Praise for Robert A. Heinlein and Stranger in a Strange Land
One of the grand masters of science fiction. Wall Street Journal
A brilliant mind-bender...Wonderfully humanizing...The name of the leading character in Stranger in a Strange Land is as familiar to millions of literate persons as Oliver Twist or Holden Caulfield. Kurt Vonnegut, The New York Times Book Review
Certainly among the most influential...science fiction novel[s] of all time. The Guardian
This book was destined to become a bestseller, shaping the sensibilities of a generation. The Boston Globe
One of the most popular science fiction novels ever published. Library Journal
Robert Anson Heinlein was born in Missouri in 1907, and was raised there. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1929, but was forced by illness to retire from the Navy in 1934. He settled in California and over the next five years held a variety of jobs while doing post-graduate work in mathematics and physics at the University of California. In 1939 he sold his first science fiction story to Astounding magazine and soon devoted himself to the genre.
He was a four-time winner of the Hugo Award for his novels Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), Starship Troopers (1959), Double Star (1956), and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966). His Future History series, incorporating both short stories and novels, was first mapped out in 1941. The series charts the social, political, and technological changes shaping human society from the present through several centuries into the future.
Robert A. Heinlein s books were among the first works of science fiction to reach bestseller status in both hardcover and paperback. He continued to work into his eighties, and his work never ceased to amaze, to entertain, and to generate controversy. By the time he died, in 1988, it was evident that he was one of the formative talents of science fiction: a writer whose unique vision, unflagging energy, and persistence, over the course of five decades, made a great impact on the American mind.