EarlyHeinlein

Robert A. Heinlein was a graduate of the US Naval Academy. After serving several years on active duty, he contracted tuberculosis and was medically discharged. Legend has it that in 1939 he was married, broke, and the mortgage was due when he saw an ad in a science fiction magazine for a story-writing contest. First prize was $50. Fifty bucks he needed, so he wrote a story. Instead of sending it to the magazine sponsoring the contest, he sent it off to another SF magazine that paid as much for a story. He sold it. Like another lunger – Dashiell Hammett – Heinlein found that writing paid. Probably with the help and goading of John W. Campbell, editor of "Astounding Science Fiction," Heinlein constructed his "Future History" timeline and began populating it with novels and stories. He also began selling stories to "Boy's Life," the periodical organ of the Boy Scouts of America. He soon began publishing a "juvenile" novel every year. The juveniles, to paraphrase Heinlein, were just adult stories where he left out the sex. A good thing he did, since he was bad at writing it. Things progressed for 20 years until he submitted Starship Troopers as a juvenile to his publisher. They balked: it praised the military, it had violence, it exemplified a society where people had to earn the right to vote. This was 1959, the cusp of Flower Power, liberalism, and the sensitive new-age Nanny Amerika. The publisher bounced it back. All right for you, then. Heinlein sold the novel to another publisher and pretty much ended his production of juveniles. He also discovered sex. His next novel, Stranger In A Strange Land had a heapin' helpin' of "sex" in it, compared to his previous work. It was also a scathing look at organized religion and society. It was an instant hit with the proto-hippie youth outside of the regular SF readership and was a contributing factor to the Hippie Movement – as if it were organized and people were drafted into Haight-Ashbury – that sprung up in California and spread across the nation. The Early Heinlein era took place from 1939 to 1959 and included some of his best work.
Novels
For Us the Living © 2004 Heinlein's first novel. All copies were presumed lost or destroyed, but a manuscript was found in 2003 and given to the Heinlein Society, which turned it over to Heinlein's literary estate. It was sold to Scribner's and published in 2004. Synopsis A man from the 1930s has an automobile accident and awakens in the future, occupying the body of another. How this happened is glossed over since the novel is about his exploration of the Utopian future and it's social norms: liberation of women, casual nudity, Randian individualism. After a struggle to shed his 20th Century provincialism, the protagonist becomes a rocket pilot and undertakes the first flight to the moon. Analysis Heinlein left this one in his trunk, and with good reason. It's a poor novel. Like other critiques of current society dressed as a look back from the future, such as "Looking Backward," it is mostly a series of lectures, sometimes literally from both the female lead and a future scholor, about what was wrong with then-current society. The plot is only robust enough to sustain the lectures and criticisms. Heinlein did much better after this novel. It's interesting in viewing Heinlein's growth as a writer, but that's about it. The protagonist's girlfriend is an interpretive nude dancer on 3D TV, at least that's better than current reality TV.

The Day After Tomorrow also published as Sixth Column © 1941, written as Anson MacDonald Synopsis A confederation of Asian nations at war with the US have invaded and won. An Army officer enters a top-secret lab in the mountains and discovers some kind of accident has decimated the United States last, best hope. He rallies the remaining scientist who use the cause of the accident to create a "religion" with seemingly mystical powers. The religion acts as a front for an underground resistance that uses their super-science to free America. Analysis The plot was suggested to Heinlein by John W. Campbell and there are rumors that Heinlein didn't particularly care to write a Yellow Menace novel. He used the pseudonym of Anson MacDonald [Anson from his middle name and MacDonald from Campbell]. One explanation for this is that Heinlein and Campbell didn't want to dilute the "Heinlein" name that had become associated with the Future History stories. Perhaps another explanation is that Heinlein considered this a "B" effort and didn't want his name associated with it.

Rocket Ship Galileo © 1947 Synopsis A bunch of teen-age chums go to the moon and discover a secret post-war Nazi base there poised to take over the earth. Through forthrightness and moral superiority, they defeat the Nazis and save the world. Analysis This was loosely the basis for the film Destination Moon to which Heinlein contributed and is probably one of Heinlein's juveniles since the plot seems less than sophisticated.

Beyond This Horizon © 1948, written as Anson MacDonald Synopsis Analysis

Space Cadet © 1948 Synopsis Analysis

Red Planet © 1949 Synopsis Analysis

Farmer in the Sky also published as Satellite Scout © 1950 Synopsis Analysis

Between Planets also published as Planets in Combat © 1951 Synopsis Analysis

The Puppet Masters © 1951 Synopsis Analysis Heinlein's take on an alien invader that looks like us, acts like us, but is controlled by aliens predates Jack Finney's Invasion of the Body Snatchers by four years. Invasion, like The Puppet Masters can be viewed as alagory for the attempts by the Soviet Union to infiltrate and undermine the US. The paranoia in The Puppet Masters isn't as omnipresent as Invasion. The Puppet Masters also differs in that it takes a heroic view of mankind's inevitable triumph over non-human forces. A film was made from the novel and released in 1994. While not absolutely faithful to the novel – no cars that flew, drove, or were amphibious – it made an honest attempt to translate the book to film. For the most part it succeeded except for the last 10 minutes. Overall, it was a much better film than most of the Heinlein works adapted to the screen, especially Operation Moonbase, second only to Plan 9 From Outer Space for stinking up theaters.

The Rolling Stones also published as Tramp Space Ship © 1952 Synopsis Analysis

Starman Jones © 1953 Synopsis Analysis

The Star Beast also published as Star Lummox © 1954 Synopsis Analysis

Double Star © 1955 Synopsis The leader who is the equivalent of the president of Earth has been kidnapped on the eve of an important meeting with the Martians. The inner circle of his administration coerces a ham actor to double for him until the leader can be rescued. The actor pulls off the impersonation and the leader is rescued. However, he is so damaged that he never recovers. The inner circle then convinces the actor to keep up the impersonation until after a crucial election. The actor is ennobled by the role and continues carrying on the great leader's ideals for the rest of his life Analysis Yep, they pretty much stole this plot for the Kevin Kline film "Dave." There's not a lot of science fiction in this, except for the milieu. It could have been written as a mainstream novel. It is a short novel, but one of Heinlein's best. You can see the influence of Heinlein's own failed political efforts in this one.

Tunnel in the Sky © 1955 Synopsis As part of the testing for graduating from high school, students must complete a survival course on another planet, via a space-warp "tunnel." This isn't for the unprepared since there is a significant percentage of kids who don't make it back. Rod Walker is part of the graduating class. His group is dropped, individually, onto an earth-like planet where they have to survive for a period ranging from 48 hours to 10 days. The trouble begins when pick-up fails. The students eventually find each other and form a community for survival. The story is about cooperation and teamwork as well as Rod's reluctant rise to community leadership. They are eventually rescued, but Rod and many of his fellow survivors decide on careers as scouts and pioneers, opening up new planets like this for humanity. Analysis This is another juvenile, but for a slightly older audience, perhaps people just graduating from high school. I read it in grade school and the thought of not only abandonment, but being lost among the stars scared the vinegar out of me. Survivalist stories – not to be confused with fools who lay up supplies in Montana awaiting the fall of society – have always fascinated me. Heinlein tackles issues such as survival, dealing with bullies, and the raging hormones of teens in this one with a deft hand.

Time for the Stars © 1956 Synopsis A pair of telepathic twins are used in the first starship as a means of communication between the starship and Earth since thought transferance is a faster-than-light means of communication: One goes on the starship, the other stays home on Earth. Analysis This is another Heinlein juvenile novel. It's a picaresque novel about space exploration using Einstein's twins paradox to show how time slows with acceleration. Heinlein uses Teflon by name as a material used for a boat hull rather than for a skillet coating.

Citizen of the Galaxy © 1957 Synopsis Analysis

The Door into Summer © 1957 Synopsis Analysis

Have Spacesuit - Will Travel © 1958 Synopsis High school senior Clifford "Kip" Russell wants to go to the moon so badly that his teeth hurt, the only problem is that he has no money to do it. Instead he enters about a million entries into a soap jingle contest and wins . . . third prize: a surplus space station pressure suit. Since it's about the closest he'll ever get to the moon before going to the local community college, he spends his summer refurbing the suit to its original specs. While testing his one evening, he enters a radio communication with "Peewee" and a UFO lands in his backyard. A second UFO lands and abducts him. After a grueling chase along the surface of the moon and a trip to Pluto where he nearly freezes to death, Kip and Peewee help an intergalactic cop stall an invasion of earth by beings that like our planet and consider us good soup fodder. After a judgment by the intergalactic council, the bad aliens are destroyed and Earth is given a chance to evolve. Kip and Peewee are returned to Earth and things improve for Kip. Analysis OK, I'll admit it, I get choked up with pride and patriotism every time I read this thing. There's a scene near the end where Kip is called upon to defend Earth from being interdimensionally rotated out of existance. His staunch defense and defiance get me every time. And, this has been going on with me for 35 years. Obviously, this is a juvenile, but its aw-shucks heroism and message of fighting against impossible odds makes it a novel that should be read by every kid.

Methuselah's Children © 1958 Synopsis Analysis

Starship Troopers also published as Starship Soldier © 1959 Synopsis Analysis
Collections Up To 1959
The Man Who Sold the Moon © 1940 Preface Life-Line [omitted from the 1950 edition] Blowups Happen [omitted from the 1950 edition] Let There Be Light" The Roads Must Roll The Man Who Sold the Moon Requiem

Waldo and Magic Inc. © 1950 Waldo Magic Inc.

Green Hills of Earth © 1951 Delilah and the Space Rigger Space Jockey The Long Wait Gentlemen, Be Seated The Black Pits of Luna It's Great to Be Back " — We Also Walk Dogs" Ordeal in Space The Green Hills of Earth Logic of Empire

Tomorrow, the Stars © 1952, anthology Preface Robert A. Heinlein I'm Scared Jack Finney The Silly Season C.M. Kornbluth The Report on the Barnhouse Effect Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. The Tourist Trade Bob Tucker Rainmaker John Reese Absalom Henry Kuttner The Monster Lester del Rey Jay Score Eric Frank Russel Betelgeuse Bridge William Tenn Survival Ship Judith Merril Keyhole Murray Leinster Misbegotten Missionary Isaac Asimov The Sack William Morrison Poor Superman Fritz Leiber

Assignment in Eternity © 1953 Gulf Elsewhen Lost Legacy Jerry Was A Man

Revolt In 2100 © 1953 Introduction Henry Kuttner "If This Goes On — " Coventry Misfit Concerning Stories Never Written: Postscript

The Robert Heinlein Omnibus © 1958

The Menace from Earth © 1959 The Year of the Jackpot By His Bootstraps Columbus Was A Dope The Menace From Earth Sky Lift Goldfish Bowl Project Nightmare Water If For Washing

The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag also published as 6 x H © 1959 The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag The Man Who Traveled in Elephants "All You Zombies" They Our Fair City "And He Built a Crooked House"