[What] is a "classic" Heinlein work? Most criticism of Heinlein begins and ends here. Invariably, each individual critic has chosen the works he likes best, dubbed them classics, and consigned the rest to oblivion…. The years to be covered in this study include, basically, the 1940s and 1950s—the period of the stories and novellas, and the novels of juvenile adventure. Unfortunately, there is no touchstone which allows a reader infallibly to pick "classics" out of this span. What is possible, however, is a definition of process that will permit us to study Heinlein's evolution as a writer over two long and full decades. (p. 3)
[If] chronological periods are marked off at all [in Heinlein's work], they must be ordered in terms of genre. The use of a given form, in Heinlein's case, was dictated in large part during [his] early and middle years by the vagaries of science fiction publishing. His first (and only) market was pulp magazines, so he wrote short stories and novellalength serials. The switch to novels after the war … demanded that he adopt the strict formulas and conventions imposed by his market—in this case, juvenile adventure. The middle period, then, begins with Heinlein's first full-length novel conceived as such, the space epic Rocket Ship Galileo (1947), and ends when what I call the subverted adventure finally rears its ugly head in Starship Troopers (1959)…. Not all the novels of this period were juvenile, however. Two old serials were quickly published as novels: Beyond the Horizon (1948) and Sixth Column (1949). In 1951, Doubleday published Heinlein's first original "adult" novel, The Puppet Masters. The novels of this decade are basically of two sorts: the adolescent space adventure dominates—these are novels of initiation to manhood, in which a boy comes of age in outer space. The adult works are novels of political intrigue. But they also, in a sense, are stories of initiation. The heroes are young men instead of boys, and their field of action the "grown-up" world of nations and espionage. Still, they have as much to learn, and the situation is meant to test (and teach) them. In fact, these two modes tend to conflate in the later novels of the period. Citizen of the Galaxy (1957) has a boy hero who grows to be a young man; it has space adventure, political intrigue, and much more. (p. 4)
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