Prolific American writer, one of the grand masters of science fiction with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. Heinlein produced during his career fifty novels and collections of short stories. In his novels Heinlein admired competent men of action, and attacked religious hypocrisy and corporate avarice. His later works, in which the presentation of his right-wing opinions burdened the straightforward narrative drive, earned him the reputation of being a militarist, even a "fascist".

Heinlein was born in Butler, Missouri, into a family of seven children. He attended public school in Kansas City and graduated from Central High School in 1924. In 1929 he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, and served in aircraft carriers and destroyers. In 1934 he was discharged due to tuberculosis. Heinlein started to study physics at the graduate school of U.C.L.A. He left the school without completing his studies and worked in odd jobs. At the age of thirty-two he turned his hand to the writing science fiction. Heinlein's first published stories appeared in action-adventure pulp magazine Astounding Science Fiction in 1939.

Heinlein never got over his navy discharge. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, hr tried to enlist but was rejected. During World War II years from 1943 Heinlein published no stories, but worked as an engineer at the Naval Air Experimental Station, Philadelphia. His first novel, ROCKET SHIP CALILEO, appeared in 1947, and paved the way for children's science fiction.

Initially Heinlein's works were aimed at young readers, in 1959 he also received the Boys' Clubs of America Book Award. In these early novels Heinlein avoided open didacticism, although his young protagonists learned lessons in courage, tolerance, and altruism during the course of the story. However, from the late 1950s Heinlein started to address adults and deal with such topics as cloning, incest, religion, free love and mysticism. His short stories were independent of one another but related in the author's 'Future History: 1951-2600' AD time line. Nearly all of his works fit into a specific time period within this larger scheme. The idea was later imitated by several writers, with considerable success by Poul Anderson and Larry Niven. Also Isaac Asimov developed a similar scheme, and claimed imaginative copyright on the imagined future.

Among Heinlein's best known works are THE GREEN HILLS OF EARTH (1951), DOUBLE STAR (1956), militarist STARSHIP TROOPERS (1959), which moved Heinlein beyond a teenage audience and was filmed in 1997, and the 1960s hippie oriented STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND (1961), which was also one of the favourite books of the mass murderer Charles Manson. It is a story of Valentine Michael Smith, born and raised on Mars. He comes to Earth without much knowledge of sex. Helped with psi powers he establishes a new religion and starts his transformation into a Messiah-figure.

Heinlein's other works include MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS (1966), where an exploited penal colony invents new forms of marriage due to shortage of women, I WILL FEAR NO EVIL (1971), where a dying tycoon has his brain transplanted into the body of a young woman, and CAT WHO WALKS THROUGH WALLS (1985), a story of a alternate histories and time travel.

In 1973 Heinlein taught as James V. Forrestal Lecturer at the U.S. Naval Academy. He was awarded the first Grand Master Nebula in 1975. Heinlein was repeatedly voted as 'the best all-time author' in reader's polls held by the magazine Locus in 1973 and 1975. He died on May 8, 1988.

Note: Heinlein's social Darwinist view - 'the survival of the fittest' - is seen among others in his works THE PUPPET MASTERS (1951), Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Isaak Asimov on Heinlein -"Furthermore, although a flaming liberal during the war, Heinlein became a rock-ribbed far-right conservative immediately afterward. This happened at just the time he changed wives from a liberal woman, Leslyn, to a rock-ribbed far-right conservative woman, Virginia... I used to brood about it in puzzlement (of course, I never would have dreamed of asking Heinlein - I'm sure he would have refused to answer, and would have done so with the uttermost hostility), and I did come to one conclusion. I would never marry anyone who did not generally agree with my political, social, and philisophical view of life."
(from I, Asimov: A Memoir, 1994)

"A "pacifist male" is a contradiction in terms. Most self-described "pacifists" are not pacifists; they simply assume false colours. When the wind changes, they hoist the Jolly Roger."
(from Time Enough for Love, 1973)

"The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history."
(from Time Enough for Love, 1973)

For further reading: World Authors 1900-1950, ed. by M. Seymour-Smith, A.C. Kimmes (1996); The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, ed. by John Clute, Peter Nicholls (1995); Robert A. Heinlein Cyclopedia by N.B.A. Downing (1989); Robert A. Heinlein by L. Stover (1987); Yesterday or Tomorrow? The Work of Robert A. Heinlein by R. Reginald (1984); Robert A. Heinlein by P. Nicholls (1982) Robert A. Heinlein by H.B. Franklin (1980); Robert A. Heinlein, ed. by J.D. Clander and M.H. Greenberg (1978); The Classic Years of Robert. A. Heinlein by G.E. Slusser (1977); Robert A. Heinlein by G.E. Slusser (1977): Heinlein in Dimensions by A. Panshin (1968)

• LIFE-LINE, 1939 - (first short story)
• THE DISCOVERY OF THE FUTURE, 1941 (address)
• ROCKET SHIP CALILEO, 1947
• OF WORLDS BEYOND, 1947 (with others)
• BEYOND THIS HORIZON, 1948
• SPACE CADET, 1948 - basis for the television series 'Tom Corbett: Space Cadet'
• RED PLANET, 1949
• SIXTH COLUMN (reissued as THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW), 1949
• THE MAN WHO SOLD THE MOON, 1950
• FARMER IN THE SKY, 1950
• WALDO AND MAGIC, INC., 1950
• screenplay: DESTINATION MOON, 1950 (based o Rocket Ship Galileo, with Rip Van Ronkel and James O´Hanlon)
• THE GREEN HILLS OF EARTH, 1951
• BETWEEN PLANETS, 1951
• UNIVERSE / ORPHANS OF THE SKY, 1951
• THE PUPPET MASTERS, 1951
• ed.: TOMORROW, THE STARS, 1952
• THE ROLLING STONES / SPACE FAMILY STONE, 1952
• REVOLT IN 2100, 1953
• STARMAN JONES, 1953
• screenplay: PROJECT MOONBASE, 1953
• ASSINGMENT IN ETERNITY, 1953
• THE STAR BEAST, 1954
• TUNNEL IN THE SKY, 1955
• DOUBLE STAR, 1956 - (Hugo Award)
• TIME FOR THE STARS, 1956
• television lays: TOM CORBETT: SPACE CADET, aired from 1951-56
• THE DOOR INTO SUMMER, 1957
• CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY, 1957
• FAMOUS SCIENCE FICTION STORIES, 1957 (with others)
• METHUSELAH'S CHILDREN, 1958
• HAVE SPACE SUIT, WILL TRAVEL, 1958
• STARSHIP TROOPERS, 1959 - Hugo Award - film 1997, dir. by Paul Verhoeven, written by Ed Nuemeyer
• THE MENACE FROM EARTH, 1959
• THE SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL, 1959 (with others)
• THE UNPLEASANT PROFESSION OF JONATHAN HOAG, 1959 (reissued as 6 x H)
• STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, 1961 - (Hugo Award, complete version in 1991)
• PODKAYNE OF MARS, 1963
• GLORY ROAD, 1963
• THREE BY HEINLEIN, 1965
• THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS, 1966 - (Hugo Award)
• A ROBERT HEINLEIN OMNIBUS, 1966
• THE WORLDS OF ROBERT A HEINLEIN, 1966
• THE PAST THROUGH TOMORROW, 1967
• I WILL FEAR NO EVIL, 1970
• TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE, 1973
• THE BEST OF ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, 1973 (2 vols.)
• THE NOTEBOOKS OF LAZARUS LONG, 1978
• DEATINATION MOON, 1979
• TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE; EXPANDED UNIVERSE, 1980
• THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST, 1980
• EXPANDED UNIVERSE, 1980
• FRIDAY, 1982
• preface: HIGH FRONTIER, 1983
• JOB: A COMEDY OF JUSTICE, 1984
• THE CAT WHO WALKS THROUGH WALLS: A COMEDY OF MANNERS, 1985
• TO SAIL BEYOND THE SUNSET, 1987
• GRUMBLES FROM THE GRAVE, 1990
• TRAMP ROYALE, 1992 (travel, book, written between 1953 and 1954)
• ROBERT A. HEINLEIN REQUIEM, 1992