Robert Anson Heinlein is sometimes referred to as the “dean of science fiction writers”. Sometimes controversial, his works still influence modern science fiction today. Among his most famous works are Stars, attention! (Starship Troopers, 1959), Stranger in a Strange Land, 1961) and Revolt on the Moon (The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, 1966).
Military Youth
Born in a very religious small rural town in the heart of Missouri, Robert Heinlein broke free from fundamentalist doctrine at age 13, the age at which he read Charles Darwin. After attending high school in Kansas City, he graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1929. A family tradition has it that the Heinleins have taken part in all the wars in America since the United States. independance War. Faithful to this tradition, he served in the Navy, first on board aircraft carrier, then aboard destroyers. In 1934, becoming a lieutenant, he had to leave the army following a tuberculosis which makes him definitely unfit for service. This past military career will influence all of his work.
After his service, Robert Heinlein is looking for himself. He becomes a student in physical for a few weeks before trying various professions (real estate agent, owner of asilver, etc.). He even entered politics in a movement socialist, but without success.
Militant Feather
August 1939, Heinlein published his first science fiction short story, Life Line. Written first for a small competition, he decides to have it published and finds a place for it in the magazine. Astounding Science Fiction. He writes his following news in a large “ History of the future of Humanity ”, which runs from 1950 to 2600. The New Unsatisfactory Solution is one of the first to speak about the global consequences of nuclear weapons, a topic that will follow him throughout his life.
The war arrives and Heinlein stops writing to work as a civil engineer for the navy in the company ofIsaac asimov and L. Sprague de Camp. There followed a brief period of active activism for supranational control of nuclear weapons, before returning to the pen. In the 1980s, he was one of the pillars of the “Citizen Council on Space Policy” at the origin of President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative.
Robert Heinlein has been married three times without having children. His writings made him, along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, one of the “Big Three” authors of English-language science fiction.
Bibliography
Sixth Column / The Day after Tomorrow), 1941
Methuselah’s Children), 1941
The Child of Science (Beyond this Horizon), 1942
Waldo, Le Bélial ‘, coll. “A Light Hour” no 19, 2019 (Waldo), 1942
Rocket Ship Galileo (untranslated youth novel), 1947
The Space Patrol (Space Cadet), 1948
Apple trees in the sky (Satellite Scout / Farmer in the Sky), 1950
From one planet to another (Planet in Combat / Between Planets), 1951
The red planet (Red Planet), 1951
Human puppets (The Puppet Masters), 1951
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