Got to add my name to The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress list. But nobody else has mentioned Double Star. I love the moment when Emperor Willem asks the question “By the way, who ARE you?” and Smythe can’t help but answer with his true, legal name.
I have t admit I love almost all of Heinlein. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but The Moon is a Harsh Mistress might be it. Incidentally, I highly recommend Tramp Royale, which I have only rarely seen. It’s a travel memoir that Heinlein wrote back in the orties, but never published. Fascinting in its own right, it also shows you where he got sme f his ideas from in his fiction. For instance, I think the British in The Number of the Beast owe something to the British he encountered during the round-the-world trip he chronicles in TR.
Speaking of Number of the Beast, I’m re-reading it now for only the second time. I read it first when it came ou 21 years ago – the first Heilein book I bought when it was new. And I HATED it! I wanted to see if time had sofened my attitude towards it, but it hasn’t. My apologies to those who love it, but I think it’s the worst thing he ever wrote. And yes, I know about the twists and the inside jokes.
No contest for me: “Starman Jones.” I grew up that country boy with a stepfather who never quite understood me (though in fairness, he wasn’t the bully and brute that Max Jones’ was). A perfect story with a great mentor (Sam ?, been a couple years since I read it).
Love “The Door Into Summer,” though I’m still, maybe moreso as an adult, a bit uncomfortable with Dan and Rikki’s relationship.
Short stories: “The Green Hills of Earth” and “Delilah and The Space-Rigger.”
Like many, I have never been able to read “The Number of The Beast,” but I enjoy “Friday,” “Job…,” “Cat…,” and “To Sail…”
Sir Rhosis
What makes you think I like Heinlein?
OK, seriously now…
Some favorite scenes from my favorite RAH books:
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress: When Manny is asked by a street gang to be a judge for a man caught groping a girl. You start out being horrified by this kind of frontier justice, but then RAH’s typical “genius-even-though-I-work-at-McDonald’s” characters make it into a reasonable affair.
Stranger In a Strange Land: I re-read this one every year or so. In fact, I’m about due. The various scenes where Jubal acts in a very calculatedly mean, ornery manner to get what he wants. Although I try not to use such techniques except when necessary, I have learned from Jubal how to apply pressure when necessary.
Starship Troopers: The first day of boot camp, and the descriptions of the drill instructor, Sergeant Zim. Some great dialogue there. When two recruits offer to fight him, Zim asks them what rules they want. One thinks and answers, “How can there be rules when it’s two against one, sir?” Zim says that’s an interesting answer, and suggests they agree that any eyeballs gouged out must be handed back. Love that!
Grumbles From the Grave (RAH’s letters and correspondence): In a letter about a conflict with a publisher, Heinlein suggested the person, “take that [piece of paper] and shove it, having first folded it until it is all corners.”
Too much more to go into, so I’ll stop there.
- Double Star
- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
- Friday
- The Star Beast
- Glory Road
As far as his short stories are concerned:
- "All You Zombies – "
- “And He Built A Crooked House”
- “By His Bootstraps”
- “Our Fair City”
- “The Roads Must Roll”
I have a strong sentimental attachment to Have Spacesuit, Will Travel–it was the very first novel I ever read, back when I was five. I attribute much of my lifelong love of/obsession with reading to that book.
I’ve always liked Double Star–you start off thinking the protagonist is a whiny, pretentious little git (and you’re probably right)…but eventually he proves that he really is that good. I like the Future History–even the much-maligned Number of the Beast. I can’t blame Heinlein for wanting to get all his old friends together for one last party, and I enjoyed myself at it–despite the sense I had that it was all too close to becoming a wake.
Of the shorts, “Green Hills of Earth” is one of the few stories that has ever drawn a tear from me. I still get a lump in my throat when I read Noisy’s last verse.
The book I go back to again and again, though, is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. The thing that has always struck me about this book is that the character who makes it all happen, Mike–the one irreplaceable link in the whole chain of events–had nothing to lose under the status quo but his friends. Nothing was going to happen to him; he could go on just as he was through food riots, cannibalism, and starvation. By taking part in the revolution he risked everything, but he saved his friends.
I should stop before I make even more of a megapost out of this. I could go on all night.
…I can ever recall reading was my Dad’s copy of Starship Troopers…that, for me, started my lifelong affair with RAH. I’ve read everything I could lay my hands on of his, and while some were certainly better than others, I would say that NONE were truly ‘bad’, at least not to me…
Stranger in a Strange Land.
LOVE it.
I can’t pick a favorite, or rank my favorites. I do have a least favorite: Farnham’s Freehold.
Some favorite minor moments:
In The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Manny’s passing reference to the crime lord sent to the lunar prison colony who didn’t make it from the landing field to the base; “didn’t listen when told how to wear a p-suit.” (Pressure suit.)
In Door Into Summer, D.B. Davis finagles his way into a 30 year time trip, not knowing if he’ll go forward or back. Arrives. Past or future? Well, he can’t guess from what people are wearing… (those who’ve read the book will no doubt remember why).
In Star Beast, I love the revelation of Lummox’s slant on what’s been going on. Also the way Mr. Kiku credits his excellent hypnotheripest with his changed attitude toward what’s his name’s species.
The various misc things he tossed in every now and then to make the point that the future will really be different, esp culturally: men wearing nail polish in one book; in another, it’s highly improper for an unmarried woman to come to the dinner table without a hat, etc.
Job: A Comedy of Justice
Not really one of his more popular books but its a great story, paralleling the one from the bible with a twist. Kind of pokes fun at religion.
Loved war books when I was young. Then Mr Perry Rablin, Colusa Junior High english teacher, had a whole room full of science fiction. I read Starship Trooper as my first science fiction novel.
Can’t even begin to think how many pages I’ve read since then.
Thank you Mr. Rablin.
Count me among the folks who love, Love, LOVE RAH’s collected work. Heinlein’s knack for creating memorable characters and crackling dialogue makes him one the greatest
American writers, period. He transcends the SF genre, IMHO.
I would rank my Top five:
- Stranger in a Strange Land
- Time Enough For Love
- Friday
- I Will Fear No Evil
- The Door Into Summer
New Heilein fan checking in…
Friday was the first book I read, just found it in a used bookstore at the beginning of college. I’ve just recently read TMiaHM for the first time and am now working through The CatwWTW ('cos I was told that “Mike” makes an appearance in the novel). My mum just read SiaSL this past year and has been itching for me to read it as well…
So, no favourites yet. But a fan in the making. 
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Troopers
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Mistress
Have about 20 or 30. And if the trade for Number is the dark blue oversized PB, I have that too. (bought new, I’m old)
#1 Double Star…novel
#2 Requiem…short story