FirmhandKY
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Joined: 9/21/2004
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It kinda depends.
My favorites are:
1. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
2. Starship Trooper
3. Stranger in a Strange Land.
4. Glory Road
5. Farnham's Freehold
6. I Will Fear No Evil.
Heinlein's work can be categorized by when it was written, and for what reason. Very little is negative in the dystopian sense that you mention (I hate most dystopian stuff as well).
His most "readable for fun" novels are his "juvenile novels", written for the young adult market. But they are all excellent reads for any ages. Generally, these are (Wikipedia source):
Rocket Ship Galileo, 1947
Space Cadet, 1948
Red Planet, 1949
Farmer in the Sky, 1950
Between Planets, 1951
The Rolling Stones aka Space Family Stone, 1952
Starman Jones, 1953
The Star Beast, 1954
Tunnel in the Sky, 1955
Time for the Stars, 1956
Citizen of the Galaxy, 1957
Have Space Suit—Will Travel, 1958
Of those, I like Citizen of the Galaxy, Tunnel in the Sky and Have Space Suit - Will Travel the best.
His "Future History" series spans most of his career, and plays heavily in his later works. They often are about (or in the same universe) as Lazarus Long, a (probably) immortal man.
There are a couple of "Lazarus Long" stories that you should read before you read the seminal "Time Enough For Love" that kinda caps the best of Heinlein, in my opinion. These two stories (novellas, really) are Revolt in 2100 and Methuselah's Children.
Most of his later novels refer to or are about some aspect of the Lazarus Long universe, and these three works (Revolt, Methuselah's Children and Love give you enough information to "get" most of the later in-jokes.
If you want to read all of his "Future History" short stories and novellas, refer to Wikipedia
Most of his later works are interesting, and some of them are even readable .... but .... he often gets lost in "World as Myth". A passage from Wikipedia says it pretty well:
quote:
After a seven-year hiatus brought on by poor health, Heinlein produced five new novels in the period from 1980 (The Number of the Beast) to 1987 (To Sail Beyond the Sunset). These books have a thread of common characters and time and place. They most explicitly communicated Heinlein's philosophies and beliefs, and many long, didactic passages of dialog and exposition deal with government, sex, and religion. These novels are controversial among his readers and one critic, Dave Langford, has written about them very negatively.[49] Heinlein's four Hugo awards were all for books written before this period.
Some of these books, such as The Number of the Beast and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, start out as tightly constructed adventure stories, but transform into philosophical fantasias at the end. It is a matter of opinion whether this demonstrates a lack of attention to craftsmanship or a conscious effort to expand the boundaries of science fiction, either into a kind of magical realism, continuing the process of literary exploration that he had begun with Stranger in a Strange Land, or into a kind of literary metaphor of quantum science (The Number of the Beast dealing with the Observer problem, and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls being a direct reference to the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment).
Most of the novels from this period are recognized by critics as forming an offshoot from the Future History series, and referred to by the term World as Myth.
Good Luck.
Firm
< Message edited by FirmhandKY -- 9/11/2014 7:56:41 PM >
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