, while The Senior rambles on an on about more boring stuff.
We get a mention how Elizabeth Libby met her end, but i think we don’t get the detailed story of it.
Maybe 200 pages hence.
Ugh.
This side story is one that i rememberd, but much longer.
Also, apparently the editor was taking a break. The narration switches between 1st person (I, Lazarus Long) and 3rd person (he, Captain Sheffield) for no reason and with no explanation.
OK, so.
The main point about this freedman and freedwoman – José&Estrellita J&L (for Llita) – is their genetic origin.
But then Heinlein spends page upon page on Lazarus haggling with the slave seller, with José trying to make coffee, J&L learning to read, &c. &c.. On and on. 🥱
Then he gets on to the genetic bit, “The Twins who Weren’t”
Heinlein’s idea here was that J&L were twins. Born together, same parents. But his trick was that instead of doing standard meiosis he had all the 46 chromosomes per parent divide into two gametes with 23 chromosomes each, and made an offspring of each.
ospalh