Asimov vs. Clarke vs. Heinlein

[T'Girl]

How else would you describe a bipartite society with political right of franchise and to hold office resting exclusively in the hands of military and former veterans.

Heinlein in notes and interviews said that only about two percent obtained the franchise through military service, but you had to perform some form of public service. One example given in the novel was that if you were (his words) deaf, dumb and blind - they would give you a job counting caterpillars by touch. Society would find some kind of activity for you, so you could obtain the vote. But yes you had to do something to get it.

Asimov seems to be leading the poll, I always felt that Heinlein and Clarke were much better at creating characters then Asimov. For me Heinlein barely edges out Clarke for first place, Asimov a distant trailing third.

 

[Vendikarr]

Asimov's work always appealed to me more than the others, but it was if this was a horse race, it would be a photo finish.

 

[Klaus]

Like another of my favorites, Larry Niven, Asimov sometimes had trouble having his characters live up to the scale of his ideas... but like Niven, the simplicity of his writing style can also make it easy to overlook how good he can be. When the characters were worthy of the ideas, it was magic.

Clarke has some of that same flavor, though his characters were probably better on average than Asimov's. His writing is also subtle but definitely more literary than Asimov's as well, and had moments of real poetry.

Heinlein is a "bigger" writer than either of them, and his flaws and highlights are more extreme. I think he was the best writer of the three in a literary sense, and his masterpieces like Moon are among my favorite books of all time. All three have ideas that are stunning, but I think that RH was more consistently the best at bringing those ideas to life. That said, he became increasingly self-indulgent [Number of the Beast] in a way you can't imagine either of the others even being capable of. I think the heights were well worth the depths, however.

Asimov and Clarke also get points for the power and clarity of their science writing.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Asimov was the least prone to fall back on violence and physical action to fill out his narratives.

 

[Agenda]

Asimov. Writing was like breathing for this guy.

 

[Admiral2]

A society where at some point in the past the military got tired of being mistreated and forgotten and created one...

IOW, a society where one group of people enforced its will on others and denied basic rights of citizenship to those not sharing its values. Got it.

Yeah right, IOW...if you wanted to use the wrong words.

The limits attached to voting and government service are not based on ethnicity, gender, religion or party affiliation, as they have been throughout history in Real Life. The Terran Federation says if you want to vote or if you want to govern you must first demonstrate a capacity for self-sacrifice on behalf of others. I would think most people would want voters and world leaders to demonstrate that capacity.

But you're saying if you were a citizen of the Terran Federation you'd want to fight for the right to vote and govern and still be a selfish prig? Got it!

 

[stj]

It was a hard, hard choice between Asimov and Clarke, but in the end I picked Asimov by a hair, primarily because Asimov had a better short story collection. On the other hand, Clarke's The City and the Stars/Against the Fall of Night was one of the few works to compete with Stapledon, which is great praise indeed.

Much of Heinlein's work is for children and his science writing talents lay in the scientific exposition in the Scribner juveniles. I find that becoming more acquainted with the work of Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken, George Bernard Shaw and Jack London makes Heinlein's literary style vastly less impressive than Asimov's, much less Clarke's. Maybe the Good Doctor was pedestrian, but he was at least himself. Further, the subject matter of his later novels, showing most infamously with Starship Troopers but pervading all of his later work, was decidedly immature, relying too much on shocking superannuated adolescents (Stranger in a Strange Land,) or indulging in ignorant horseshit (practically everything else.)