Robert A. Heinlein

Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was one of the most influential and controversial authors in science fiction. He was the first science-fiction writer to break into mainstream general magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s with unvarnished science fiction, and he was among the first authors of bestselling novel-length science fiction in the 1960s. For many years he, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke were known as the Big Three of science fiction. He won seven Hugo awards for his novels and the first Grand Master Award given by the Science Fiction Writers of America for lifetime achievement.

Life

Heinlein was born on July 7, 1907, to Rex Ivar and Bam Lyle Heinlein, in Butler, Missouri, United States. His father was an accountant. His childhood was spent in Kansas City, Missouri, where the family of seven lived in a two-bedroom house.{{ref|house}} The outlook and values of this time and place would influence his later works; however, he would also break with many of its values and social mores, both in his writing and in his personal life. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy, graduated in 1929, and served as an officer in the United States Navy. He married his second wife, Leslyn Macdonald, in 1932. (Little is known about his first marriage.{{ref|firstmarriage}}) Leslyn was a political radical, and Isaac Asimov recalled Robert during those years as being, like her, "a flaming liberal."{{ref|flaming}} In 1934, Heinlein was discharged from the Navy due to pulmonary tuberculosis. During his long hospitalization he conceived of the waterbed, and his detailed descriptions of it in three of his books later prevented others from patenting the idea. The military was the second great influence on Heinlein; throughout his life, he strongly believed in loyalty, leadership, and other ideals associated with the military.

Related Topics:
July 7 - 1907 - Butler, Missouri - United States - Kansas City, Missouri - U.S. Naval Academy - 1929 - United States Navy - Isaac Asimov - 1934 - Pulmonary - Tuberculosis - Waterbed - Patenting

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After his discharge, Heinlein informally attended a few weeks of graduate classes in mathematics and physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, quitting either because of his health or because of a desire to enter politics, or both.{{ref|ucla}} He supported himself by working at a series of jobs, including real estate and silver mining. Heinlein was active in Upton Sinclair's socialist EPIC (End Poverty In California) movement in early 1930s California. When Sinclair gained the Democratic nomination for governor of California in 1934, Heinlein worked actively for the campaign (which was unsuccessful). Heinlein himself ran for the California State Assembly in 1938, and was also unsuccessful.{{ref|election}} Heinlein kept his socialist past secret, writing about his political experiences coyly, and usually under the veil of fictionalization. In 1954, he wrote: "...many Americans ... were asserting loudly that McCarthy had created a 'reign of terror.' Are you terrified? I am not, and I have in my background much political activity well to the left of Senator McCarthy's position."{{ref|mccarthy}}

Related Topics:
Mathematics - Physics - University of California, Los Angeles - Real estate - Silver - Mining - Upton Sinclair - Socialist - EPIC - 1930s - California - Democratic - Governor of California - California State Assembly - 1938 - McCarthy

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While not destitute after the campaign—Heinlein had a small disability pension from the Navy—he turned to writing to pay off his mortgage, and in 1939 his first published story, "Life-Line", was printed in Astounding Magazine.

Related Topics:
Mortgage - 1939 - Astounding Magazine

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Heinlein rapidly became acknowledged as a leader of the new movement toward "social" science fiction. He began fitting his early published stories into a fairly consistent future history (the chart for which Campbell published in the May 1941 issue of Astounding).

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During World War II he worked as a civil engineer for the Navy in the area of aeronautical engineering, recruiting the young Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp to work directly for the Naval Aircraft Factory. As the war wore down in 1945, he began reevaluating his career. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the outbreak of the Cold War galvanized him to write nonfiction on political topics, and he wanted to break into better-paying markets. He published four influential stories for the Saturday Evening Post, leading off with "The Green Hills of Earth" in February 1947, which made him the first science fiction writer to break out of the pulp ghetto. Destination Moon, the documentary-like film for which he had written story, scenario, and script, and invented many of the effects, won an Academy Award for special effects. Most importantly, he embarked on a series of juvenile novels for Scribner's that was to last through the 1950s.

Related Topics:
World War II - Isaac Asimov - L. Sprague de Camp - Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Saturday Evening Post - Destination Moon - Academy Award - Special effects

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Heinlein was divorced from his wife Leslyn in 1947, and in 1948 married his third wife, Virginia "Ginny" Gerstenfeld, who probably served as a model for many of his brainy and independent female characters. In 1953–1954, the Heinleins took a trip around the world, which Heinlein described in Tramp Royale, and which also provided background material for science fiction novels such as Podkayne of Mars that were set aboard spaceships. Asimov believed that Heinlein made a drastic swing to the right politically at the same time he married Ginny. The couple formed the Patrick Henry League in 1958 and worked on the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign, and Tramp Royale contains two lengthy apologias for the McCarthy hearings. However, this perception of a drastic shift may result from an inappropriate tendency to try to place libertarianism on the traditional right-left spectrum of American politics, as well as from Heinlein's iconoclasm, and unwillingness to let himself be pigeonholed into any ideology (including libertarianism). The evidence of Ginny's influence is clearer in matters literary (she acted as the first reader of his manuscripts) and scientific (she was reputed to be a far better engineer than Robert). The political ideas in Heinlein's writing are discussed below under "Ideas, themes, and influence."

Related Topics:
Virginia "Ginny" Gerstenfeld - Tramp Royale - Podkayne of Mars - Patrick Henry League - Barry Goldwater - McCarthy hearings - Libertarianism

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Heinlein's juvenile novels may have turned out to be the most important work he ever did, building an audience of scientifically and socially aware adults. He had used topical materials throughout his series, but his juvenile for 1959, Starship Troopers, was regarded by the Scribner's editorial staff as too controversial for their prestige line and was rejected summarily. Heinlein felt himself released from the constraints of writing for children and began to write "my own stuff, my own way," and came out with a series of challenging books that redrew the boundaries of science fiction, including Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), which is his best-known work, and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966), which many regard as his finest novel.

Related Topics:
Stranger in a Strange Land - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

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Beginning in 1970, however, Heinlein had a series of health crises, punctuated by strenuous work. The decade began with a life-threatening attack of peritonitis, recovery from which required more than two years. But as soon as he was well enough to write, he began work on Time Enough for Love (1973). In the mid-1970s he wrote two Encyclopedia Britannica articles.{{ref|britannica}} He and his wife Virginia crisscrossed the country helping to reorganize blood collection in the U.S., and he was guest of honor at a World Science Fiction Convention for the third time at Kansas City in 1976. In 1977 he suffered a "near-stroke" because of a blocked carotid artery. He became exhausted, his health began declining again, and he had one of the earliest heart bypass operations in 1978. Asked to appear before a Joint Committee of the U.S. House and Senate that year, he testified on his belief that spinoffs from space technology were benefitting the infirm and the elderly. His brush with death re-energized Heinlein, and he wrote five novels from 1980 until he passed away in his sleep on May 8, 1988, as he was putting together the early notes for his sixth World As Myth novel. Several of his works have been published posthumously.{{ref|posthumous}}

Related Topics:
Peritonitis - Time Enough for Love - 1970s - Encyclopedia Britannica - Carotid artery - Heart bypass operations - Joint Committee - U.S. House - Senate

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