"Dumb as a box of rocks" -- I think it was Alexei Panshin who referred to the "Kick Me" sign that Rod was wearing on his back.
With regard to the race thing, Heinlein has done this several times, and it rather annoys me. He writes the character as entirely whitebread, except for a few hidden clues as to race or ethnicity. I noticed it in Starship Troopers and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. I'm willing to give him more of a pass in this one because no matter what race he was, the background was more interestingly cosmopolitan than usual.
I actually wondered if Rod was intended to be asexual -- though being gay in a society where it was marginalized, especially in a survival situation, would probably look much the same.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2012-06-04 06:10 pm (UTC)With regard to the race thing, Heinlein has done this several times, and it rather annoys me. He writes the character as entirely whitebread, except for a few hidden clues as to race or ethnicity. I noticed it in Starship Troopers and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. I'm willing to give him more of a pass in this one because no matter what race he was, the background was more interestingly cosmopolitan than usual.
I actually wondered if Rod was intended to be asexual -- though being gay in a society where it was marginalized, especially in a survival situation, would probably look much the same.