I’m an avid reader, I just never happened to read Heinlein until recently. I checked out* A Heinlein Trio* and just finished it…and it was awesome!
The stories in that book are The Puppet Masters, Double Star and The Door Into Summer.
My question is…what next? I gather from reading forums that his later stuff is pretty uneven. What I want is recommendations for his other works that are similar to the ones I just read.
Help a brother out?
Bear in mind that there are effectively two different Heinleins: everything before Stranger in a Strange Land, and that novel plus all the ones after it. I’d say read the older stuff first.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is arguably the best science-fiction novel ever written, so that’d be a good next step. And since you specifically called out The Puppet Masters, Friday has a very similar feel. And it’s hard to go wrong with any of his juveniles.
SF pros consider Double Star his best novel. Moon is worth reading, but you really need to read them both together to see more than the cliched look of Heinlein’s philosophy.
Since you liked The Puppet Masters, I’d also suggest looking for the short stories Gulf and If This Goes On–. Both feature the sort of secret agent tone that features so prominently in The Puppet Masters. Gulf is in the collection Assignment in Eternity, a collection of short stories not in his Future History; If This Goes On– is in the collection Revolt in 2100.
Another collection I’d recommend is 6xH also published as The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathon Hoag. This collection contains two of my favorite Heinlein stories: All You Zombies and The Man Who Traveled in Elephants. They are good, but different from the novels you’ve already read.
IMNSHO most of Heinlein’s short fiction is enjoyable reading. But a lot of it is going to be horribly dated in terms of the science: a habitable Venus and the only computers around in many of his earlier stories are large electro-mechanical beasts will often be a stumbling block for modern readers coming to the stories cold.
I agree with the other suggestions you’ve gotten in this thread, already. Moon is a great book, and the juveniles are usually great fun. Have Space Suit - Will Travel is a perennial favorite of mine. I just happen to like short story collections, and think that some of Heinlein’s short fiction is among the best in the genre.
I liked Door Into Summer and The Puppet Masters, never really liked Double Star. Anyway, the RAH novels I like to revisit, other than those:
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Starship Troopers
Tunnel in the Sky
Glory Road
I find it helps to think of some of Heinlein’s work as Retro-Futurism; taking place in a universe where the future really is full of computers that run on reel-to-reel tapes and everything seems slightly hokey in a 1950s sort of way; kind of like the Fallout universe before the Atomic War That Destroyed Civilisation, basically.
I’ll add another vote for The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress- it’s an excellent and entertaining book that’s well worth reading. Starship Troopers is very good too, and has nothing to do with the movie of the same name. Orphans Of The Sky also has an intriguing story which will seem vaguely familiar if you’ve played Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri.
One piece of advice I will give you, though: The Number Of The Beast isn’t very interesting and you won’t be missing anything when you don’t read it.
Thanks guys! I have a lot of work to do, it seems!
And for the poster that mentioned the potential stumbling block with some of the science being dated in some of the stories, eh, it doesn’t bother me. I’m just over 40 years old now so I can suspend my disbelief pretty well. In fact, like Martini Enfield suggests, I do tend to place it in some hokey other-verse in my mind as I read it.
IIRC, in To Sail Beyond the Sunset Maureen mentions some of the differences between her timeline and ours — including the fact that in hers Mars and Venus are indeed habitable.
Another advantage to reading Moon next (or at least soon) is that you can get introduced to Heinlein’s political philosophy without getting beaten over the head with it. It doesn’t hurt that Prof is one of his most likable “wise old man” characters (though I personally prefer Rufo).
WARNING: If you don’t read Number, skip The Cat Who Walks Through Walls as well. I read the latter first and didn’t know where some fairly important characters came from.
Come to think of it, don’t bother with Cat. It’s better than Number (faint praise), but it’s still a great deal of sound and fury signifying very little.
The OP listed what I consider three of Heinlein’s best. I’d also recommend the following:
Farmer in the Sky
Citizen of the Galaxy
Starship Troopers
Podkayne of Mars
Glory Road
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
I would go for Starship Troopers
Then Starship Troopers
And then probably Starship Troopers.
But the Moon is a Harsh mistress is very good and Double Star ,very readable.
Also Starship Troopers.
True, but it seems to be easier to find in The Past through Tomorrow, which contains everything in Revolt and then some.
I’ve heard it suggested that Number of the Beast was written deliberately bad, as an object lesson in all the things not to do when writing a story. Frighteningly, this is actually plausible.
I’ve only read three Heinlein novels. “Stranger in a Strange Land” and “Friday” were only meh to me, but “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” I found to be excellent.
I’d recommend (in rough chro’nological order):
The Past Through Tomorrow
The Unpleasant Profession of One Johnathon Hoag
Assignment in Eternity for “Lost Legacy” and “Jerry was a Man.” The latter is one of the funniest SF stories I’ve ever read.
Orphans of the Sky for “Universe.”
“Magic, Inc.”
The Puppet Masters
Of his juveniles: Citizen of the Galaxy, Tunnel in the Sky, Farmer in the Sky, The Rolling Stones, and The Star Beast. I also like Between Planets, Space Cadet, and Have Space Suit – Will Travel.
Starship Troopers
Double Star,
Glory Road
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, one of the finest science fiction novels ever written.
“The Tale of the Adopted Daughter” from Time Enough from Love. The rest of the novel, aside from Lazarus Long’s notebooks is pretty awful
Job, a Comedy of Justice.
Friday is likeable, but weak.
Enjoy.
I just started dabbling in some Asimov as well. I picked up a collection of his short stories and while I like most of them, some of them are really short…like two pages!
Asimov is best in his short stories, to my thinking. I find his novels to be a little tiresome. Foundation is the big exception, of course, but it almost reads as a collection of related shorts.
All of these are excellent recommendations, but you’re old enough to eat at the grown-ups table. I think you should jump straight to Methuselah’s Children. FoisGrasIsEvil, meet Lazarus Long. It’s a fantastic short introduction to Time Enough for Love, arguably Heinlein’s magnum opus.
I’m there dude…as long as I don’t get crumbs on the grownups table!
Not a lot to add to previous suggestions, but I will add my vote for Moon and Double Star. But Chronos is right - you really should just get The Past Through Tomorrow and go from there. Then get Expanded Universe for dessert.
Time Enough For Love and Stranger In a Strange Land are my favorites.
From Stranger, I use the term ‘grok’ in every day English.