Heinlein World

[The Grumpy Celt]

I generally wouldn't recommend Starnger In a Strange Land as the first Heinlein book for someone, although it is excellent.

Why not?

If you had to recommend a single, adult Heinlein book, what would it be?

 

[CAFRedblade]

I just completed Variable Star which was created by Heinlein about 50 years ago in notes and index cards and was turned into a novel by Spider Robinson.
I heartily recommend it for fans of either author, was an excellent read.
One of those books I just couldn't put down after I started reading,
and finished at 2 in the morning the same day.

 

[GSHamster]

In my opinion, Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress are the only books of his that are really worth reading. The other adult novels are terrible, and the juvenile novels are okay, but not really exciting.

If you had to pick one novel, I'd go with The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I think Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land work best when read one after another. They contrast each other quite nicely, and Heinlein wrote them very close together as well (either one after the other, or with one book in between).

 

[Storm Raven]

Why not?

If you had to recommend a single, adult Heinlein book, what would it be?

Because it, like Starship Troopers seem to have a tendancy to cause people who read one of those works to regard Heinlein as a one-dimensional writer. Those who read Starship Troopers first seem to view him as a hyper-militaristic cowboy. Those who read Starnger in a Strange Land first seem to view him as a dirty old man obsessed with sex. Neither is very accurate.

For an adult novel to read first, I would generally recommend The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress or Double Star. Alternatively, I might suggest one of the collections of his shorter works, like The Past through Tomorrow or The Green Hills of Earth (any compilation that has The Must Roll, The Man Who Sold the Moon, Coventry, Logic of Empire, and/or If This Goes On. . . is worth reading).

I would definitely not recommend reading Sixth Column (also published as The Day After Tomorrow) or Farnham's Freehold unless you can put his writing into the social context in which he was writing, because if you don't get the social context in which he was writing, one could come away with the opinion that there are some rather unenlightened elements to those books.

I would also suggest avoiding his later works at first (I Will Fear No Evil, To Sail Beyond the Sunset, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, and Time Enough For Love), because Heinlein wrote about some rather experimental sexual arrangements in those books. If the reader is religious and easily offended, I also wouldn't recommend Job: a Comedy of Justice (God is portrayed rather badly in the book).

Despite what has been said here denigrating his YA fiction, most current science fiction authors will usually say that the books that inspired them to get into science fiction were his books - Red Planet, Rocket Ship Galileo, Orphans of the Sky and Have Spacesuit - Will Travel are often cited. Not a YA book, but a lot of authors cite Beyond This Horizon as an seminal inspiration as well.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

So...

Heinlein was a dirty old hyper-militaristic man obsessed with cowboy sex?

It probably will be Moon. But we can handle Stranger. We're adults.