Heinlein juveniles

Robert Heinlein was a great writer, generally considered the #1 science fiction author in the world for most of his lifetime. Between 1947 and 1958, he wrote twelve "juvenile" novels that were published by Scribner's. One of his most famous novels, Starship Troopers, was rejected by Scribner's. This ended that particular relationship, but he went on to write another "YA" novel and some short stories.

It occurs to me that I missed out on Heinlein in my own youth. I believe that I've used this blog to reminisce about how I discovered Asimov's work back in 1997. I would have loved Heinlein's "juveniles" back then. It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land, and this sparked my interest enough to read some of his other work.

I thought it would be a fun project to go through all fourteen of these books before I turn 40. I've got just under a year. The plan is to read each one in publication order and to blog my thoughts here.

Prior to brainstorming this little project, I'd already owned three of the fourteen books: The Star Beast, Starship Troopers, and Podkayne of Mars. In addition to having already read those three, I've also read Space Cadet, Between Planets, Starman Jones, and Tunnel in the Sky. That's exactly half of them. However, for this project I'm going to reread the ones that I already read at some point in the past. So I really will go through all fourteen books in publication order.

As I write this post, I've got copies of thirteen of these books in my house: Have Space Suit—Will Travel was the most elusive, but it has been ordered and should arrive soon. I have no current plans to track down Heinlein's "YA" styled short stories.

I'm going to finish the book that I'm currently reading before I jump into Rocket Ship Galileo. So there might not be any updates here until well into December. But watch this space for some hot takes on seventy-year-old science fiction books for teenagers, written by me, a thirty-nine-year-old!