You can spend a year reading Churchill. His history of WWI is excellent too, even if he is at pains to show why Gallipoli wasn't really his fault. His biography of the Duke of Marlborough is excellent too.

History of the English Speaking Peoples incorporates excerpts of a lot of his writings that cover periods from the Boer War (where he first entered the public consciousness) backwards, but adds a lot of other stuff as well. I'm a little conflicted about that, as Churchill is such an enjoyable writer in his trenchant remarks on minutia that it is almost a pity to excerpt him on anything as you miss a lot of enjoyment by what is left out.

But one of my favorite Churchill observations is in Peoples. Discussing the lead up to the French Revolution, this grandson of a Duke notes that the French people had not been so well served in their history to that point as the English, because at least the English had had the War of the Roses to accomplish a serious culling of the aristocracy while the French were afflicted with thousands of nobility sitting around at Versailles doing nothing but eating up the national resources.

Some truth to that. French history is weird and obsessive partly because they never had an egalitarian-like tradition (I use the term advisedly) so when Came the Day, they didn't really know what to do about it and so went off their collective heads -- permanently, apparently.

I am a Heinlein "contactee." We started a correspondence many years ago. I met and spoke with Robert and Virginia at a libertarian event in Phoenix in 1977. What an evening! Since I am from the Kansas City area, of course I had to attend the Centennial.

Tomorrow is the 3rd anniversary of the Centennial and Robert Heinlein's 103rd birthday. There will be another event that stands as a tribute to Robert Heinlein and it involves me. It's a shameless self-promotion, but from everything I have read, Mr Heinlein would have been delighted.

You know that old hippie/new-age sentiment, "A stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet" Well, three years ago in Kansas City, I was surprised that it actually came true--at least for a few days. There were some people I already knew there, like my old high school friend, Jim Gill. However, there were even more whom I did not know, such as Dr. Amy Baxter, the Heinlein's "granddaughter." Yet, we all had an instant point of mutual reference. We all "sang the same songs." It was intoxicating.

Robert Heinlein was one of the biggest reasons I became a writer. I wanted others to experience what I experienced, when I read Heinlein's body of work. So, I entered World Ceres, in the Centennial Short Story contest. The object of the contest, was to write a Heinleinesque story. I did that well enough to garner one of the awards. That was felt wonderful.

I wanted the feeling to continue, so I approached Big Head Press with a proposal to make an online graphic story ("comic" when I was a kid) of World Ceres. They liked it and I have expanded it into an ongoing series, Escape From Terra. It is the most popular offering in Big Head history and in has been in the top 100 online comics almost from the moment of its release.

Self Promotion Warning

Tomorrow, on Robert Heinlein's birthday, the first collect of Escape From Terra strips will be released in trade paperback format. You will find it for sale on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/ESCAPE-TERRA-1-Sa ... 974381470/

Before the end of July, the first collection of the short stories from which EFT was adapted will be released as Adventures in Human Space. It will be available in trade paperback and ebook formats. When it is released, it will be available here:

http://www.ascolibooks.com/vera-verba/index.html

Finally, I have written a novella about Robert Heinlein... more or less. To find out what the hell that means, please check out The Resurrections of Robert A. Heinlein: Genesis. It is available in ebook format and more stories in that series are on the drawing board. Find it here:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/14227

Enjoy!

Epic. This is the sort of posting here I live for. Thank you!

Right back at you!

UPDATE:

Adventures in Human Space, the first collection of the short stories from which EFT was adapted, is now available in trade paperback and Kindle ebook formats on Amazon, here:

Trade paperback:
http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Human- ... 129&sr=8-3

Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-In-Hum ... 129&sr=8-3

Enjoy!

I don't recall us inviting this guy, although maybe Tim took a run at it and wiped out. How'd we miss him?