WEDNESDAY’S SHORT STORIES #29: EXPANDED UNIVERSE By Robert A. Heinlein

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When I was a kid, Robert A. Heinlein was my favorite Science Fiction writer. I read his “Juvenile” SF novels in the 1950s. My favorite was Citizen of the Galaxy but I enjoyed them all. Later, in the early 1960s, I read Heinlein’s short stories and novelettes. His stories had “A Sense of Wonder” that made me excited about the Future.

But during the Sixties, other SF writers gained my attention: Keith Laumer, Poul Anderson, Clifford D. Simak, and Jack Vance. Also, Heinlein changed. I read Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) and came away confused. Reading Glory Road (1963) didn’t thrill me. I did like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966), but nothing Heinlein wrote after that book appealed to me. However, in 1980, Heinlein published his Expanded Universe, a mix of fiction and essays. It’s an odd book in many ways, but it does capture a scintilla of that Sense of Wonder that had been missing in Heinlein’s work for many years.

If you’re a Heinlein fan, you probably have Expanded Universe. But if you’re a casual SF fan and want to read the stories and thoughts of one of giants of Science Fiction, this is the book for you! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

29 thoughts on “WEDNESDAY’S SHORT STORIES #29: EXPANDED UNIVERSE By Robert A. Heinlein”

  1. Jerry House

    For me, Heinlein was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Then came some of his later novels that were strangely both readable and meh at the same time. Finally I outgrew him, in the same way most reasonable people outgrew Ayn Rand by the time they were college sophomores: his political and social thoughts were a bit too glib and wanting. Still, for exciting and entertaining reading early Heinlein is hard to beat.

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    1. george Post author

      Jerry, Heinlein had the same effect on me when I read his work 60 years ago. You’re right about Heinlein’s early work being both exciting and entertaining. His later novels…not so much.

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  2. Jeff Meyerson

    I have his THE PAST THROUGH TOMORROW, which has a few of the short stories in this collection. I might try this one.

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    1. george Post author

      Jeff, EXPANDED UNIVERSE includes some of Heinlein’s essays which provide insight into his politics and social thought.

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  3. Michael Padgett

    My experience of reading Heinlein is pretty much like yours, early adulation followed by extreme disappointment. THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS was the last of the novels I really loved, and it was all downhill from there. I did stick with him for a while, but the bloated novels of the Seventies and Eighties did me in. I’m not certain, but I think FRIDAY (1982) was the last one I read. Not sure I had a copy of EXPANDED UNIVERSE, although some of the stuff in the Table of Contents sounds very familiar.

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    1. george Post author

      Michael, the SF stories in EXPANDED UNIVERSE can be found in other collections. The essays are the new additions to the Heinlein Canon.

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  4. Todd Mason

    Sadly, as George notes, Heinlein had begun indulging himself in a big way well before the 1980s, with such basically awful novels as FARNHAM’S FREEHOLD in the early ’60s, along with GLORY ROAD, which starts well, STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND for the most part, I WILL FEAR NO EVIL, etc. The rambling and navel-gazing of THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST and its successors was hardly unprecedented. It did seem he was willing and able to write THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS, and some see some small return to form in FRIDAY and/or JOB (and many don’t)…but…

    He was the most influential writer in many ways in ASTOUNDING SF when it was the most revered magazine in the sf field, and that’s something. By the time I came along in the ’70s as a reader, he was not the greatest YA sf writer, nor by any means the best adult sf writer…but the good work remains, as does his endless lecturing. Jerry’s comparison to Ayn Rand is more than apt…except in her case, there’s no good fiction so much as the lecturing.

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      1. Todd Mason

        Perhaps in part because at the beginning, it’s one of the only fantasy novels to deal with the Vietnam War in 1962 and for all too short a time is grounded in other human realities, and not too long afterward, it’s sort of typical of later-career Heinlein masturbation on the page.

      3. Todd Mason

        Even as Heinlein was a lifelong hawk, his GLORY ROAD protagonist isn’t too unclear about his use as government issue in Vietnam.

  5. Steve Oerkfitz

    I read most of Heinlein as a teenager, although I preferred Clarke, Sturgeon, Silverberg and Vance. I never liked his juveniles. I found them, well, way too juvenile. His best stuff was that from the 50’s( Double Star, Starship Troopers, All You Zombies) . After that I found only The Moon is a Harsh Mistress worthwhile. Stranger I never cared for either. His last few books I found totally unreadable and a bit creepy.

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    1. george Post author

      Steve, the late Heinlein novels have a high creepy factor. At the time, I wondered why they regularly hit the Best Sellers lists when they were so awful!

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      2. george Post author

        Rick, I have STARMAN JONES in the On-Deck Circle. As I recall, you thought it was the best of the Heinlein Juveniles.

  6. Todd Mason

    The cult was already in place…and it always helps to establish one’s self with young-readers’ books and to be an Endless Lecturer (hence the cult). The saddest part aside from what it might mean for Heinlein himself, was in the eventuality that someone looking to read some sf so-labeled would pick up I WILL FEAR NO EVIL and, if at all sensible, put it down again PDQ, walking away and wondering, *this* is what sf readers think of as great stuff? When, sadly, that would be akin to picking up an Eric Segal novel or, more appropriately, a late Dos Passos.

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  7. Wolf

    I was a Heinlein fan of course while still at school in the late 50s but grew up in 1962 to better, more serious authors when I had the chance to get books from the America House.
    Several of his novels and story collections I had to reread because they were originally published in German strongly abridged – 64 pages was the standard format for “real paperbacks” aka pulp, printed on very cheap paper.
    But I forgot most of his stuff, too naive.

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  9. Patti Abbott

    I have read THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS and STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. I can’t remember what I thought about them.

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    1. george Post author

      Patti, Jimmy Webb wrote a song called “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” that has been covered by dozens of artists. My favorite version is sing by Judy Collins.

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