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Eisenhower suspended nuclear testing. Shortly thereafter, the Soviet Union ignored its promise and resumed testing with some of the largest and "dirtiest" weapons ever detonated.

Heinlein was infuriated. He stopped work on the novel that would become Stranger in a Strange Land and wrote Starship Troopers in a white-hot fury.

So it would appear that Heinlein was about as serious and passionate as he ever would be about anything when he wrote ST. This is what he was serious about.

Any "Church" that charges for its teachings and also has them copyrighted to prevent free distribution is not a church it's a scam at best and a dangerous cult at worst.

Germany has stated that "...the chief purpose of Scientology is not religious, but economical in nature...", which is probably the closest thing to consider. And don't forget that both Tom Cruise and John Travolta are members of that outfit. (I wouldn't even call it Cult...)

And the myth as it seems that there was a wager between Heinlein and Hubbard about starting a religion, it seems to be half-true. But I don't think that Heinlein ever planned on catching up on starting a religion... He would probably gotten himself into FSF or some other outfit instead with his statement of "Pay it forward" if he had been born at a later date. (Today it's more than 100 years since Heinlein was born, he was born 7 July 1907!)

Especially the "Pay it forward" approach is important. Even if you do someone a service and that person isn't able to return the favor you can always set the "pay it forward" approach to the problem.

This 1952 Popular Mechanics article shows science fiction author Robert Heinlein's house of the future. He designed it himself, and it had such futuristic accoutrements as a hifi that could be piped to any room in the house. There was also a bomb shelter.

Does a programmer really have to know what is the function of mitochondria?

"Specialization is for insects."

This immediately reminded me of Heinlein's Starship Troopers and when I went to look up some info I learned a few things about the author that I did not know back in high school when I was reading all his stuff. I was aware that he had been a WW2 era veteran though as a teenager I didn't fully understand how that affected his generation and therefore his writing.

Grok: To understand at a deep level. From the book "A Stranger in a Strange Land". Stop using it!

Ummm Starship troopers was written in 58 and published in 59 Opus List

Not that I think he invented the thing. However, one has to wonder how many people that have worked on this kind of technology read ST and other Heinlien books growing up. Of course there are many other sources of mecha as well. I have always wondered how much influence our imagination has over what we persue in technology.

A personal favorite of mine is Have Spacesuit Will Travel, which is a mix of some gritty hard SF (e.g. survival situation on the moon involving solving problems with incompatible valve fittings) and crazed space opera (an amorphous alien blob named "The Mother Thing", representing the authority of the unified Three Galaxes).

The three books by Heinlein that may ultimately be the most interesting (and also the most controversial) are:

• The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Lunar colonists rebel against an oppressive earth government, in alliance with an accidentally developed AI.
• Stranger in a Strange Land - A boy raised by Martians is brought back to earth, where he displays some tremendous parapsychological powers, and more importantly an odd philosphical outlook.
• Starship Troopers - Space wars of the future (some interesting speculative hardware is featured) fought by an earth government ruled by a strange form of democracy where only military veterans [1] are allowed to vote. Some grim philosphy is presented about the inevitability of war.

[1] Yes, I said "*military* veterans". Yes, I know what Heinlein said in "Expanded Universe". Try reading this (warning PDF): The Nature of "Federal Service" in Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers

Heinlein is one of those authors who made science fiction. His chauvinism occasionally sets my teeth on edge, and his later works are preachy, but these are small blemishes on the body of work of a man, who above everything else, knew how to tell a story.

Carolyn, your comments are somewhat valid to Heinlein the writer, but Heinlein the man was somewhat different:

Robert Heinlein Biography

July 20, 1969, is probably the most important day in human history - the day men from Earth first set foot on another planet, Earth's moon. Robert Heinlein was a guest commentator (along with Arthur C. Clarke) with Walter Cronkite on this historic occasion. He managed to reduce Cronkite to a state of spluttering indignation at the suggestion that women should have been included in this mission. (The text of the out-take is preserved in Leon Stover's monograph for Twayne's United States Authors series, Robert A. Heinlein.

Food for thought, anyway.

I wish there was a "-1, Uncultured" moderator rating!

But for those of you who don't know, Heinlein was a master Science Fiction writer, who wrote many famous books, such as "Starship Troopers", "Stranger in a strange land", "The moon is a harsh mistress", etc. I think he wrote over a hundred works. IMHO one of the top 5 science fiction authors of all time

Here is a listing of all his published materials, for those who are interested.

And for those who only saw "Starship Troopers" and never read the book, PLEASE don't judge the author by the movie, because that movie was truly horrendous.

Born 7 July 1907 - Died May 8, 1988

http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/rahbio.html

It says in his bio that he was a naval officer, an astronomer as well as a writer.

I'd say he survived pretty well.

I mean, it's not like he'd died of tripping over a log and hitting his head on a rake at the age of 23.

Robert A. Heinlein wrote a book called I Will Fear No Evil about a brain transplant. However this story when finished might be more accurate.

This is exactly what I thought about when I read this thread. The story is,Let There Be Light, and it featured two scientists (a man and woman) working to create and implement this technology ahead of those from the "power cratels" that wanted to stop them.

This is one of the "earliest" stories in his future history series and forms the basis for much of that history. His story The Roads Must Roll builds on this technology as the power source for his "rolling roads". For a full listing of his short fiction and how it fits together, check out this great site , which appears to be the best Heinlein site on the web.

Seems like he was right on the money again. But what can you expect from the guy who invented (conceptualized?) the waterbed ... in 1962.

As for Stranger in a Strange Land, remember that this book came out in 1960 and had been in progress for a long while. Heinlein wasn't influenced by the 1960's--he *predicted* the 1960's. It was really a prety amazing job of prediction--a lot better than predicting personal jetpacks, wrist televisions, and food pills. Of course, when the 1960's came around, all the hippies jumped on the book, but please do try to remember what order it happened in.

A wrinkle in time. by Madeleine L'Engle
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - (Note: get a copy of The AQnnotated Alice by Martin Gardner
The hobbit. by J.R.R. Tolkien
Anything by Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, Alan Dean Foster, or Piers Anthony
Darkover (any of the books) by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow by Orsen Scott Card
The Narnia series by C.S. Lewis.

A decent collection of Science fiction, mostly suitable for children

Also, Please attend the Worldcon, this year it's in Chicago followed by Philadelphia, PA, then San José. We have a lot of things for you and your children.

of course, our little one is only 6 months old. Mostly he's an excuse to reread Harold and the Purple Crayon

I aplogogise for any redundancies. This list took awhile to compile and find the links, especially as the co-author was breastfeeding at the time...

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