Farnham’s Freehold
Hugh Farnam makes good preparations for his family to survive a nuclear holocaust, but
are the preparations good enough to survive a trip to the future?
In his blog, Fred
Pohl wrote about how Heinlein’s agent gave permission for Pohl publish the novel in
If and to cut “five or ten thousand words in the beginning that were
argumentative, extraneous and kind of boring” (and Pohl agreed to pay full rate for the
cut words). But apparently, Heinlein “went ballistic” when he saw the first
installment, so much so that when the book appeared as a separate publication, Heinlein
made sure people knew who was responsible for the previous cuts by adding a note* that
“A short version of this novel, as cut and revised by Frederik Pohl, appeared in
Worlds of If Magazine.”
* The version of
Heinlein’s note that Pohl recalled was much funnier than Heinlein’s actual note in
our timeline, but sadly, we have lost track of where we saw Pohl’s version.
— Michael Main
Because the communists are realists. They never risk a war that would hurt them, even if
they could win. So they won’t risk one they can’t win.