Robert Heinlein

Robert A. Heinlein was the most influential American science fiction writer of the twentieth century — a figure whose impact on the genre is comparable to that of H.G. Wells a generation earlier, a writer who raised the literary ambitions of science fiction, expanded its audience, and provoked its most passionate arguments. He won four Hugo Awards, was the first science fiction writer to appear on the New York Times bestseller list, and produced a body of work so ideologically varied — militarist and libertarian, puritan and sexually revolutionary, patriotic and anarchist — that he has been claimed by the American right, the American left, and the American counterculture with equal conviction.

The Dean of Science Fiction

Robert Anson Heinlein was born in Butler, Missouri, in 1907, and grew up in Kansas City. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1929, served as a naval officer aboard destroyers and aircraft carriers, and was discharged in 1934 due to pulmonary tuberculosis — a medical condition that ended his military career but left him with a lifelong interest in military discipline, duty, and the ethics of service that pervades his fiction.

He entered science fiction in 1939 with “Life-Line,” published in Astounding Science Fiction under the editorship of John W. Campbell. Within two years, he was the magazine’s most important contributor. His early stories — collected in The Man Who Sold the Moon (1950) and The Green Hills of Earth (1951) — established a “Future History” that gave science fiction a new seriousness of purpose: a plausible, internally consistent timeline of human expansion into space.

The Juveniles

Between 1947 and 1958, Heinlein wrote twelve juvenile novels for Scribner’s — including Rocket Ship Galileo (1947), Space Cadet (1948), Red Planet (1949), Farmer in the Sky (1950), The Star Beast (1954), Citizen of the Galaxy (1957), and Have Space Suit — Will Travel (1958) — that were among the finest young-adult science fiction ever published. They featured competent, self-reliant young protagonists solving problems through intelligence and courage, and they introduced an entire generation of readers to science fiction.

The Three Great Novels

Starship Troopers (1959) — rejected by Scribner’s as too militaristic for children — is a novel about a future soldier’s education and service in a war against alien “Bugs.” Its political philosophy, which restricts full citizenship to military veterans, has been debated endlessly: critics have called it fascist, libertarian, a satire, and a straightforward advocacy of civic duty. Whatever one concludes about its politics, the novel’s depiction of military training and combat — the powered armour, the squad tactics, the bond between soldiers — has been enormously influential on subsequent military science fiction, film, and video games.

Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) is Heinlein’s most famous novel and one of the most culturally significant works of American science fiction. Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised by Martians, returns to Earth and, with his alien perspective and psychic powers, founds a religion, challenges sexual mores, and becomes a messianic figure. The novel’s celebration of free love, communal living, and spiritual exploration made it a bible of the 1960s counterculture — the word “grok,” meaning to understand something so deeply that it becomes part of you, entered the English language.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966) is a novel about a lunar revolution modelled on the American Revolution, narrated in a distinctive patois and featuring one of science fiction’s most memorable artificial intelligences. It won the Hugo Award and is considered by many critics to be Heinlein’s finest novel — the one in which his libertarian politics, his narrative skill, and his gift for creating believable future societies are in perfect balance.

Later Works

The later novels — Time Enough for Love (1973), The Number of the Beast (1980), Friday (1982), Job: A Comedy of Justice (1984), The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985), To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987) — are longer, more discursive, and more sexually explicit than the earlier work. They feature Heinlein’s favourite recurring character, the immortal Lazarus Long, and they explore themes of longevity, incest, solipsism, and parallel universes with an exuberance that some readers find liberating and others find indulgent. Critical opinion on the late Heinlein is sharply divided.

Legacy

Heinlein’s influence on science fiction — and on American culture more broadly — is immense. He popularised the concept of the competent protagonist who thinks his way through problems. He expanded the literary range of science fiction from adventure stories to novels of ideas. He anticipated the sexual revolution, the libertarian movement, and the culture wars. He was honoured by NASA, appeared on the cover of Analog, and was named the first Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Collecting Heinlein

Rocket Ship Galileo (Scribner’s, 1947) in first edition with dust jacket is the first of the Heinlein juveniles. Stranger in a Strange Land (Putnam, 1961) is the key collecting target — note that the original 1961 edition was substantially cut; the “uncut” edition was published posthumously in 1991. Starship Troopers (Putnam, 1959) and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (Putnam, 1966) in first editions are also major targets. The Scribner’s juveniles in dust jackets are highly collected.