PAMELA DEAN

Look," said Janet, irritated, "if the thing you liked best to do in the world was read, and somebody offered to pay you room and board and give you a liberal arts degree if you would just read for four years, wouldn't you do it?

I wholeheartedly rejected anything remotely feminine but was not enthusiastic about anything masculine, either. I did not want to cook and have babies, and I did not want to be an engineer or a baseball player or a soldier or a politician or any of the myriad careers open mostly or solely to men. I wanted to be a poet.

I first read Heinlein when I was very young.

I did always think of Heinlein as a strict rationalist, although a dispassionate examination of his works doesn't support that.

Just as I could tell you about my first Andre Norton novel or my first L'Engle or my first Asimov, I could write a paragraph about how each of these writers influenced me, my writing, and my thoughts, and do to this day.

Truthfully, the person with whom I identified most in Heinlein's early works was Rhysling in 'The Green Hills of Earth.'

Why do all your friends talk like books?

I was a weird but definite kid, and there were essentially no gender roles for me to fit into.

It did occur to me that the effect of good literature may be as dizzying as that of alcohol.

Just as I could tell you about my first Andre Norton novel or my first L'Engle or my first Asimov, I could write a paragraph about how each of these writers influenced me, my writing, and my thoughts, and do to this day.

I wholeheartedly rejected anything remotely feminine but was not enthusiastic about anything masculine, either. I did not want to cook and have babies, and I did not want to be an engineer or a baseball player or a soldier or a politician or any of the myriad careers open mostly or solely to men. I wanted to be a poet.

I was a weird but definite kid, and there were essentially no gender roles for me to fit into.

I first read Heinlein when I was very young.

I did always think of Heinlein as a strict rationalist, although a dispassionate examination of his works doesn't support that.

Truthfully, the person with whom I identified most in Heinlein's early works was Rhysling in 'The Green Hills of Earth.'

Why do all your friends talk like books?

Look," said Janet, irritated, "if the thing you liked best to do in the world was read, and somebody offered to pay you room and board and give you a liberal arts degree if you would just read for four years, wouldn't you do it?

It did occur to me that the effect of good literature may be as dizzying as that of alcohol.