Heinlein - favorite works

I was reading about RAH on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinlein) and they classify his works into 4 periods.

Early work, 1939–1958:
i.e. Have Space Suit—Will Travel, Farmer in the Sky, Starman Jones - generally considered his juveniles.

The Seminal Years, 1959–1960
Starship Troopers

Mid-Period work, 1961–1973
i.e. Glory Road, and in Stranger in a Strange Land, I Will Fear No Evil

Later work, 1980–1987
i.e. The Number of the Beast, To Sail Beyond the Sunset, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

There is obviously a distinct difference between these periods and it got me wondering. Looking at all of RAH's works that you've read, which period contains your favorites RAH work and why? i.e. if you had to pick one period and only 1 period of his to read and have in your library, which would it be?

I'm having a hard time choosing between Mid-Period and Later work but if I must, I'd say Mid-Period. Stranger in a Strange Land, Time Enough for Love and Fear No Evil are some of my favorite books. I can't put my finger on why but my best guess is that I like reading about capable people and success. One of my favorite parts of Time Enough for Love was Lazarus organizing and managing the trip to the "frontier."

If I had to pick only one period it would be the early. It contains many of his finest stories and not all Juvenlies. Double Star
and Door Into Summer come to mind.

Early work, without a doubt.

I'm having a hard time choosing between Mid-Period and Later work but if I must, I'd say Mid-Period. Stranger in a Strange Land, Time Enough for Love and Fear No Evil are some of my favorite books. I can't put my finger on why but my best guess is that I like reading about capable people and success. One of my favorite parts of Time Enough for Love was Lazarus organizing and managing the trip to the "frontier."

Oddly enough these are some of my least favorite works. My own favorite period would be the early years, likely because those the ones I read first. I enjoy many of the other works but if I had to pick one period this would be it.

So far I'd have to say Mid-Period, but that is mostly what I've read so far.

Seminal and Mid-Period for me. The Later stuff felt pretty programmatic to me.

In Stranger in a Strange Land it intrigues me how Heinlein was able
to predict the hippie/love/flower power movement of the 60's.

I'd take mid-period, and could gladly do without his late works. My favorites of his novels are The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and Citizen of the Galaxy. But I also love a number of his early short stories, especially "Requiem."

Door into Summer is one of my favourite sf stories: an interesting premise, good plot and amusing characterisation.

Of course RAH's juveniles were as much about morality and values as they were about science - and none the worse for that, in my opinion. Double Star barely qualifies as sf. Starship Troopers is more about the morality of war and nationalism hmmm, not sure this is the word I want than anything else.

Moon is probably my #1 favourite of all RAH's work. Manny presents a great example and I am sure has inspired many young men (and maybe young women too).

But I love TEFL and all its sequels. Lazarus is a terrific character, though I would probably hate him if I met him.

So, all periods then!

I think when I read Glory Road by Heinlein in the sixth grade it made the greatest impression of his novels, I believe I read them all in the 6th & 7th grade. It was one of the few novels to have sex scenes in the elementary library. I would have chosen this novel over starship troopers to make into a movie.

Perhaps - but making Starship Troopers into a bad movie may have been enough damage for any author - not to mention the sequel!

Robert A. Mosher

My own two cents: my taste has changed over twenty years+; but I STILL like the juveniles.

1. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
- I read this about once a year, and end up talking like Manny for a week.
2. Citizen of the Galaxy
3. The Door Into Summer - ahh, cats...
4. Tunnel in the Sky
5. Glory Road
6. Friday
7. Have Spacesuit, Will Travel - female protagonists getting short shrift? huh?
8. Between Planets

I also get a kick out of Job.

The late ones were great, but take too much effort to get through. If you don't get the joke, it's best to avoid them.

Double Star barely qualifies as sf.

Hmm, let's see. First published in 1956.

Interplanetary travel, extraterrestrials, torchships (nuclear powered spacecraft), a 'smelly' attachment to allow a user to experience scents while watching recordings - all things we still don't have today.

Description of water bed, so detailed that it made it impossible to patent water beds later when they began to be manufactured (per Wikipedia), maximum security booth for sight, sound, and scramble, plus in all likelihood a lot of other things that are common now but would be considered SF in 1956.

Looks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck - yeah, I'd say it's a duck.

>14 DavidBoultbee:

David, we see this kind of thing..

not really SF

more fantasy than SF

blah, blah.. quite a bit.

It's beginning to irritate me, just slightly. This is, after all, a thread in "Science Fiction Fans".

First, SF should be judged on its merits as SF, not as some other genre. Many, many SF authors and fans, for many years, have asserted that SF is fundamentally different in intent: An SF story is primarily a thought experiment, NOT an attempt to impress the reader with the author's ability to obfuscate his plot. YES, we absolutely love writers like Le Guin and Herbert and Delany and Wolfe, who manage to amaze us with both their poetry and their ideas. But the genre is ABOUT the ideas, not the langauge; the idea has to be there, somewhere, or it's not SF.

As far as fantasy goes:

'Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic' - Arthur C. Clarke

We need to remember to judge SF on its context; novels written in the 40's and 50's were crippled in certain ways in order to survive editing and publication. Accusations that authors from that era wrote 'pulp' are entirely accurate, in a back-handed way; they HAD to, if they wanted to do anything but starve in the garret. An artist who only writes for himself is a narcissist, at best.

Re. the original question:

If I had to pick a period, it would definitely be Early, though I like individual works (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Job: A Comedy of Justice ) and parts of others (Time Enough for Love, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls) from his later years.

(I have a theory that the vast majority of people who dislike Heinlein have read *only* his post Stranger in a Strange Land work . . . which is easy to dislike if you don't "get the joke" or sympathize with his worldview.)

I have to say, though, that I think Wikipedia's periodization is off a little: I'd put the break between "seminal" and "mid-period" between Farnham's Freehold and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, for both timing and content reasons.

I think The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is terrific. Nobody ever mentions Farmer in the Sky. I think that's pretty good.

My favorite Heinlein books are Tunnel in the Sky, Glory Road, Citizen of the Galaxy, Friday, Farmer in the Sky, and Farnham's Freehold.

>18 blake06:

Thank you. I was starting to think I was the only freak who liked Farnham's Freehold.

Glory Road was one of his best - everytime I hear a belly button mentioned, I immediately think of Igli.

What a great story.

I would have to choose the early work. Those books are just plain fun to read.

I love his time travel -- Door Into Summer and the story "By His Boostraps".