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Written in November of 2001 by Matt Hughes, university of colorado student.
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Robert Heinlein
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I start out with some characters and get them into trouble, and when they get themselves out of trouble, the story's over.
Born in Butler, Missouri, Heinlein hadn't always had his eyes set on writing. He had graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1929 and served in the Navy for five years aboard destroyers and aircraft carriers until a bout with pulmonary tuberculosis caused a medical discharge in 1934. Attempting a graduate degree in physics and mathematics at the University of California, Heinlein's health failed again. He traveled to Colorado to recover, working as an engineer, real estate agent, and architect. He even ran for a seat in the California State Assembly before writing his first science fiction story, "Life-Line" in 1939.
They didn't want it good. They wanted it Wednesday.
Along with "Life-Line", Heinlein wrote so many stories for Astounding Science Fiction and other "pulps" he was forced to use several pseudonyms in order to get published; when the magazine conducted a poll of its readers' favorite author Robert Heinlein "was often rivaled only by ÔAnson MacDonald', a Heinlein psuedonym." When the war started in 1942, however, he put off writing to return to his old career in the military, serving as a research engineer at the Naval Air Experimental Station in Philadelphia. By no coincidence, Heinlein worked side by side with science fiction legends Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp, whom he personally interviewed.
After the war, Heinlein published his first novel, Rocket Ship Galileo (1947), a best-selling juvenile novel in a series for Scriber Publishing called Have Spacesuit--Will Travel. The novel would later be turned into the famous science fiction movie, Destination Moon, under the technical guidance of Heinlein. Another novel in the series, Space Cadet (1948), was made into a television show of the same name. During this time, Heinlein was responsible for bringing science fiction to the "slicks", respectable literary magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post.
During his most prolific period, he won Hugo Awards for Double Star (1956), Starship Troopers (1959), Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966). Stranger in a Strange Land, with its "optimistic message of universal amity", was the first science fiction novel to reach the New York Times Bestsellers List; it is the book he will be known for.
In his later years, Heinlein produced several memorable books including Number of the Beast (1980), The Cat Who Walks through Walls (1985), and To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987). He went on to write a total of 45 books, selling more than 40 million copies worldwide. As a sign of his cultural significance, Heinlein was invited as a guest commentator with Walter Cronkite during the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Christened as one of the founding fathers of science fiction, Robert Heinlein is often compared to the likes of Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. He has won the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel an unprecedented four times, been the Guest of Honor three times at the World Science Fiction annual convention, and was the first to receive the Grand Master Nebula Award for his lifelong contribution to what Heinlein would like to call "speculative fiction".
Robert Heinlein died in 1988. He was posthumously awarded the NASA Medal for Distinguished Public Service.
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