The Dead Roberts Discuss Fandom

FROM THE FILES OF THE DEAD ROBERTS SOCIETY:

Heinlein:
My fans were the kind who would correct your orbital mechanics before breakfast. Good people, except the ones who insisted every story was a manifesto.

RAW:
Oh, Bob, your fans loved manifestos. Mine preferred confusion. If they were not laughing and questioning reality simultaneously, they thought I had lost my touch.

Frost:
Confusion is fine, but my readers mostly wanted a quiet walk in the woods. They would tell me a poem changed their life, and I would think, “Well, that is more than I expected from a fence.”

Oppenheimer:
I never thought of having fans. Students, yes. Admirers, occasionally. But “fans” are for movie stars and baseball players.

RFK:
You had admirers who thought you were the smartest man alive. Mine did not. They just wanted a better country.

Johnson:
My fans wanted to know if I sold my soul at the crossroads. I told them: if I did, I hope I got a good deal. Blues fans do not mind a little mystery.

Graves:
Mystery is essential. My readers wanted myth, truth, and the uncomfortable suspicion that history is lying to them. They were right, of course.

Heinlein:
History lies? Only when written by committees.

RAW:
Or when written by people who do not realize they are trapped in a reality tunnel.

Frost:
Or when written by someone who thinks a metaphor is a structural support beam.

Johnson:
Or when written by someone who never heard the blues.

Oppenheimer:
Gentlemen, perhaps history is simply written by those who survive long enough to regret it.

RFK:
That is ... darker than my usual stump speech.

Graves:
Darkness is where myths ferment. And where fans become devoted.

Heinlein:
Well, at least none of our fans were boring.

RAW:
Speak for yourself. I had a few who thought Discordianism was a religion. Imagine that!

Frost:
I had people who thought “The Road Not Taken” was motivational.

All:
That's worse!