Robert Anson Heinlein was born in Butler, Missouri, a small town some sixty-five miles south of Kansas City. He and his six brothers and sisters were raised in Kansas City, where he attended grade sch...
Read more
Critical Essay by George Edgar Slusser
[What] is a "classic" Heinlein work? Most criticism of Heinlein begins and ends here. Invariably, each individual critic has chosen the works he l...
Read more
Critical Essay by Ivor A. Rogers
The "best" science fiction writer for most [readers] is a composite entity: Heinleinasimovclarke—usually in that order…. Omitting the enth...
Read more
Critical Essay by Elizabeth Anne Hull
In an attempt to account for the extraordinary popularity and influence of the novels of Robert Heinlein, it would be all too easy to assert that the masses are ...
Read more
Critical Essay by Brian W. Aldiss
In 1941, Heinlein revealed the plans of his scheme for a Future History series, while [Isaac] Asimov began his long series of stories about robots with positronic br...
Read more
Critical Essay by David N. Samuelson
[The] frontier metaphor has been basic to Heinlein's writing. Only eight of his … novels take place primarily on Earth, and four of them concern rel...
Read more
Critical Essay by Robert Scholes and Eric S. Rabkin
[Robert A. Heinlein] has been a vivid and controversial figure for three decades. His values have been called everything from fascistic to anarchis...
Read more
Critical Essay by David N. Samuelson
In a Heinlein juvenile, a young boy typically (one was a girl) grows to maturity, in the process of living through and effecting events projected into our next ce...
Read more
Critical Essay by Jack Williamson
I suspect that [Heinlein's] most enduring work will turn out to be the dozen juvenile novels he wrote for Scribner's after the war.
Juvenile science...
Read more
Critical Essay by H. Bruce Franklin
From 1947 through 1958, Robert Heinlein was primarily an author of science fiction aimed at the "juvenile" market, specifically at teenaged boys. Bes...
Read more
Critical Essay by Theodore Sturgeon
Robert Heinlein's following was ardent and instant with the appearance of his first short story in Astounding Science Fiction magazine more than 40 years ag...
Read more
Critical Essay by The Times Literary Supplement
The besetting sin of most SF is its humourlessness; there is precious little gaiety in space. Robert Heinlein is the exception. He is so completely the...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Slusser surveys the plots and major thematic concerns of Heinlein's short fiction.
Stories
Heinlein's short stories belong, essentially, to his early years. ...
Read more
In the following essay, Gaar explores the theme of interchangeable parts and the central figure in several of Heinlein's novellas and short stories.
There is a discontinuity between the rate...
Read more
In the following essay, Sarti traces Heinlein's treatment of gender roles and sexuality in his short fiction.
By the end of the 1950s, Robert Heinlein had established himself as the Dean of ...
Read more
In the following essay, Tucker explores the political, social, and economic threads found in Heinlein's fiction.
In discussing the principal political and social ideas which are expressed or...
Read more
In the following essay, Franklin discusses the defining characteristics of Heinlein's early short fiction.
“—during the '30's almost everyone, from truck driver t...
Read more
In the following essay, Wolfe contrasts the different approaches of Heinlein's Waldo and Clifford D. Simak's “Desertion” to the problem of integration between body and envi...
Read more
In the following essay, Slusser reflects on his personal friendship with Heinlein.
In the newspaper Tuesday morning, May 10th, I read that Robert A. Heinlein had died Monday in his sleep from heart...
Read more
In the following essay, Slusser evaluates the impact of Heinlein's work, viewing him as “a national writer, one who carries into a new scientific century cultural and ethical patterns fi...
Read more
In the following essay, McGiveron explores the role of extraterrestrials in Heinlein's fiction.
“Noisy” Rhysling, the wandering blind poet of the spaceways in Robert A. Heinlei...
Read more
Robert A(nson) Heinlein
Critical Essay by George Edgar Slusser
