On This Day: Robert A. Heinlein

On this day in 1907, Robert Anson Heinlein was born, in Butler, Missouri.

Heinlein graduated from the US Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1929, and served as an officer until being discharged for medical reasons, in 1934. In 1939 he turned to writing to supplement his Naval pension, selling his first story to John W. Campbell’s Astounding Science-Fiction. He would go on to have a profound influence on Astounding – indeed, he would dominate the Golden Age of SF and shape American science fiction for decades to come.

He won a record five Hugo Awards for best novel (including the 2001 Retro-Hugo for 1951), including for seminal works Starship Troopers, in 1960, and Stranger in a Strange Land, in 1962. Such was his influence, he was known for many years as ‘the Dean of Science Fiction’ and his epic Future History is still standard against which fictional universes are judged.

SF Gateway is delighted to have eBooks of many of his works available (which you can find via his Author page) and SF Masterworks editions of Double Star, The Door into Summer and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, as well as an omnibus of his Future History: The Past Through Tomorrow.