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Location
Weatherford, Oklahoma
Document Type
Paper
Event Website
https://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-54.htm
Start Date
24-7-2026 3:30 PM
End Date
24-7-2026 4:20 PM
Description
Robert Heinlein, Grand Master of Speculative Fiction, was born in Butler, MO (one hour north of Route 66), raised in Kansas City, and lived much of his early adult life in Los Angeles, the westernmost terminus of Route 66. Given this proximity to the Mother Road, it’s no surprise that Heinlein spent a considerable portion of his career writing about various versions of the Road Trip, whether it was taken via foot, horse-drawn carriage, automobile or spaceship. The Roads Must Roll, his 3rd published short story (1940), name checks Route 66, while many of his early works of juvenile fiction follow the adventures of pioneer families blazing trails from earth out across the galaxy. As the 1960s dawned, Heinlein began writing fiction for adults, including Glory Road (1964), wherein a Vietnam veteran is swept up on a swords and sorcery adventure, only to discover that the real trip takes place after ‘happily ever after’. In his late career, Heinlein’s fascination with the road would reach its (il)logical, maximalist conclusion in 1980’s The Number of the Beast, featuring five protagonists, including a car named Gay Deceiver, who travel to innumerable alternate universes in an attempt to save humanity from a race of killer aliens. Considered by some to be his most problematic novel, TNOTB features lost highways, surprising short cuts, portals to the unknown, temporal shifts across boundaries, and a sense of the fluid experience of “the road”, all leading to the ultimate destination – a Science Fiction convention in the sky. This paper will seek to explore Heinlein’s theory of ‘Pantheistic Solipsism’, the idea that all myths and fictional universes exist as parallel universes to our own and that persons and beings from these various “worlds” interact with one another, as a maximalist Road Trip across space and time.
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Included in
An Infinite Number of Roads Diverged in a Wood: Robert Heinlein’s Maximalist Road Trip in The Number of the Beast
Weatherford, Oklahoma
Robert Heinlein, Grand Master of Speculative Fiction, was born in Butler, MO (one hour north of Route 66), raised in Kansas City, and lived much of his early adult life in Los Angeles, the westernmost terminus of Route 66. Given this proximity to the Mother Road, it’s no surprise that Heinlein spent a considerable portion of his career writing about various versions of the Road Trip, whether it was taken via foot, horse-drawn carriage, automobile or spaceship. The Roads Must Roll, his 3rd published short story (1940), name checks Route 66, while many of his early works of juvenile fiction follow the adventures of pioneer families blazing trails from earth out across the galaxy. As the 1960s dawned, Heinlein began writing fiction for adults, including Glory Road (1964), wherein a Vietnam veteran is swept up on a swords and sorcery adventure, only to discover that the real trip takes place after ‘happily ever after’. In his late career, Heinlein’s fascination with the road would reach its (il)logical, maximalist conclusion in 1980’s The Number of the Beast, featuring five protagonists, including a car named Gay Deceiver, who travel to innumerable alternate universes in an attempt to save humanity from a race of killer aliens. Considered by some to be his most problematic novel, TNOTB features lost highways, surprising short cuts, portals to the unknown, temporal shifts across boundaries, and a sense of the fluid experience of “the road”, all leading to the ultimate destination – a Science Fiction convention in the sky. This paper will seek to explore Heinlein’s theory of ‘Pantheistic Solipsism’, the idea that all myths and fictional universes exist as parallel universes to our own and that persons and beings from these various “worlds” interact with one another, as a maximalist Road Trip across space and time.
https://dc.swosu.edu/mythcon/mc54/schedule/5
Comments
Partial recording.