100 Years of RAH!

Yesterday was the 100^th anniversary of the birth or Robert A. Heinlein, one of the Trollsmyth’s favorite authors. I first came across his work in Boy’s Life magazine, where they serialized his novel, Between Planets as a comic. Unfortunately, these were old issues I was reading, so I never got to finish the story there. But I did pick up the book later. Before that, however, my father bought me Have Spacesuit, Will Travel on the recommendation of a friend. I loved the book, and buying a new Heinlein novel became a weekly thing for me. I still remember reading Starship Troopers by flashlight on a Boy Scout campout while my tentmate read one of the Dragonlance novels.

My favorite Heinlein story is still “Green Hills of Earth”. I’m a sucker for the Horatius-on-the-bridge sort of story, and that one has everything I love about them in spades. I've cruised the web a little bit for blog posts about Heinlein, and this has been my favorite post honoring the event of RAH’s birthday. If you haven’t read any Heinlein yet, do so.

If you’re feeling poor, however, or too lazy to get out, you may be interested to learn that much of H. Beam Piper’s work is now on Gutenberg. If you like RAH, you’ll probably also like Piper. I recommend Space Viking, Little Fuzzy, and Lord Kalvin of Otherwhen. For something a bit shorter, but still a great read, try Omnilingual.