Help with Heinlein.

I need some help with recommendations for reading some Robert Heinlein. I absolutely love ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ and also ‘Tunnel in the Sky’. I have had mixed success in my attempts at reading other Heinlein novels. ‘For Us, The Living’ was interesting but not great. ‘Puppet Masters’ was not too bad ( movie was actually fairly good). I tried reading ‘Starship Troopers’ but could not get into it.

My local library is fairly good in general but has only one Heinlein book in it – aforementioned ‘Starship Troopers’.
So any books I would have to order and obviously pay for. I am not rich enough to buy lots of books just to find a couple of good ones.

So I would appreciate some help with either a book similar to ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ and one similar to also ‘Tunnel in the Sky’.

I would recommend reading that thread, as a start

That’s…an interesting question.

Heinlein had several periods. Tunnel in the Sky is from a period where he was writing a series of ‘stories for boys’. It’s his series of juvenile novels that really shined.

Stranger in a Strange Land is more of an adult novel. The themes and such are less adventure-oriented and more thoughtful.

Both are great reads, but they’re very different.

I’d suggest you try one of each. Try Have Space Suit Will Travel for another adventure-oriented juvenile. For another adult novel try The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Solid adventure with more adult themes. Note, in the latter sometimes the word flow can distract as the point-of-view character speaks in a creole that features english (mostly) with other grammars and slang.

If you’re interested we are having an ongoing Heinlein discussion, while I read it all, here.

“Job: a comedy of justice” is one of my favorites.

That’s a weird mix the OP pulls out. I have several comments

First of all, if you liked Tunnel in the Sky, I highly recommend Heinlein’s other juvenile novels. He wrote these for boys (and girls), but didn’t write down to them, and these books are excellent for adults as well. That they are still in print while most of his contemporary’s works have disappeared (even though many of those works were excellent) says a huge amkount about the appeal of these works.

Rocket Ship Galileo
Space Cadet
Red Planet
Between Planets
The Rolling Stones
Farmer in the Sky
Starman Jones
The Star Beast
Tunnel in the Sky
Time for the Stars
Cirizen of the Galaxy
Have Space Suit – Will Travel

Red Planet has connections to Stranger in a Strange Land – the martians cdescribed are identical and have the same beliefs, apparently. The books may occur in the same universe, although it’s not assured.
The book for Us the Living was Heinlein’s first novel, and one he really didn’t want to have published. It was thought lost for many years, but a copy was found after his death and published. It’s really for completists only, because Heinlein’s writing skills clearly hadn’t been fully formed when he wrote it.

You might have better luck with his earlier works. I’d recommend his “Future History” series, available in the single volume The Past Through Tomorow (if that’s still in print). Also the novelettes waldo and Magic, Inc., which are bound as a single volume. And the novel Double Star. You might also try other of his pre-1960 output (besides Puppet Masters, The Unpleasant Profression of Jonathan Hoag, Beyond this Horizon, Assignment in Eternity, Orphans of the Sky, and the collection The Worlds of Robert Heinlein, which was expanded into xpanded Universe. I also like his non-fiction travel book Tramp Royale.
After 1960 his books got longer, more sexually explicit, and weirder. If you liked Stranger in a Strange Land, you might like I Will Fear no Evil and the sorta “let’s throw a bunch of plots together” Time Enough for Love.
His next book, chronologically, was The Number of the Beast, which i avidly looked forward to – it was the first book of his I read when it first came out. I’ve read it twice, and still think it’s awful. I’m not terribly fond of his output afterwards, including Friday, which lots of people seem to love. Job was better. I liked The Cat Who Walks through Walls, although it’s bloated. To Sail Beyond the Sunset is even more bloated.
That’s not exhaustive, ny any means, but I’d recommend just about anything he wrote before Number of the Beast that was published during his lifetime, with special emphasis on the juveniles.

A lot of critics think Double Star is his best.

As does this fan.

The World As Myth sequence is where RAH lost me for good.

I’d recommend The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Rolling Stones, and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.

Let me modify that to “anything he wrote before NofB that was published and reprinted during his lifetime”. That excludes his self-proclaimed “stinkeroos” as well as magazine publications of stories he altered for book publication.

Oh – I forgot to add Moon is a Harsh Mistress among his best, which meets this criterion.

Glory Road.

And check the library for any H Beam Piper “Fuzzy series”

Just hopping in to note that John Scalzi wrote a “reboot” of Little Fuzzy with the blessing and permission of the Piper estate that’s pretty good. I don’t know if he’s going to continue a Fuzzy series past that one, though.

I feel that Friday harkened back to his juvenile days, even though it followed NotB.
I still suspect it was a manuscript he had squirreled away that he used to regain the credibility he lost with NotB.

I didn’t. It didn’t feel like the juveniles, or even the 50’s adult novels. I found it disappointing, so I don’t recommend it.
Og knows, it’s not as insufferable as Number of the Beast, but I didn’t like it as much as the (admittedly bloated) Cat Who Walks Through Walls.

You know, I liked The Number of the Beast. I truly did. And that leaves me in the minority, I know.

It may be that it was the first new novel of Heinlein’s that came out after I discovered him. But I enjoyed it. I bought the trade paperback with the chapter artworks and everything. I was about 14 and it was a lot for me, but there it was and I wanted it.

You’re not alone. I liked it, too. It was actually THE first Heinlein I ever read, which may have something to do with that.

I Will Fear No Evil also meets your conditions. Do you reckon it’s good? I don’t.

Out of Heinlein’s later books I didn’t mind Friday and Job. The Cat Who Walked Through Walls started out promisingly but became a series of frustrating tangents and shout outs to other Heinlein novels.
(Johnathan and jayjay) I, too, liked The Number of the Beast when I first read it. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who wasn’t going to read it anyway, though.

I do.
De Gustibus and all. I don’t pretend my judgments are gospel – they’re just my opinion.

The first in the series “Little Fuzzy” is in the public domain and available on Gutenberg.org, by the way.

Yeah, the first half of “Cat” has some of the spark of earlier Heinlein.

Yeah, I enjoyed “Number” too.

Citizen of the Galaxy is excellent - one of his four best, as far as I’m concerned.

Job and Stranger are the only two Heinlein books I couldn’t finish - made it about halfway through the former, but couldn’t get past the second chapter of Stranger.

As for Number of the Beast, I really liked the first part, up to the point where they have found a world to settle on, and the book is obviously ready to end. But then they start travelling again…