For those of you who are fans of Grandmaster R.A.H.!, which of his books are your favorites? Do you prefer his early works, his juvenile stories, his military adventures, or the later trans-universe multiparters?
The Howard Families Saga. From “Methuselah’s Children” to whichever one came last (I want to say TSBTS, but I may be wrong). Including side branches (TNOTB) and earlier ones that got hooked up with the Howards (TMIAHM). There’s a kind of historic sweep to that timeline that feels…deep. Palpably so. That doesn’t really make sense except to Heinlein readers, but…
TMIAHM is my favorite Heinlin book. My favorite Heinlein character is Willis, from The Red Planet.
Have to go with Time Enough for Love; I know exactly what you are saying, jayjay. I’d call that “deep” feeling a “bittersweet weltschmerz”. Its most charachteristic moment would be in The Tale of the Adopted Daughter (contained within TEFL).
Can I be contrarian and say “None of the Above”? My favorite Heinlein period may be his '50s adult stories: Puppet Masters, Double Star, Methulsuah’s Children*, Door Into Summer, etc. The first time I read Puppet Masters, I didn’t sleep soundly for at least a week and I kept staring at people’s shoulderblades. The scene in Methulsuah’s Children where whatshername is standing in the prison camp, in the rain watching the crowd trying to board the spaceship and resolving to pass her baby forward if there’s no room for her…shivers up my spine! These were Heinlein at his peak:
But…
without his short stories…without “By His Bootstraps” or “Year of the Jackpot” or “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag” I might never have started reading SF. He’s not the best short story writer in SF, but he’s in the top 20 easily and the quality to crap ratio of his short-stories is unparalled. So maybe I’ll vote for his short stories instead…
and yet
his Juvies: Good God, his Juvies: No one…NO ONE else has ever written such perfect introductions to SF (although Gerrold is giving it the ol’ college try with Jumping Off the Planet). From his bitch-slap rebuttal of William Golding’s(?) Lord of the Flies with the magnificent Tunnel in the Sky (pet theory: no hard proof of this) to the snowball into an avalanche feeling of Have Space Suit, Will Travel (the kid starts out trying to win a soap contest and ends up in a “Doc” Smith novel), to the perfect descriptions of what life will feel like on spaceships (Time for the Stars) or space-colonies (Farmer in the Sky) his Juvies are unparalleled. I change my vote: I’ll pick his Juvies.
But…
there’re his '60s adult novels…Stranger, Starship Troopers (yeah, it was supposed to be a juvie), etc. and my fav: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Every one of 'em made me think. Even when I disagreed with Heinlein, he made me think. That counts for a lot to me.
And his later stuff: Some of it’s so-so, but even the so-so stuff has merit (there’s a germ of a good story in I Will Fear No Evil, and it’s a credit to the stregnth of Heinlein’s writing that I Will Fear… is a first draft and unedited and still readable). And of his later stuff, Job is just a damned (<-PUN!) good story, To Sail Beyond the Sunset captures the flavor of growing up in the early part of the century beautifully, and Time Enough For Love has one of the only two or three SF stories that can make my cry EVERY TIME I read it (Dora’s Story aka The Tale of the Adopted Daughter).
Look, every writer has a “voice”. Some writer’s voices are closer to your “inner ear” than others. I admire Tolkien, I love his writing. But I have to work to “translate” it. He’s not writing my inner-language. His sentence structure, though beautifully crafted does not flow easily with me. I have to work to read it ('though it’s worth the work!) and Heinlein’s the opposite. I’ve read just about every word he’s ever written, from Travelogues to speeches to fiction and back and his writing-style and my reading-style coincide perfectly.
Czar: can I change my vote to “All of the Above?” 
Sorry for the ultra-long response…
Fenris
*Methusulah’s Children originally appeared in the early '40s but was completely (from what I’ve read) re-written in the late '50s.
good morning friends,
i would also cast my vote for “all of the above” but if i were pressed for a definite answer, i would split my vote between stranger in a strange land and the moon is a harsh mistress.
for short fiction, if this goes on…
the juvies are masterpieces too.
mr. heinlein played a large part in teaching me to read for pleasure.
- Stranger in a strange land
- The moon is a harsh mistress
- Glory road (vastly underrated)
- Time enough for love
- The door into summer
Heinlein is my favorite Science Fiction author, though I didn’t really care for some of his latest works (Job, Friday, and The Cat who Walks through Walls, for example). In my opinion, he was at the height of his powers in the 1960s, but his 1950s stuff is pretty good too. The best:
- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
- Stranger in a Strange Land
I may be hard to convey to younger folks the excitement of growing up at a time when Mr. Heinlein was alive, and spotting a brand new Heinlein for the first time on the paperback rack at the supermarket.
Back in the late 50s and early 60s in a small town in Oregon, where there was no bookstore, my only sources were the local library, racks at the local markets and a couple of second hand stores with endless shelves of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books plus some rumpled paperbacks and even more rumpled comic books. * I didn’t even know how many Heinleins there were to find! * And believe me, that was one of my main goals - to find and read and own every one of them
In 1966 at the tender age of 17, I was part of a speech and essay contest winning group that traveled across the US and Canada for a month. Heaven! And I used a few minutes of our tour of the Library of Congress to march over to the card catalog and look up all of Heinlein’s books, writing them down furiously before we had to go.
Then, of course, I had to keep vigilance at the paperback racks for all the new ones…
Pick a favorite? You’ve got to be kidding! I launched, as did so many other kids, with his “juveniles” (and how many writers wouldn’t give a significant portion of their body to be able to write such compelling stories?) I devoured them all, though was slightly less impressed with Rocket Ship Galileo until I worked out from the copyright dates that it was his earliest.
Graduated to his “adults” and was enthralled at Puppet Masters and Double Star. Starship Troopers gave me a whole different insight about loyalty, duty and other heavy topics.
Glory Road is simply wonderful, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is awesome, and Time Enough For Love enthralling. When it came out I figured that was the master’s swan song, and it would have been a fitting one. But I was delighted with his later work as well, especially Friday and Job.
When it all comes down to it, I’ll have to say that To Sail Beyond the Sunset is a fitting memorial. Sigh.
(Highly recommended, BTW, is Requiem, the collection of a few odds and ends plus masterful appreciations by some of the biggest names in the biz today. Forget the damn PC critics. The people who matter - the fans and authors - know damn straight who the Grandmaster was…and is.)
In my favorite ficton, R.A.H. does not suffer from any of his medical problems late in life and continues to write dazzling and deep stories for us all. Also the Beatles are still together turning out new CDs, Buddy Holly decided to take the bus to his next concert, Janis, Jim and Jimi kicked their habits, and the war in Vietnam never happened. It’s a lot happier and saner place…
This thread contains an amazing reading list but one fine piece is missing, “Citizen of the Galaxy”! He ended this novel with an opening into a wonderful opportunity for a continuing series about behind the scenes type corruption busting and I haven’t had time to see if any other author picked up the ball and started rolling it. If Any of you have info on this theme from other Authors please let me Know!
Oh, gosh. That’s tough.
Orphans of the Sky was the first Heinlein I ever read. Cute stuff. Always liked Podkayne of Mars and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. Glory Road. Farnham’s Freehold is seriously weird, but at least it’s interesting in a sorta strange way. Citizen of the Galaxy? Oh, yeah, that one was good too…
It’d be a lot easier to list the Heinlein I don’t like, the list is shorter. Most of his later stuff wasn’t that great, I’m more of a fan of his youthful stories, probably because that’s what I grew up with. And his short stories were always fun.
After I read Time Enough For Love, I tried to find Lazurus Long in all the other Heinlein books. My favorite, after TEFL, is Number of the Beast. I know it’s a silly piece of fluff, but who wouldn’t want to travel to the Emerald City in the Gay Deciever if they had half a chance?
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I read it
again every few years.
But it is scary how much of my philosophy seems
to have been stolen from Dr Jubal Harshaw.
The Howard Family sagas, and, of course, Stranger in a Strange Land and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel were my introduction to Heinlein and Science Fiction.
Czarcasm, I love Number of the Beast, even if it is reviled by a lot of R.A.H. hardcore fans. Along with Robinson’s Stardance and Callahan series and Zelazny’s Amber series, that is my most often read paperback. I want Gay Deciever!
Arden Ranger, do you have the original trade paperback with the illustrations?
snort I wish.
My accursed brother has a collection of first editions and trade paperbacks that I would kill for. I honestly believe that he has some of them only because he knows I want them. On day, I will have to kill him.
I’ve gotta go with “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”. In some ways he was at the top of his form in adventure sci-fi writing when he penned it. Admittedly, I need to read a lot of his late works, but “The Moon” has an endearing cast of characters (especially Mycroft aka “Mike” the computer).
The scene where the moon people warn the earthlings of the impending demonstration of their weapons launch, and how the terrans flock to the exact impact site is side splittingly hilarious.
Tunnel in the Sky. I like it. You don’t need to know anything else about the rest of his universe to enjoy the book.
After that, you can skip the rest of his stuff.
Re the OP: Glory Road if I had to pick one. On his worst day he was better than 90% of the other SF authors I have read.
I just had to throw in my $0.02 worth on this thread. I read just about all his work in my early teens. Then sort of outgrew science fiction. Recently (thirty years later) I read his books again. Still enjoyed them, even the juv stuff, but one thing kept slightly annoying me. Ever notice how everybody (even Asimov) totally missed out on modern computers? He has people manually guiding, docking and landing spacecraft. Even mentions a mechanical! computer. It seems like the fantasy works will have longer life than the SF. OTOH, SF rockets went a long way towards inspiring the real thing.
SF writers were one of several influences that pushed me toward a technical career. But I believe that was covered in another thread.
Yet another Heinlein freak here. Mom always tried to get me to read and once, when I was 10, she pointed out Red Planet in the local A&P and told me it was good. After that I begged her to go to the library every week or two. Good going mom!
I’ve got to go with ‘Have Space Suit Will Travel’ as my favorite. When Kip Russell turns around and sees the entire Milky Way (from the Lesser Magellanic Cloud) I can see it in my mind.