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Where To Start Reading Robert A. Heinlein, The Dean Of Science Fiction
By Joshua Tyler
| Updated
Sci-fi master Robert A. Heinlein’s most famous book, Stranger in a Strange Land, is now more than fifty years old. It is so impactful that it inspired Elon Musk’s AI, Grok, named after a word invented for Heinlein’s book. And yet, despite its fame and high quality, Stranger in a Strange Land isn’t his best book, and it’s not his easiest read.
Unfortunately, because Stranger in a Strange Land had such an impact on culture, now anyone looking to explore Heinlein’s work usually starts by reading it. After finishing, those same readers often never pick up anything else he’s done.
Stranger in a Strange Land is a great book, but also narratively unsound, filled with wild ideas that may scare people away, and less of a story than most readers may be used to. For people new to Heinlein, having them start by reading Stranger in a Strange Land is a great way to make sure they’ll never read anything else he’s written.
I’ve been reading Heinlein books since I was far too young to actually be reading Heinlein, and he is, without question, my favorite author. I’m going to fix this problem by recommending other Heinlein books that are not only completely different but infinitely better as a way for new readers to gain entry into Heinlein’s world. Most of these come from earlier in his writing career, before he wrote Stranger. After it, Heinlein kept writing more books like, well, Stranger.
If you really want to read, enjoy, and understand the man once called The Dean of Science Fiction, start reading Robert A. Heinlein with these 5 books instead.
The Star Beast | written by Heinlein in 1954
The Star Best was written by Heinlein as a novel for young adults, but it works well enough that older adults can enjoy it too. This was my first introduction to Robert A. Heinlein at an early age, and if you’re looking for an easy window into his worlds, this might be the book for you.
The Star Beast is the story of a boy named John Thomas who has a pet alien, brought into his family by a spacefaring ancestor. The pet, on the other hand, thinks it’s the one keeping humans. As it grows to adulthood (and reaches a prodigious size), John learns his pet is not just some puppy but an intelligent creature from a powerful race of spacefaring aliens, who want him back.
Tunnel in the Sky | written by Heinlein in 1955
Tunnel in the Sky is much like Heinlein’s Lord of the Flies. A group of students is sent to an alien planet to practice their survival skills. They’re only supposed to be there for ten days, but no one ever comes to pick them up.
They band together to form a community, and the book follows one student who eventually becomes their leader, helping them all survive in a harsh and deadly environment. Years pass as things go from bad to worse when they discover a species of viciously deadly aliens threatening to wipe them all out.
Starship Troopers | written by Heinlein in 1959
This 1959 Hugo Award winner is the book that the Paul Verhoeven movie from the 1990s is based on, in theory. In practice, Starship Troopers, the book, has so very little in common with the film they made out of it, it’s almost a completely different thing.
Starship Troopers is hard-edged, military science fiction about a young soldier named Johnny Rico, thrust into the midst of a war with an alien race of bugs. He’s a member of the mobile infantry, ground troopers who fight in power armor.
In addition to telling a great war story, Starship Troopers contains many relevant political and military themes. Using Rico, Heinlein examines a range of social ills while still telling a great science fiction tale.
The Door into Summer | written by Heinlein in 1957
The Door into Summer is the story of an independent-thinking engineer and inventor (Heinlein’s favorite type of character) named Dan Boone, who builds a robotics company, only to be betrayed by his partners and stuck in cold sleep. He wakes up decades later and tries to rebuild his life in a strange future. Along the way, Dan rises and falls again, ends up at a nudist colony, before eventually giving up and going back into cold sleep again.
It’s a complex story about innovation, invention, and corporate intrigue. The Door into Summer handles some of Heinlein’s pet topics, tackling issues of sexual freedom with lots of time travel. It does all of that while still telling a great story. For me, this is Heinlein at his best, but you may not want to tackle this one until you’ve fortified yourself with some of his simpler works first.
Farnham’s Freehold | written by Heinlein in 1965
Farnham is the Cold War era tale of a family hiding inside a bomb shelter when nuclear war breaks out. It’s brilliant, particularly early on, as Heinlein describes his little group of people, huddled inside their shelter while the world shakes around them.
Eventually, they leave the bomb shelter to discover they’ve somehow been transported somewhere else. Alone in a hostile environment without any of the technology they’re used to, the group tries to form a community and survive, only to discover a place where white men are slaves, and the world they knew is buried and gone forever.
Some groups view this book as controversial, claiming they see racist themes hidden within it. Whether that’s the case, I’ll leave for you to judge. Just keep in mind, while you read Farnham’s Freehold, the time period in which it was written. Context is king.
The Great Robert A. Heinlein Books You Should Read Next
- Have Space Suit Will Travel
- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
- Red Planet
- The Puppet Masters
- Starman Jones
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This $10 upgrade transforms your PC — but it’s only on sale until midnight
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3 AdultFriendFinder red flags — how to avoid scams on AFF
Depending on who you ask, AdultFriendFinder is either the Wild West of hookup sites, an “anything goes” paradise for adult fun, or a total scam replete with bots, fake profiles, and inactive accounts.
After months of personal testing, I can confidently say which AFF you experience ultimately boils down to how you use the site. If you approach it naively, without a strategy, you’re probably going to have some frustrating experiences. On the other hand, if you exercise a modicum of caution and common sense, you’ll discover a huge, fun, and kink-friendly community.
Here are three red flags to look out for as you use AFF, to help you spot potential scammers and separate the authentic users from the fake profiles.
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AdultFriendFinder
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Tinder
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Credit: AdultFriendFinder
Unverified accounts
AdultFriendFinder already offers a fantastic first step in combatting fake profiles that they call ConfirmID. Once you’ve created an account, you can, at any time, upload a clear scan of a government-issued ID card and then, using a webcam, undergo a quick face verification scan to confirm that you are indeed the person identified in the government document.
This step strikes the perfect balance between not being onerous enough to annoy the average user but still requiring enough effort to deter scammers, who notoriously go after the low-hanging fruit.
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Once you’ve completed the ConfirmID sequence, you’ll be rewarded with a verification badge on your profile, and we strongly recommend that you limit your one-on-one interactions on the site to other verified users.
Perfect profile photos
Alright, admittedly this one requires some personal judgment, as everyone should strive to upload good, high-quality photos of themselves to dating websites. But if every photo looks like it belongs in a magazine, or if the person in the photo looks a little too good to be true, you should exercise caution.
In the age of generative AI and filters, it’s trivially easy to create a fake photo or series of photos, so you should also be on the lookout for what isn’t in the photos. Are there recognizable local landmarks (clubs, restaurants, well-known parks, or street corners) in the photos, or are they all equally generic?
Over-eager chatters
Ever since chat bots became a thing, dating sites have become plagued with them, and as AI improves more and more, it’s not always easy to know, right away, if the “person” you’re talking to is really human. One dead giveaway, though, is how much they chat and how quickly they reply.
Real people go off on tangents, employ non sequiturs, and sometimes stumble with awkward questions or comments. Chat bots, on the other hand, are typically always chipper and extremely fast-talking, so much so that a paragraph-long answer can come back to you in seconds.
They also almost always have an agenda, too, whether that’s directing you to click on a link (“Follow my Instagram profile”) or getting you to divulge some potentially compromising bit of personal information about yourself.
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This $10 upgrade transforms your PC — but it’s only on sale until midnight
