Heinlein was part of the Campbellian revolution that transformed science fiction, and love him or hate him he was a towering figure from the late thirties until his death in the late eighties. He was a SFWA Grand Master, he won four Hugos in his lifetime and two retro-Hugos in 2001. He wrote some of the defining works of science fiction, and one zeitgeist book that helped define a generation. He wrote juveniles and books packed with sex, short stories and big fat volumes. Almost all of his work was set in futures with space colonization, much of it in the same future history. Beginning well ahead of the curve on race and gender issues, over the decades of his career he didn’t change as fast as the world was changing. He’s still controversial and still popular—almost all of his work is in print, a quarter century after his death.
Plenty of people don’t like Heinlein, and that’s perfectly fine. But suppose you do and you want something else like that?
[Read more: Something else like Heinlein?]