"Dust Jacket"

THE ROBERT HEINLEIN INTERVIEW
and Other Heinleiniana

In 1973, Robert A. Heinlein was sixty-six and at the height of his literary career, and J. Neil Schulman was twenty and hadn't yet started his first novel. And because he was looking for a way to meet his idol, Schulman wangled an assignment from the New York Daily News -- at the time the largest circulation newspaper in the U.S. -- to interview Heinlein for its Sunday Book Supplement.

The resulting interview lasted six hours, three-and-a-half hours of which were on tape, and when edited by Schulman and Heinlein for later serialization in a libertarian magazine came to 25,000 words.

This turned out to be the longest interview Heinlein ever granted, and the only one in which he talked freely and extensively about his personal philosophy and ideology.

"The Robert Heinlein Interview" contains Heinlein you won't find anywhere else -- even in Expanded Universe. If you want to know what Heinlein had to say about UFO's, life after death, epistemology, or libertarianism, this interview is virtually the only source available. It is available in this book for the first time since 1974.

Also included in this collection are articles, reviews, and letters that J. Neil Schulman wrote about Heinlein, including the original article written for the Daily News, about which the Heinleins wrote Schulman that it was, "The best article -- in style, content, and accuracy -- of the many, many written about him over the years."

This book is must-reading for any serious student of Heinlein, or any reader of his seeking to know him better.

Praise From the Critics

"Once in a while you find a writer who says with almost perfect clarity the things you have been thinking about and the things you would like to say if you only had the skill and artistry. This series of writings by and about RAH by J. Neil Schulman have done that for me. A very articulate proponent of the libertarian philosophy in his own right ... he sheds light on RAH's libertarian feelings and beliefs. ... The interview with RAH is the crown jewel of the book. ... On my scale of 0 to 5, this is a 5. Worth reading, worth rereading, and worth keeping to read again."
Darryl Kenning
Reading For Pleasure

"Schulman's book helps put the great master's work and life in context, helps us to see the magnitude and beauty of Heinlein's accomplishments. And, through the feelings of admiration and respect for Heinlein that come through in Schulman's writings, we come to appreciate Heinlein more ourselves. For Schulman seems to have absorbed all Heinlein's writings, and admires him with good reason, and presents it to us."
Stephan Kinsella
GEnie Science Fiction and Fantasy RoundTable

J. NEIL SCHULMAN is the author of two Prometheus award-winning novels, Alongside Night and The Rainbow Cadenza, short fiction, nonfiction, and screenwritings, including the CBS Twilight Zone episode "Profile in Silver."

He is author of the popular Stopping Power: Why 70 Million Americans Own Guns, which Charlton Heston called, "The most cogent explanation of the gun issue I have yet read."

Dr. Walter E. Williams says of Schulman's latest book, Self Control Not Gun Control, "Schulman interestingly and insightfully raises a number of liberty-related issues that we ignore at the nation's peril. His ideas are precisely those that helped make our country the destination of those seeking liberty. The book's title says it all: personal responsibility, not laws and prohibitions, is the mark of a civil society."

Schulman has been published in the Los Angeles Times and other national newspapers, as well as National Review, Reason, Liberty, and other magazines. His LA Times article "If Gun Laws Work, Why Are We Afraid?" won the James Madison Award from the Second Amendment Foundation; and in November, 1995, the 500,000-member Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms awarded Schulman its Gun Rights Defender prize.

Schulman's books have been praised by Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, Anthony Burgess, Robert A. Heinlein, Colin Wilson, and many other prominent individuals.

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