# Heinlein in FLF *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 02 Dec 2002* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Michael Andre-Driussi *02 Dec 2002, 22:28* > Rostrum wrote: > Yeah, but you don't really want me to start comparing Free > Live Free with Heinlein's _Number of the Beast_, do you? Which is funny, because I did detect odd flashes of Heinlein in FLF, mainly in the kitchen's "door into summer" image, but also the sort of Libertarian reading that Adam Stephanides was talking about (a reading that if not undermined by the text itself would produce a very Heinlein feel -- since I think it is undermined, I wonder if it is a conscious critique of Heinlein or not). As well as the whole "--By His Bootstraps" time-travel loop, of course! If the four do end up in a "simpler past," where they enjoy the benefits of frontier liberty, then that would also be, imho, a thing to remind me of Heinlein. The frontier spirit of THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS and the frontiers of FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD. OTOH, Dave Langford's review of FLF mentions Chesterton's THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY, and this seems very appropriate. =mantis= ---