For Us, The Living; A Comedy of Customs

xvii, [3], 263, [5] pages. Blue dot on fep. Introduction by Spider Robinson. Afterword by Robert James, Ph.D. This is Heinlein's long-lost first novel, written in 1939 and never before published, introducing ideas and themes that would shape his career and define the genre that is synonymous with his name. After crashing his car in 1939, Naval Airman Perry Nelson awakens to find the radically different world of 2086, one marked by a United Europe, the destruction of Manhattan island by two helicopters in 2003, and other changes in the economy, legal system, and the relationships between men and women. Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7, 1907 - May 8, 1988) was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accuracy in his fiction, and was thus a pioneer of the subgenre of hard science fiction. His published works, both fiction and non-fiction, express admiration for competence and emphasize the value of critical thinking. His plots often posed provocative situations which challenged conventional social mores. His work continues to have an influence on the science-fiction genre, and on modern culture more generally. For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Customs is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It was published for the first time in 2003. Heinlein admirer and science fiction author Spider Robinson titled his introductory essay "RAH DNA", as he believes this first, unpublished novel formed the DNA of Heinlein's later works. The novel's manuscript was lost until biographer Robert James traced down references to it. His research led to its rediscovery in a box left in a garage. Heinlein had apparently sent it to an earlier biographer, Leon Stover. Perry Nelson, a normal 1939 engineer and Navy pilot, is driving his automobile when he has a blowout, skids over a cliff, and wakes up in the year 2086. Though he was apparently killed in the summer, he re-appears in extremely cold snow, nearly dies again by freezing, and is saved by a fur-clad woman named Diana. The exact circumstances of his being killed and reborn after a century and a half are never explained. The later 21st century people seem strangely incurious, showing little interest in how he had come to be among them and rather take his appearance for granted and proceed to explain to him the details of the social and political set-up of their world. The book is akin more to a lecture series than a novel. A number of people have remarked on its resemblance to H. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come where the sleeper wakes into pseudo-utopia. The character Diana's background is clarified in a multiple-page footnote from the author. The future society has a version of a Social Credit structure with a central government-run bank exclusively controlling the monetary supply to prevent overproduction and remaining private banks prohibited from lending money they do not actually have on hand and which had been explicitly designated for investment risk. The book does not tell precisely how the protagonist came to wake up a century and a half after being killed in a car accident, and find himself wandering in the snow in the body of a denizen of the future who had had enough of life and chose to commit suicide. It is mentioned that his last sight before crashing down and getting killed was a girl in a green bathing suit who had the same face as the Diana which he meets in the future; it turns out that her name had been Diana, too, and that to her fell the disagreeable task of finding Perry's broken body and reporting the accident. There is the clear implication that the later Diana was an avatar or reincarnation of the earlier one, but this is not stated explicitly. As noted by reviewer Nancy Green, this aspect of the book gives the impression of a draft which Heinlein intended to further work on, but never did. May be Science Ficti.…