robert heinlein time travel stories

10 Great Time Travel Stories: Part I

April 6, 2016.

Time travel has intrigued people for as long as, well, time. There are no hard and fast rules, but for over a hundred years writers have given us their take on how it works. Time travel allows us to imagine what it would be like to experience other worlds and consider what we would do if we could influence history or see the future.

We’ve picked out ten great ten time travel books take us through our own time – from Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court published in 1889 to Audrey Niffenegger’s Time Traveler’s Wife published in 2003.

Here are the first five on our list; stay tuned next week for five more time warping classics!

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Mark Twain (1889)

social satire, humor

Twain’s special gift for satire makes this story hilarious, fantastical and to the point. His comparative study and social commentary exposes his dissatisfaction of the romantic ideal of King Arthur’s world and faith in the scientific and social progress of his own time.

Twain starts by sending Hank Morgan, a self-reliant New Englander and engineer, back in time to King Arthur’s Court. Things go bad quickly and he is sentenced to death by Merlin. When Hank uses his knowledge of the nineteenth-century to save himself, he convinces the people, the King, and himself , that he is a magician greater than Merlin. He begins to transform King Arthur’s world where he transforms into the Boss.

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Time Machine, H.G. Wells (1895)

science fiction, fantasy, Darwinism, socialism

A forerunner of the science fiction genre, this classic novel popularized the concept of time travel and introduced the term “time machine”. Written in 1895, it is couched in a Darwinian and Socialist parable about a time traveler who is sent into the year 802,701. The traveler finds himself in a society of two races, the Eloi, peaceful dwellers who live above ground and the Morlocks, ape-like creatures who live below ground. It is a cautionary tale taking on the themes of evolution, capitalism, and social class division.

A Sound of Thunder, Ray Bradbury (1952)

science fiction, fantasy

Time travel, safari hunting and the opportunity to take down a Tyrannosaurus Rex. That’s what Time Safari offers its customers when it sends them sixty million years into the past. But there are strict rules and real dangers to anyone who breaks them. All travelers must stay on the designated Path provided by Time Safari. Anyone stepping off of it could create a ripple in time that could alter the future, the concept known as the “butterfly effect”. Bradbury asks us to consider our actions and how they effect the world. (In The Stories of Ray Bradbury and A Sound of Thunder and other Stories .)

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The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov (1955)

science fiction, romance

Considered his best by many, this short fiction novel places time travel outside of linear reality. The non-linear world, Eternity, is a location outside of time and place where an elite few, the Eternals, monitor and alter time’s cause and effect relationships. Andrew Harlan is an Eternal. On one of his assignments, he falls in love with a woman who lives in linear time only to find out she will not exist after the next change. He risks everything to bring her to Eternity with him, but his actions create a paradox that threatens the existence of Eternity. To fix the problem, he is given his next assignment. He must kill the woman he loves.

The Door into Summer, Robert A. Heinlein (1957)

This short fiction book is one of Heinlein’s lighter novels and uses time travel in a limited way. It begins in 1970. Dan Davis is the successful inventor of a household robot, an automated “cleaning lady” called Hired Girl . With the help of his fiancée, Belle and their friend Miles, his new company is thriving beyond his wildest dreams. But Belle and Miles betray him, steal his patents, and trick him into spending thirty years in suspended animation. They thought that was the end of Dan.

What they didn’t expect was that time travel exists in the year 2000. When Dan wakes up from thirty years of sleep, he is able to go back to 1970 where he recovers his research and then returns to the year 2000 with his reputation, invention and fiancée.

About the Author

IVY BRUNELLE is a Reference Librarian at PPL. She accidentally became a sci-fi geek in college. But if you asked her about it, she’d deny the whole thing, then silently slip through a portal of ancient standing stones.

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All You Zombies: Reviewed by David Wright

“All You Zombies” by Robert A. Heinlein

Reviewed by David Wright ©2004

This short time travel story of Heinlein’s appeared some 18 years later than “By His Bootstraps” with which it bears much in common. It is considered by many to be the ultimate in time travel stories.

A young man who appears to be feeling very sorry for himself tells his life history to a bartender. He started out life as a homely girl, (yes I said girl), growing up in an orphanage and vowing never to have children out of wedlock and abandon them as she apparently had been. In spite of her good intentions when she grows up she succumbs to seduction by a young man waving around $100 dollar bills and who promptly leaves her behind afterwards. Unfortunately, she has become pregnant and in due course gives birth to a baby girl. The baby is kidnapped and disappears forever or so she thinks. To compound her problems, the doctors who delivered her baby finds out that she has both sets of reproductive equipment, the female parts of which have been pretty well ruined by the pregnancy and so they remove these and turn her into a man. The man becomes a writer of women’s confession stories and some years later finds himself in the bar where he tells his story.

The bartender is more than he appears to be. He is an agent of a time traveling service and is there to recruit this young man into the same service. He baits him by offering to find for him the man who had been the cause of his/her “ruination”. He gives the man money, and takes him back in time leaving him there to find his quarry. The bartender then goes ahead a number of months and kidnaps that same month-old baby. He takes her back 19 or so years and leaves her on the doorstep of an orphanage. The baby, of course, subsequently grows up to be the girl/man of the later story. The bartender then returns to where he left the young man and finds him to pick him up. The young man is in a state of shock basically since he now knows that not only that “he” was the man who had seduced himself when he was a girl, but that the bartender is also a much later version of himself. The bartender then takes him into the future where he is left to be recruited into the organization. The bartender returns to his own base and reflects on all of the events in his life.

As in a number of Heinlein’s works, he toys with the idea of solipsism and ends the story with the thoughts of the bartender in what I think is one of the most poignant passages that he ever wrote:

“I know where I came from, but where did all you zombies come from?

“I felt a headache coming on, but a headache powder is one thing I

don’t take. I did it once– and you all went away.

“So I crawled into bed and whistled out the light.

“You aren’t really there at all. There isn’t anyone but me — Jane —

here alone in the dark.

I miss you terribly.”

This story along with “Bootstraps” and “The Door Into Summer” are examples of what are called “deterministic” or “unchangeable timeline” stories. In other words, All of the events take place on time loops, but there is no change in what happens each time through the loop. Events are “fixed”. One philosophical problem associated with this kind of story is obvious. What happens to “free will”? Heinlein doesn’t attempt to answer that question in this story. I expect that he avoids it because it is unanswerable, and in this story neither does he try to give any “scientific” basis for his time traveling.

Such “fixed events” are not the norm in most of his later works, where he gets into all sorts of variations, multiple timelines, the changing of events through time travel and even the changing of events through direct author interaction with the story as in the “erasing” of Marshall Sam Beaux in “Cat”

• by The Heinlein Society
• on March 28, 2004

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By His Bootstraps

By robert a. heinlein.

• Release: October 1941
• Format: Short Story
• Genre: Science Fiction
• Audience: Adults
• Content: Definite Time Travel
• Original Language: English

• Cited in Paradoxes of Time Travel by Rayn Wasserrman ()
• Cited in Worlds Enough and Time, edited by Gary Westfahl ()
• Cited in Time Machines by Paul J. Nahin ()
• ITTDB Work #1331: by Robert A. Heinlein
• Indexer: not yet assigned
• Curator: Michael Main
• as of 10:21 p.m. MDT, 3 May 2024
• This page is still under construction. Please bear with us as we continue to finalize our data over the coming years.

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By His Bootstraps

By Robert A. Heinlein , first published in Analog .

A stranger from the faraway future appears in a young man's room in 1952 with an urgent mission.

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It is 1952, and a young man named Bob Wilson has locked himself into his room to try to finish his thesis on metaphysics when a stranger appears out of nowhere in his room. A great dark disk, suspended in midair, hangs behind the stranger. The intruder tries to convince Bob to step through the disk, which he refers to as a Time Gate. As the two men talk, a third man steps out of the Gate. This man urges Bob not to travel through the disk. The three men get into a fist fight, and in the tussle, Bob is shoved through the Time Gate. Bob wakes up to find a middle-aged man bending over him. The man calls himself Diktor and tells Bob that they are in the Hall of the Gate in the High Palace of Norkaal, and that Bob has jumped forward in time by thirty thousand years. Diktor explains that creatures called the High Ones appeared on Earth and ruled for more than twenty thousand years before completely obliterating life on Earth as Bob would have known it. Diktor explains that he needs Bob's help in an important mission: he wants Bob to travel back through the Time Gate and convince the man on the other side to come through. Bob proceeds to travel back and forth between one side of the Time Gate and the other, and in these comings and goings, he realizes that the two men who had appeared in his room were both, in fact, later versions of himself — versions he inhabits as he travels back and forth through the Time Gate. He is unsure whether or not to trust Diktor, but he acquires objects which Diktor told him would be useful from his twentieth-century world — books on government and music records. He jumps through the Time Gate a final time and arrives in the future world as it was ten years before he met Diktor. He finds the civilization of this world upsetting and rudimentary, and introduces the inhabitants to the music of his time. He uses the books he's brought with him to rule this new version of humanity. The inhabitants of this world call him 'Diktor' — their word for chief. Bob realizes eventually that the Diktor he met long ago on the other side of the Time Gate was yet another version of himself. He prepares himself for the arrival of his past selves, who will soon arrive through the Gate and need his guidance to reach what he now knows to be his destiny.

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Time Enough For Love (The Science Fiction Classic) Paperback – October 5, 2021

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Print length 640 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Ace
• Publication date October 5, 2021
• Dimensions 5.5 x 1.3 x 8.24 inches
• ISBN-10 0593437241
• ISBN-13 978-0593437247
• See all details

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About the author.

He was a four-time winner of the Hugo Award for his novels Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), Starship Troopers (1959), Double Star (1956), and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966). His Future History series, incorporating both short stories and novels, was first mapped out in 1941. The series charts the social, political, and technological changes shaping human society from the present through several centuries into the future.

Robert A. Heinlein’s books were among the first works of science fiction to reach bestseller status in both hardcover and paperback. he continued to work into his eighties, and his work never ceased to amaze, to entertain, and to generate controversy. By the time he died, in 1988, it was evident that he was one of the formative talents of science fiction: a writer whose unique vision, unflagging energy, and persistence, over the course of five decades, made a great impact on the American mind.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

As the door of the suite dilated, the man seated staring glumly out the window looked around. "Who the hell are you?"

"I am Ira Weatheral of the Johnson Family, Ancestor, Chairman Pro Tem of the Families."

"Took you long enough. Don't call me 'Ancestor.' And why just the Chairman Pro Tem?" the man in the chair growled. "Is the Chairman too damn busy to see me? Don't I rate even that?" He made no move to stand, nor did he invite his visitor to sit down.

"Your pardon, Sire. I am chief executive for the Families. But it has been customary for some time now-several centuries-for the chief executive to hold the title 'Chairman Pro Tem' . . against the possibility that you might show up and take the gavel."

"Eh? Ridiculous. I haven't presided at a meeting of the Trustees for a thousand years. And 'Sire' is as bad as 'Ancestor'-call me by name. It's been two days since I sent for you. Did you come by the scenic route? Or has the rule that entitles me to the ear of the Chairman been revoked?"

"I am not aware of that rule, Senior; it was probably long before my time-but it is my honor and duty-and pleasure-to wait on you at any time. I will be pleased and honored to call you by name if you will tell me what your name is now. As for the delay-thirty-seven hours since I received your summons-I have spent it studying Ancient English, as I was told that you were not answering to any other language."

The Senior looked slightly sheepish. "It's true I'm not handy with the jabber they speak here-my memory has been playing tricks on me lately. I guess I've been sulky about answering even when I understood. Names-I forget what name I checked in by when I grounded here. Mmm, 'Woodrow Wilson Smith' was my boyhood name. Never used it much. I suppose 'Lazarus Long' is the name I've used oftenest-call me 'Lazarus.'"

"Thank you, Lazarus."

"For what? Don't be so damned formal. You're not a kid, or you wouldn't be Chairman-how old are you? Did you really take the trouble to learn my milk language just to call on me? And in less than two days? Was that from scratch? It takes me at least a week to tack on a new language, another week to smooth out accent."

"I am three hundred and seventy-two standard years old, Lazarus-just under four hundred Earth years. I learned Classic English when I took this job-but as a dead language, to enable me to read old records of the Families in the original. What I did since your summons was to learn to speak and understand it . . in North American twentieth-century idiom-your 'milk language' as you said-as that is what the linguistic analyzer computed that you were speaking."

"Pretty smart machine. Maybe I am speaking it the way I did as a youngster; they claim that's the one language a brain never forgets. Then I must be talking in a Corn Belt rasp like a rusty saw . . whereas you're speaking a sort of Texas drawl with an Oxford British overlay. Odd. I suppose the machine picks the version out of its permanents closest to the sample fed into it."

"I believe so, Lazarus, although the techniques involved are not my field. Do you have trouble understanding my accent?"

"Oh, none at all. Your accent is okay; it's closer to educated General American of that time than is the accent I learned as a kid. But I can follow anything from Bluegum to Yorkshire; accent is no problem. It was mighty kind of you to bother. Warming."

"My pleasure. I have a talent for languages; it was not much trouble. I try to be able to speak to each of the Trustees in his native language; I'm used to swotting up a new one quickly."

"So? Nonetheless a courteous thing to do-I've felt like an animal in a zoo with no one to talk to. Those dummies"-Lazarus inclined his head at two rejuvenation technicians, dressed in isolation gear and one-way helmets, and waiting as far from the conversation as the room permitted-"don't know English; I can't talk with them. Oh, the taller one understands a little but not enough for gossip." Lazarus whistled, pointed at the taller. "Hey, you! A chair for the Chairman-chop chop!" His gestures made his meaning clear. The taller technician touched the controls of a chair nearby; it rolled away, wheeled around, and stopped at a comfortable tte-ˆ-tte distance from Lazarus.

Ira Weatheral said thank you-to Lazarus, not to the tech-sat down, then sighed as the chair felt him out and cuddled him. Lazarus said, "Comfortable?"

"Anything to eat or drink? Or smoke? You may have to interpret for me."

"Nothing, thank you. But may I order for you?"

"Not now. They keep me stuffed like a goose-once they force-fed me, damn them. Since we're comfortable, let's get on with the powwow." He suddenly roared, "WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING IN THIS JAIL?"

Weatheral answered quietly, "Not 'jail,' Lazarus. The VIP suite of the Howard Rejuvenation Clinic, New Rome."

"'Jail,' I said. All it lacks is cockroaches. This window-you couldn't break it with a crowbar. That door-it opens to any voice . . except mine. If I go to the john, one of those dummies is at my elbow. Apparently afraid I'll drown myself in the pot. Hell, I don't even know whether that nurse is a man or a woman-and don't like it either way. I don't need somebody to hold my hand while I go pee-pee! I resent it."

"I'll see what can be worked out, Lazarus. But the technicians are understandably jumpy. A person can get hurt quite easily in any bathroom-and they all know that, if you are hurt, no matter by what mischance, the technician in charge at the time will suffer cruel and unusual punishment. They are volunteers and are drawing high bonuses. But they're jumpy."

"So I figured out. 'Jail.' If this is a rejuvenation suite . . WHERE'S MY SUICIDE SWITCH?"

"Lazarus-'Death is every man's privilege.'"

"That's what I said! That switch belongs right there; you can see where it has been dismounted. So I'm in jail without trial, with my most basic right taken from me. Why? I'm furious, man. Do you realize what danger you are in? Never tease an old dog; he might have one bite left. Old as I am, I could break your arms before those dummies could reach us."

"You are welcome to break my arms if it pleases you."

"Huh?" Lazarus Long looked baffled. "No, it's not worth the sweat. They would have you patched up good as new in thirty minutes." He suddenly grinned. "But I could snap your neck, then crush your skull, about as fast. That's one injury beyond the power of rejuvenators."

Weatheral did not stir, did not tense. "I feel sure you could," he said quietly. "But I do not think that you would kill one of your descendants without giving him a chance to parley for his life. You are my remote grandfather, sir, by seven different tracks."

Lazarus chewed his lip and looked unhappy. "Son, I have so many descendants that consanguinity doesn't matter. But you're essentially right. In all my life I have never killed a man unnecessarily. I think." Then he grinned. "But if I don't get my suicide switch back, I could make an exception in your case."

"Lazarus, if you wish, I will have that switch remounted at once. But-'Ten Words'?"

"Uh-" Lazarus looked ungracious. "Okay. 'Ten Words.' Not eleven."

Weatheral hesitated a split second, then counted on his fingers: "I. learned. your. language. to. explain. why. we. need. you."

"Ten by the Rule," Lazarus admitted. "But meaning that you need fifty. Or five hundred. Or five thousand."

"Or none," Weatheral amended. "You can have your switch without giving me any chance to explain. I promised."

"Humph!" said Lazarus. "Ira, you old scoundrel, you have me convinced that you really are my kin. You figured that I would not suicide without hearing what you have on your mind-once I knew you had bothered to learn a dead language just to make palaver. All right, talk. You can start by telling me what I'm doing here. I know-I know-that I didn't apply for rejuvenation. But I woke up here with the job already half over. So I screamed for the Chairman. Okay, why am I here?"

"May we start further back? You tell me what you were doing in a flophouse in the worst part of Old Town."

"What was I doing? I was dying. Quietly and decently, like a worn-out horse. That is, I was, until your busybodies grabbed me. Can you think of a better place than a flophouse for a man who doesn't want to be disturbed while he's busy with it? If his cot is paid for in advance, they leave a man be. Oh, they stole what little I had, even my shoes. But I expected that-would have done the same myself under the same circumstances. And the sort of people who live in flophouses are almost always kind to those worse off than they are-any of 'em will fetch a drink of water to a sick man. That was the most I wanted-that and to be left alone to close out my account in my own way. Until your busies showed up. Tell me, how did they find me?"

"How we found you is not the surprising part, Lazarus, but the fact that SecFor-the cops?-Yes, 'cops'-that my cops took so long to identify you, then find you, and pick you up. A section chief lost his job over that. I don't tolerate inefficiency."

"So you busted him. Your business. But why? I reached Secundus from Out-Far, and I didn't think I had left any back trail. Different everything since the last time I was in touch with the Families . . as I bought my last rejuvenation on Supreme. Are the Families swapping data with Supreme these days?"

"Heavens, no, Lazarus, we won't even give them a polite word. There is a strong minority among the Trustees who favor rubbing out Supreme, instead of simply maintaining embargo."

"Well . . if a nova bomb hit Supreme, I wouldn't mourn more than thirty seconds. But I did have a reason for having the job done there, even though I had to pay high for forced cloning. But that's another story. Son, how did you pick me up?"

"Sir, for the past seventy years there has been a general order out to try to find you, not just here but on every planet where the Families maintain offices. As to how-do you recall a forced inoculation for Reiber's fever at Immigration?"

"Yes. I was annoyed, but it didn't seem worthwhile to make a fuss; I knew I was headed for that flophouse. Ira, I've known that I was dying for quite some time. That was okay; I was ready for it. But I didn't want to do it alone, out in space. Wanted human voices around me, and body odors. Childish of me. But I was pretty far gone by the time I grounded."

"Lazarus, there is no such thing as Reiber's fever. When a man grounds on Secundus and all routine identifications show null, 'Reiber's fever' or some other nonexistent plague is used as an excuse to get a little tissue from him while injecting him with sterile neutral saline. You should never have been allowed to leave the skyport until your genetic pattern was identified."

"So? What do you do when ten thousand immigrants arrive in one ship?"

"Herd them into detention barracks until we've checked them out. But that doesn't happen often today with Old Home Terra in the sorry state it's in. But you, Lazarus, arriving alone in a private yacht worth fifteen to twenty million crowns-"

"Make that 'thirty.'"

"-worth thirty million crowns. How many men in the Galaxy can do that? Of those who can afford it, how many would choose to travel alone? The pattern should have set alarm bells ringing in the minds of all of them. Instead they took your tissue and accepted your statement that you would be staying at the Romulus hilton and let you go-and no doubt you had another identity before dark."

"No doubt at all," Lazarus agreed. "But your cops have run up the price on a good phony set of ID's. If I hadn't been too tired to bother, I would have forged my own. Safer. Was that how I was caught? Did you squeeze it out of the paper merchant?"

"No, we never found him. By the way, you might let me know who he is, so that-"

"And I might not," Lazarus said sharply. "Not ratting on him was implicit in the bargain. It's nothing to me how many of your rules he breaks. And-who knows?-I might need him again. Certainly someone will need his services, somebody just as anxious to avoid your busies as I was. Ira, no doubt you mean well but I don't like setups where ID's are necessary. I told myself centuries back to stay away from places crowded enough to require them, and mostly I've followed that rule. Should have followed it this time. But I didn't expect to need any identification very long. Confound it, two more days and I would have been dead. I think. How did you catch me?"

"The hard way. Once I knew you were on planet I stirred things up; that section chief wasn't the only unhappy man. But you disappeared in so simple a fashion that you baffled the entire force. My security chief expressed the opinion that you had been killed and your body disposed of. I told him if that were the case, he had better start thinking about off-planet migration."

"Make it march! I want to know how I goofed."

"I would not say that you goofed, Lazarus, since you managed to stay hidden with every cop and stoolie on this globe looking for you. But I felt certain that you had not been killed. Oh, we do have murders on Secundus, especially here in New Rome. But most are the commonplace husband-wife sort. We don't have many for gain since I instituted a policy of making the punishment fit the crime and holding executions in the Colosseum. In any case I felt certain that a man who had survived more than two millennia would not let himself be killed in some dark alley.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ace (October 5, 2021)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 640 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593437241
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593437247
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.06 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.3 x 8.24 inches
• #611 in Time Travel Fiction
• #3,946 in Classic Literature & Fiction
• #4,340 in Science Fiction Adventures

About the author

Robert heinlein.

Robert Heinlein was an American novelist and the grand master of science fiction in the twentieth century. Often called 'the dean of science fiction writers', he is one of the most popular, influential and controversial authors of 'hard science fiction'.

Over the course of his long career he won numerous awards and wrote 32 novels, 59 short stories and 16 collections, many of which have cemented their place in history as science fiction classics, including STARSHIP TROOPERS, THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS and the beloved STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.

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Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Vintage treasures: the past through tomorrow by robert a. heinlein, sunday, may 2, 2021 john oneill comments 27 comments.

The Past Through Tomorrow (Berkley Medallion, January 1975). Cover uncredited

I’ve never been a big Heinlein fan. Not my fault. I enjoyed Starship Troopers well enough, but the next two novels I tried — The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and especially Friday — I bounced off pretty hard. I never tried again.

It didn’t help that I made most of my discoveries through short fiction in those days, and Heinlein almost never showed up in anthologies. Sometimes editors would apologize for omitting him, admitting (with some frustration) that they just couldn’t get the rights to the Heinlein tales they wanted. The problem was that by the mid-70s Heinlein was a star, the top-selling author in the field, and his entire short fiction catalog was locked up in his own bestselling collections.

I read collections, of course. Lots of them. But the seminal Heinlein collection, the one containing virtually all of his really important short work — including classics like “The Roads Must Roll,” “Blowups Happen,” “The Man Who Sold the Moon,” “Gentlemen, Be Seated,” “The Green Hills of Earth,” “Logic of Empire,” “The Menace from Earth,” “If This Goes On —”, and the short novel Methuselah’s Children — was the massive The Past Through Tomorrow . And that 830-page beast was just a bridge too far for a traumatized veteran of the first 100 pages of Friday .

[Click the images for Heinlein-sized versions.]

The result is, of course, that when I talk about really important 20th Century SF writers — which is kinda my thing? — I never mention Heinlein. Nope, nope.

But there’s been enough distance with my early failures with Heinlein now, not to mention a growing awareness of a big hole in my SF education. And I find myself increasingly curious about what I missed out on by not reading Heinlein in my youth. Besides a bunch of right-wing libertarian politics , obviously.

I picked up The Past Through Tomorrow recently, and I was impressed all over again at just how many true SF classics are packed within its pages. I can almost forgive its length, given that it contains 21 stories, three novellas (“The Man Who Sold the Moon,” “Logic of Empire,” and “Coventry”) and a complete novel, Methuselah’s Children . The stories within were published across four decades, from 1939 to 1962, first in John W. Campbell’s Astounding and later in places like Argosy , Blue Book , The Saturday Evening Post , and Scientific American .

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

Introduction by Damon Knight “Life-Line” ( Astounding Science-Fiction , August 1939) “The Roads Must Roll” ( Astounding Science-Fiction , June 1940) “Blowups Happen” ( Astounding Science-Fiction , September 1940) “The Man Who Sold the Moon” ( The Man Who Sold the Moon , 1950) “Delilah and the Space-Rigger” ( The Blue Book Magazine , December 1949) “Space Jockey” ( The Saturday Evening Post, April 26, 1947) “Requiem” ( Astounding Science-Fiction , January 1940) “The Long Watch” ( The American Legion Magazine , December 1949) “Gentlemen, Be Seated” ( Argosy Magazine , May 1948) “The Black Pits of Luna” ( The Saturday Evening Post , January 10, 1948) “It’s Great to Be Back!” ( The Saturday Evening Post , July 26, 1947) “—We Also Walk Dogs” (Astounding Science-Fiction , July 1941) “Searchlight” ( Scientific American , August 1962) “Ordeal in Space” ( Town & Country , May 1948) “The Green Hills of Earth” ( The Saturday Evening Post , February 8, 1947) “Logic of Empire” ( Astounding Science-Fiction , March 1941) “The Menace from Earth” ( The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , August 1957) “If This Goes On —” ( Astounding Science-Fiction , February 1940) “Coventry” ( Astounding Science-Fiction , July 1940) “Misfit” ( Astounding Science-Fiction , November 1939) Methuselah’s Children ( Astounding Science-Fiction , July-August 1941)

Robert A. Heinlein was one of Campbell’s most famous discoveries, and certainly the one that Campbell was most proud of. Alec Nevala-Lee, when discussing his groundbreaking non-fiction book Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction , said, “Heinlein was the author Campbell was waiting for,” and I think that’s precisely right. Heinlein’s first published story was “Life-Line” in the August 1939 issue of Astounding ; more rapidly followed and within a year Campbell was lauding Heinlein in his editorials as “a major science fiction writer.”

Astounding   issues with Robert A Heinlein cover stories: June 1940, March 1941, July 1941. Covers by Hubert Rogers

Robert A. Heinlein didn’t create the Future History (that distinction is usually given to pulp writer Neil R. Jones , whose popular Professor Jameson tales appeared in Amazing Stories in the early 30s), but John W. Campbell coined the phrase in Astounding to refer to the ambitious and wide-ranging vision of the future Heinlein was creating, brick by brick, in his early stories. Nowadays the phrase has become so closely associated with Heinlein that “Future History” defaults to an entry on Heinlein in Wikipedia, one that begins this way:

Future History is a series of stories created by Robert A. Heinlein. It describes a projected future of the human race from the middle of the 20th century through the early 23rd century. The term Future History was coined by John W. Campbell Jr. in the February 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction . Campbell published an early draft of Heinlein’s chart of the series in the May 1941 issue. Heinlein wrote most of the Future History stories early in his career, between 1939 and 1941 and between 1945 and 1950. Most of the Future History stories written prior to 1967 are collected in The Past Through Tomorrow , which also contains the final version of the chart. That collection does not include “Universe” and “Common Sense;” they were published separately as Orphans of the Sky . Groff Conklin called Future History “the greatest of all histories of tomorrow.” It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series in 1966, along with the Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Lensman series by E. E. Smith, the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, and The Lord of the Rings series by J. R. R. Tolkien, but lost to Asimov’s Foundation series.

Campbell’s chart of Heinlein’s Future History tales has been updated and expanded many times over the decades. Here’s a version that covers most of the stories in The Past Through Tomorrow (click for more legible version).

And here’s the more detailed version that appeared in The Man Who Sold the Moon .

The Past Through Tomorrow was published in hardcover by Putnam in 1967, and reprinted in paperback by Berkley Medallion in 1975. The paperback version is 830 pages, priced at $1.50. The cover artist is uncredited.

See all our recent Vintage Treasures here .

Well, I also had an unusual introduction to science fiction in that Heinlein was largely absent. I did come across a few short fiction pieces, and it was hit and miss with those. When Gollancz reissued The Past Through Tomorrow in 2014, I finally secured a copy and set out to finish it, which I did, about five years ago. But alas, 2016 was too late to start reading Heinlein in earnest. I don’t see why the early stories made such a huge impact. I guess you had to be there. Oh, some of them were good—”Universe”, “Coventry”, “It’s Great to Be Back!”, “The Green Hills of Earth”, and probably others. But for every one of those, there was another where the portrayal of women made me roll my eyes. And oh, how he loved military protocol and business wrangling and talky stuff like that. I sat through two novel length works that are part of that compendium—If This Goes On, which I think is expanded from Astounding, and Methuselah’s Children, but both failed to excite any interest in his free-standing novels, even though I do have some of them in the house.

I wonder about the same thing — is 2021 simply too late to become a Heinlein fan, even for readers of my generation? If that’s the case (and it might well be), then Heinlein is destined to be forgotten in one to two decades, tops. I think that will come as a shock to the die-hard Heinlein fans, of whom there are still plenty.

I wouldn’t be too surprised. I wonder sometimes if any of the 20th Century SF writers I do love will survive. Certainly the Weird Tales triumvirate (Howard, Lovecraft, Aston Smith). Octavia Butler maybe, Ursula K. Le Guin. Philip K. Dick. perhaps.

Read a generous selection of the stories that were being published at the same time those early Heinlein stories were, and you’ll see why Heinlein’s made such an impact.

I think that’s exactly right. Heinlein is best viewed in context. He’s a fine writer, and no argument.

I’m a huge Asimov fan, but his flaws as a fiction writer were considerable. Even with the small amount of Heinlein I’ve read, it’s clear to me his gifts as a writer were superior to Asimov. But I loved Asimov’s short fiction, warts and all.

“a traumatized veteran of the first 100 pages of Friday”

Oh, amen to that.

LOL. It was a good 15 years before I tried Heinlein again after that.

If you’re willing to give another short Heinlein novel a go, try Citizen of the Galaxy . This one exhibits many of his strengths and few of his weaknesses.

I am, and that’s a great suggestion. I wrote about ORPHANS OF THE SKY a few months back:

https://www.blackgate.com/2021/02/21/vintage-treasures-orphans-of-the-sky-by-robert-a-heinlein/

and in the comments Thomas Parker recommended Double Star, The Door into Summer, and The Puppet Masters. I wanted to read some of Heinlein’s short fiction after ORPHANS, but now that I have I admit I’m curious about DOUBLE STAR and CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY. For one thing, they’re short, easy reads.

Thanks for the rec!

Double Star is my favorite of RAH’s adult novels (among the juveniles I will defend Have Spacesuit, Will Travel against all comers – you’ll have to pry my Ace paperback copy from my cold, dead hands) because – in addition to being a gripping, ripping yarn – it displays a quality that was not prominent in most of Heinlein’s other work – compassion.

I must admit I’m curious about it for a much more superficial reason… as I was completing my ASTOUNDING collection, I found Kelly Freas’ cover for the February 1956 issue, with the first installment of DOUBLE STAR, both gorgeous and instantly compelling. John Campbell’s story teaser was also intriguing. It’s not just that I want to read DOUBLE STAR, I want to read it in this magazine, with Freas’ iconic illos.

This cover is vastly superior to the one on my SIgnet paperback, a rather ugly green abstract.

When I was in high school, the thrift store where I bought all my used paperbacks got a gift from the gods – someone sold them a boatload of Astoundings from the 50’s, which I of course promptly snatched up. (What did they cost me? A buck or two a piece, I think. !!!) So when I read Double Star, I had the tremendous pleasure of reading it as it was originally published, on that wonderful-smelling paper with the original illustrations and Campbell’s cunning blurbs – the whole package. It’s still one of the great reading experiences of my life.

Is there anything that can compete with the literary discoveries of our teens? Your description is exactly how I remember reading DUNE, and FOUNDATION, and LORD OF LIGHT (minus the magazines).

Reading in my teens was also a more social experience than it is for me today. I was part of a small group of sci-fi fans in high school who were constantly trading paperbacks back and forth, telling each other “You HAVE to read this!” We all went to movies together, including the original STAR WARS trilogy. When Star Wars: Attack of the Clones was released 25 years later, we all flew to California so we could see it together.

I have a vivid memory of, the summer after second grade, sitting out on the front porch one day and reading Dad’s copy of Red Planet from cover to cover, so Heinlein is pretty foundational to me. These days, I recognize his flaws (and especially the way he got … weird in his last couple of decades); and if I’m going to reread anything of his, I’m much more likely to just pick up one of the juveniles. I’ll second the recommendation for Citizen of the Galaxy, which might be my favorite; I’m also a fan of Space Cadet.

It’s funny — it wasn’t until I was an adult, reading a plot summary for RED PLANET. that I realized I’d read it as a child. A couple of scenes were vividly stuck in my memory, but both the title and author had long vanished from my memory.

And you read it after second grade?? That’s impressive!

Yep, unless I’m misremembering by a year or something. But I’m pretty sure that was the case. Sadly, I didn’t keep extensively detailed documentation of my childhood reading, so I’m not sure if Heinlein came before or after I first read John Christopher’s Tripods trilogy.

All of Dad’s old Heinlein paperbacks (plus his copy of Dune and a couple of Arthur C. Clarke books) I kind of appropriated when I moved out after college, and they’re still on my shelf. I was surprised when I realized that a lot of the juvie paperbacks (including that copy of Red Planet) were actually reprints from the early 70s and so were, in fact, younger than I was at the time.

John, it’s funny you mention “bouncing off” Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. I started that novel some years ago and . . . O, the shame of it!—stopped reading about halfway through and never went back. A page-turner this one isn’t. Please understand that I never intentionally quit on a book; it’s just that newer (in the sense of showing up in my library), more compelling work seduces me away from the “punishment reading” I’ve teeth-gritted myself into completing. Perhaps someday . . .

I cannot believe, however, that you never attempted Stranger in a Strange Land! (The extended-cut, unexpurgated version.) I just recently re-read that tome and found it as moving, dryly funny, subversive and wit-infused as ever. (Though there are a couple of jarring sexist comments in the text that didn’t age well.) You’ve got to give this book a chance, John! Give yourself a chance to “grok” it, water-brother! It’s Heinlein at peak Heinlein.

And that mind-blowing short story All You Zombies (originally written for—and rejected—by Playboy magazine). Absolutely brilliant! A time-travel story whose real impact only strikes once you’ve finished the tale and reflected on the meaning of the title.

Carl — we should start a club for people who gave up less than halfway through THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS…

I’m glad you mentioned STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, because I totally forgot about it. I read it a few years after I gave up on FRIDAY, at the urging of friends, and did manage to finish it. Perhaps it was just oversold by all those friends telling me how great it was, but it didn’t really have an impact on me.

I don’t think of it as a novel, but to give Heinlein credit I should mention ORPHANS OF THE SKY, which I loved back then and still enjoy today:

LOL! Re: starting a “club for people who gave up less than halfway through THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS”.

I checked out the link you provided to ORPHANS OF THE SKY. Haven’t read that “generations ship” novel. Sounds promising!

Different strokes for different folks – I loved The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It’s a grown-up Red Planet, and I think it’s by far the best of Heinlein’s late novels, certainly more coherent and less self-indulgent than the windy, solipsistic, unreadable treatises that followed it.

I’ve thought for years that I need to reread Stranger in a Strange Land. I read it when I was twelve or so (obviously my parents let me read any damn thing I wanted) and that was waaay to early to pick up a lot of what was going on. I have the “unexpurgated” version around somewhere. Maybe next…

Carl mentioned the “unexpurgated” version of STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND above…. is it substantially different from the original version?

From a 1990 NY Times review of the text (they say it best):

The book had a long, uncertain evolution. There were many drafts. The final version, 220,000 words long (down from the 600,000 he had once envisioned), was finished in two feverish months and submitted in 1960 to G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Putnam accepted the book but requested that it be trimmed. Heinlein reluctantly complied, deleting 60,000 words and, in the process, some of the more provocative passages lampooning American attitudes toward sex and religion.

Even in its pared-down form, the book was intensely controversial. Some reviews were descriptive rather than judgmental. Others shared the ire expressed by Orville Prescott in the pages of The New York Times. The reviewer described the novel as a “disastrous mishmash of science fiction, laborious humor, dreary social satire and cheap eroticism.”

Despite such responses the book sold well. It quickly went into a book club edition, appeared in paperback, and eventually became the first science-fiction title to appear on The New York Times Book Review’s best-seller list. In 1989 Virginia Heinlein approached Putnam with the suggestion that the complete work, based on Heinlein’s working manuscript, should be published. While the restored version does not present a radically new work, it does offer readers a chance to watch Heinlein working out his ideas at greater length, and challenging society’s “sacred cows” with unexpurgated zest.

Heinlein was bemused by those who claimed that the work provided a blueprint for a new society. The novel was not written, he explained to one fan, to promulgate any set of beliefs. “I was not giving answers. I was trying to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines. In consequence, each reader gets something different out of that book because he himself supplies the answers . . . . It is an invitation to think — not to believe.” — RICHARD E. NICHOLLS

I bought this in hardcover when published, though I had some of the contents already. I was an Astounding reader from 1953 or so, and read Doot Into Summer, Double Star and other works there as well as buying Puppet Masters, Starship Troopers and others in paperback. I stopped reading his work after Stranger In A Strange Land, because he got way too wordy, off-kilter and odd. But this book! I hope he won’t be forgotten, he was a giant.

I envy you reading ASTOUNDING in the 50s, when it was regularly publishing Heinlein, Simak, Poul Anderson, Jack Vance, Murray Leinster, C. M. Kornbluth, Eric Frank Russell, James Blish, Walter M. Miller, Jr., Henry Kuttner, CL Moore, Theodore Sturgeon, and so many others.

I very much agree with Thomas, when he says above:

“Read a generous selection of the stories that were being published at the same time those early Heinlein stories were, and you’ll see why Heinlein’s made such an impact.”

Reading Heinlein in context, side by side with the other fiction in ASTOUNDING, is the right way to appreciate what he accomplished.

I did the next bext thing; I’ve read SF magazines chronologically, having now covered 1926-1960, but not reading eveything (I’m not totally crazy). I’d say Heinlein was in a class of his own in the early 1940s. I think his payment from Astounding was also in a class of its own at the time.

After Pearl Harbour Kuttner&Moore aka Lewis Padgett was IMO top dog among SF writers a couple of years. Simak also had a very strong period when he wrote the first City stories in the 1940s. I must admit I also liked Van Vogt; his stories had that illusive “Sense of Wonder”. And of course there was also Asimov (with much help from Campbell) with Nightfall and Foundation. Lester del Rey and Sprague de Camp also had their best periods around 1940 IMO, and were frequent contributors.

Kornbluth only had one story IIRC (The Little Black Bag).

The early 1940 was a Golden Age in many ways. I think the quality to quantity was probably higher than during the SF boom in the 1950s.

Just to put Mr. Heinlein into some form of context, here we are discussing one collection of his major sf story arcs (the Future History saga), and it completely omits his seminal works on generation ships (“Universe”/”Common Sense”, later fixed up as Orphans of the Sky ), or military-focused speculation ( Starship Troopers , or time travel (“–All You Zombies”, “By His Bootstraps”), or augmented prosthetics (“Waldo”), or alternative (a-hem) lifestyles. Not to mention 4-dimensional objects like tesseracts (“And He Built a Crooked House”).

That being said, I too was an Asimov fan-boy in my younger years, with a best friend who went full RAH-RAH-RAH, which led to me reading more Heinlein than humans should be allowed to have. Still, for a few of his works, I have no regrets, like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress . And, not too many years ago, there was fun to be had at sf conventions by asking, during dull moments, “So, what as the last, GOOD Heinlein?”. Then, duck and cover!

As a teenager I devoured every Heinlein story and book I could get my hands on. Now as an old man I can’t stand them – the fascist politics, the preaching, the obvious manipulation of the story to prove a point. Even the subtle and not-so-subtle misogyny is abhorrent. It’s tempting to excuse him as a product of his time, but even that falls flat. The honorific “dean of American science fiction” is an insult to the genre.

My first experience with Heinlein was “Universe”, which totally blew my away like few other SF stories have done. I think I then tried to read “The Number of the Beast” and failed miserable. Obviously I had no idea of how different the older Heinlein would be compared to the younger one. In more recent years I’ve enjoyed nearly all his stories up until “All You Zombies”. Reading chronologically I think “Stranger in a Strange Land” is next on the list.

I like Heinlein’s stories. He was one of the most versatile writers of his generation, and also one of the more prescient ones I think. At least he seems to have made more of an effort on figuring out how future tech would affect societey. But his characters tend to all be the same Competent Man, and the main woman characters based on his wife, which I think was his main weakness in the first half of his career, along with the tendency to preach.

I regret not reading any of his juveniles as a kid. But I don’t recall ever seeing any of his (or Andre Norton’s) juveniles in translated form. I’m sure I would have liked them!

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List of Authors and Books in Order of Publication Order and Chronology

Robert Heinlein Books in Order

New robert heinlein books, robert heinlein book list, robert heinlein biography, praise for robert heinlein, keep exploring.

Last Updated on March 19, 2020 Robert Heinlein was one of the most important American science fiction authors of the 20th Century. Reading the Robert Heinlein books in order means picking up lots of his standalone novels, as well as his Future History collection of short stories.

Some of the best Robert Heinlein books include Starship Troopers , Stranger in a Strange Land , and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress . However, the entire Robert Heinlein book list is given below for his numerous sci-fi works written between 1907-1988.

• The Pursuit of the Pankera , 2020

It includes the order to read the Robert Heinlein Future History main adult books and young adult books.

• For Us, The Living , 1938
• Rocket Ship Galileo , 1947
• Beyond This Horizon , 1948
• Space Cadet , 1948
• Red Planet , 1949
• Sixth Column , 1949
• Farmer in the Sky , 1950
• Between Planets , 1951
• The Puppet Masters , 1951
• Starman Jones , 1953
• The Star Beast , 1954
• Tunnel in the Sky , 1955
• Double Star , 1956
• Time for the Stars , 1956
• Citizen of the Galaxy , 1957
• The Door into Summer , 1957
• Have Space Suit—Will Travel , 1958
• Methuselah’s Children , 1958
• Starship Troopers , 1959
• Stranger in a Strange Land , 1961
• Podkayne of Mars , 1963
• Glory Road , 1963
• Farnham’s Freehold , 1964
• The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress , 1966
• I Will Fear No Evil , 1970
• Time Enough for Love , 1973
• The Number of the Beast , 1980
• Friday , 1982
• Job: A Comedy of Justice , 1984
• The Cat Who Walks Through Walls , 1985
• To Sail Beyond the Sunset , 1987
• Variable Star , 2006 (fleshed out by Spider Robinson)

Born in 1907 Butler, Missouri, Robert A. Heinlein moved with his family soon after his birth to Kansas City, Missouri, where he spent a large part of his childhood. He had a great love for sci-fi from a very young age.

He was often seen in the Kansas City Public Library reading books until late in the day. At some point, at around the age of 16, he said that he had so far read everything published in the sci-fi genre that he could find.

His hometown of Kansas City would feature prominently in some of the Robert Heinlein books, including Time Enough for Love , as it had a great impact on his writing style and type of stories he would craft later on in life.

He went to the Central High School in Kansas City, Missouri, from where he graduated at the age of 17. Next, he attended the U.S. Naval Academy in  Annapolis, Maryland, from where he graduated in 1929 with a degree in naval engineering, following which he continued working as an officer in the navy. He spent a lot of time aboard the USS  Lexington , working as a radio communications officer.

During this time he was briefly married to Elinor Curry, and after his divorce, in 1932 he married Leslyn MacDonald. Two years later, in 1934, he left the Navy due to having a weakened immune system after contracting tuberculosis and being seasick all the time.

Following his discharge from the Navy, Heinlein enrolled at the UCLA where he attended a few classes on mathematics and physics. He didn’t continue his studies for very long since he decided that he wanted to play in the political arena. During those years he also held various jobs in the real estate and silver mining business.

He did have some money from his time in the Navy, however, the money was not nearly enough, and he had a mortgage to pay off, so Robert Heinlein decided to become an author.

The Robert Heinlein bibliography includes several standalone novels and his Future History novella book series, plus numerous short stories.

His first written work was a short story called Life-Line, which was published in the  Astounding Science Fiction  magazine. Soon he wrote several other stories that he sold to the same magazine. In 1942, he worked at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Pennsylvania as an aeronautical engineer. While being there, he also fellow sci-fi writers Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp to work along with him at the same base.

A few years after the end of WWII, Heinlein wrote several science-fiction short stories and started writing young adult novels.

In the meantime, he divorced his second wife who had become an alcoholic, and he married  Virginia “Ginny” Gerstenfeld, whom he met while working at the shipyard. She was a fellow chemical engineer. Virginia would become Heinlein’s last wife, who would stand by him until the moment he would pass away.

In 1959 Robert Heinlein received his first Hugo Award for his short story Double Star . Just one year later, his best-known work to date, Starship Troopers would get awarded another Hugo Award. Starship Troopers was also the book that I first read from this author, and while I love everything else he has written, this novel has been always with me ever since. In 1974 he was named the first Science Fiction Writers Grand Master.

Robert Heinlein continued writing books with several interruptions due to severe health issues. The last Robert Heinlein book, To Sail Beyond the Sunset , was published on his birthday in 1987, a date which was just a few short months before he died. Some books have also been published posthumously.

The author is credited with bringing the science fiction genre to a fresh perspective and a new standard. Robert A. Heinlein used a technique called indirect exposition, which would allow readers to learn about the world he would build up in his books without them actually realizing he is doing so.

Robert Heinlein is also credited with his own five rules of writing, which are listed below:

• You Must Write
• Finish What You Start
• You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
• You Must Put Your Story on the Market
• You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold

The famous author passed away in 1988 at the age of 80 of cardiovascular heart disease (basically heart failure) and emphysema. He died in his sleep on May 8.

Not only America’s premier writer of speculative fiction, but the greatest writer of such fiction in the world. (Stephen King) There is no other writer whose work has exhilarated me as often and to such an extent as Heinlein (Dean Koontz) One of the grand masters of science fiction. (The Wall Street Journal) Heinlein wears imagination as though it were his private suit of clothes. (The New York Times) One of Heinlein’s best ( Friday ), which is to say one of the best in all of Science Fiction—terrific story with a superbly realized heroine and world. (Poul Anderson)

• The Heinlein Society
• Robert Heinlein unpublished novel Kickstarter page

January 30, 2023 at

My first book of his was Stranger in a Strange Land (about 1962) and have read it so many times over the years that it is literally falling apart. Am getting a E book so I can read it better and larger because my eyes are going. I’ve read every one of his books that I could find. Love that man!

January 6, 2023 at

I have been a voracious reader since I learned how at the age of four. I didn’t discover sci-fi until I was ten and it was Glory Road. My world changed. Just as surrealism changed how I interpreted art, science fiction changed how I viewed and understood writing. The Door into Summer still has me thinking. Farnham’s Freehold was a book I didn’t read until I was fourteen which was 1976. I’m Canadian but I remember the racial tensions that simmered across the border. It was the end of the Vietnam war, blaxploitation films were showing in theatres and drive-ins. Even at that age I had wondered what was going on in Heinlein’s head when he wrote this. He would have been fifty seven when he published the book in 1964. It felt as if he was writing as if he wanted to be the protagonist and that they shared a similar outlook on existence. It touches on many uncomfortable subjects and maybe opened him up to scrutiny most would try to avoid. So many subjects that it has been said that the Farnham family were the most dysfunctional in all of science fiction. It may not be your cup of tea but you won’t be bored. I also recommend Stranger in a Strange Land, Friday, Starship Troopers and Job. Heinlein has written quite a bit in his eighty years and it will take a while to read it all. I envy you if it’s your first time.

October 11, 2022 at

Robert Heinlein is the writer who gave me my lifelong love of Science Fiction. He had a wonderful style of writing that still resonates today.

September 10, 2022 at

Revolt in 2100 first read as a 10 year old, Still rings true, Neahmiah Scudder lives!

August 25, 2022 at

I was nine years old when I read “Rocket Ship Galileo”. From that beginning, I began my lifelong affection with and for the author, his musings, and his inimical style. His legacy will always be his impact on many of my other favorite authors, his inspirational example to further one’s education, and his ability to imagine realistic scenes in wholly imagined worlds. There seems to be a temptation to evaluate past authors through a lens of current sensibilities. This is a monumental mistake. People are as much a product of their times as any of us are and our quaint notions will be reviewed critically when we are gone too. Finally, I watched Elon’s “Starship” take off, fly to the stratosphere, and return to its launch pad with a perfect vertical soft landing. Mr. Heinlein would’ve been gratified to see this accomplishment. R.I.P. R.A.H.

July 28, 2022 at

You’re missing quite a few of his books. There were a number of short story collections too. Waldo & Magic Incorporated. Assignment in Eternity. Many others. I reread many of these frequently.

March 31, 2022 at

My CB handle was Starship Trooper. I worshipped Robert as soon as I began my journey down the Sci-fi wormhole.

February 7, 2022 at

Everything Robert Heinlein wrote was plausible. He never used the fact he was writing fiction as an excuse to insult the reader’s intelligence with faulty mathematics, engineering or chemistry

January 20, 2022 at

I’m 76 years old and I first read “Double Star” when I was a boy. I was hooked and have since read everything I could of Robert Heinlein’s stories and books. I wrote him once, before he passed, but never heard back. He was my favorite author growing up and I still enjoy his books, old as I am.

November 11, 2021 at

I was introduced to science fiction when I was in the US Navy aboard ship in about 1969, and read my first book by Robert Heinlein while in Vietnam. I continued reading and collecting Heinlein’s works and considered them so important to me that I still have all of them fifty years later although I have moved many times and have given away many other books. I am having a great time re-reading them now. It was a blow to me when I read that Robert Heinlein had passed away. I so looked forward to his next book.

I just completed The Cat Who Walks Through Walls last night. I am taken by the many issues of science, technology and psychology his characters portray or speculate about during the course of the book.

Orphans of The Sky was very very thought provoking by its portrayal of the eternal Us vs. Them human problem, and the issue of what happens when knowledge is forgotten from generation to generation. I am glad they found a second earth. It is what we are all contemplating today as scientists come up with improved ways to locate earth like exoplanets. I don’t suppose they will remember not to wreck the planet as they eventually over-populate it.

May 30, 2021 at

I read a story called “AND HE BUILD A CROOKED HOUSE” in a Weekly Reader excerpt in the mid 70’s that had left me with a curiosity for science fiction and science in general. It wasn’t until recently that I attempted to track down the story and author. Turned out it was a reprint of Robert Heinlein from Feb 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction Magazine. Consequently it also contains short stories by Anson MacDonald, L.Sprague de Camp, and other notable authors. Followers of Heinlein will recognize the MacDonald significance.

March 18, 2021 at

My favorite has always been ‘Glory Road’, but I’ve enjoyed virtually all of his stories.

November 18, 2020 at

My first Sci-Fi book was “Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.” I was in third grade, and the NASA program had everyone’s attention, plus the TV show referent caught my eye. Publishers. But once I figured out the author’s name, moved to a city with a good library, I began to read everything of his and others in the genre. I believe I own at last all the works published in his lifetime. Ginnie keeps putting out things, but it is not the same. I do praise her for releasing the unedited version of SIASL. It is full of similes that needed to be cut, but the scenes restored are wonderful. He pulled no punches, tried to show our absurdities, prejudices, and threw them all upside down. He was so scandalous that I couldn’t check out his newer books in the library. But somehow I managed to buy them anyway.

April 20, 2020 at

Poul Anderson has it right. Friday is the best of the best. If you want to hook them, start with Friday. The parallels with the current state of the world are staggering.

Then maybe Job, which i just finished for the 4th time tonight. How one can be a believer after reading it escapes me.

After that start on the future history which builds slowly (because short stories are short) but is spectacular by the end. Note: Look for the Future History order elsewhere.

March 25, 2020 at

I have read Heinlein books since age 10. I am 73 and just read Stranger in a Strange Land for the fourth time. It was as good as the first time. I miss his work greatly.

March 14, 2020 at

I just read a stranger in a strange land and it was truly one of the most enjoyable books I have read…excited to read the rest of his stories.

February 11, 2020 at

I have read ALL of his writings, several times. He is definitely my favorite author and I have read most of all classic and a lot of modern literature, as I have a B.S. in English and am a voracious reader.

August 2, 2022 at

Don, I beg a favour! I would like to re-read a story he wrote but can’t remember the title. Every adult carried a weapon, exemptions were available but not socially desirable and, subsequently everybody was very, very polite. Can you help? Regards, Ed.

January 3, 2023 at

Beyond This Horizon, from what I remember

Robert Heinlein has been my favorite author for over 50 years, but I recognize that some of his works are pure gold while a few should never have been published.

You have given us a book list in the order in which they were written, not a logical order in which to read them.

If someone followed your suggestion to read For Us, the Living first, I would never expect them to read another of his books. I remind you it was never published while he was alive.

An order to read list should begin with one that is fun and typical of his style such as Double Star or one of the juveniles such as Have Spacesuit Will Travel, Time for the Stars, or Starman Jones.

December 1, 2019 at

Revolt in 2100 The day after tomorrow The menace from earth The unpleasant profession of Jonathan Hoag The past through tomorrow

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The Door Into Summer By Robert Heinlein – My Review

Cristina Boros April 30, 2016 10 Comments

Books and Stories

Robert Heilen , The Door Into Summer by Robert Heinlein , time travel books , time travel novels , time travel stories

Welcome, and I am happy to see you here again today. If you like time travel stories , (and I am sure  you do :)) today I will tell you a few words, or better say I will make a review for one very interesting book based on time travel.

We will talk about The Door Into Summer by Robert Heinlein.

Few words about the book

The idea of the book started with his wife when their cat didn’t want to leave the house and she said: ‘he’s looking for a door into summer’. 13 days after this was said, the novel was written and ready to publish.

The Door into Summer’ was published in 1957.

Alexei Panshin, critic and biographer of Heinlein, wrote in 1968 in his book’ Heinlein in Dimensions’, about this novel (The Door into Summer) and said:

‘The romantic situation in this story is a very interesting and very odd one. It is nothing less than a mutual sexual interest between an engineer of thirty and a girl of twelve, that culminates in marriage after hop-scotching around in time to adjust their ages a bit’

Not a very good impression about the book was received at that time. John W. Campbell said ‘Bob can write a better story with one hand tied behind him than most people in the field can do with both hands. But Jesus I wish that son of a gun would take that other hand out of his pocket.’

The book was published almost together with his other success,’ Double Star’ which won Hugo Awards. These two stories are maybe the best books from Robert Heinlein .

Now, when we saw how the world was in 2000 we know that all the books that were written in the 50s and the predictions made did not all become a reality. But of course, you don’t read a science fiction book from the 50s for the predictions; you read it for the story.

The beauty is how the people were seeing the future in that time. They were hoping for a sunny, happy, better world and this is the main thing Heinlein wants to show. To understand what I mean you can read this quote from his book;

‘the world steadily grows better because of the human mind, applying itself to the environment, makes it better… Most of these long-haired belittlers can’t drive a nail or use a slide rule, I’d like to…ship them back to the twelfth century-them let them enjoy it .’

The action of the novel takes place in 1970 and the main character is an inventor, engineer, Daniel Boone Davis.

He is depressed because of losing his company and he starts drinking. His fiancé, which was also the company bookkeeper, and his partner trick him and he ends up losing his job.

His company, Hired Girl Inc, was making robot vacuum cleaners. Dan came up with a few refreshing ideas, a new line of household robots named Flexible Frank.

Miles his partner decides to sell the Flexible Frank and the company to Manix Enterprises, another big company. Miles would later become vice president to Manix.

Dan refuses, but when the decision is voted he loses because he gave rights of voting to his fiancé and she votes with Miles. Dan after all this loses his job as a chief engineer.

At this point, his only friend is his cat Pete who hates going out in the snow.

Having big financial problems and nothing to lose, he decides to try the ‘cold sleep’, a technology that will let him sleep for 30 years, hoping to find better days.

He still has some stock from his company and before he proceeds with the cold sleep, he decides to leave the stock certificate to Miles’s stepdaughter, someone he trusted, Frederica ‘Ricky’ Gentry.

Whilst going to have a confrontation with Miles, Dan finds in his house Belle Darkin his fiancé. Because the doctor from the cold sleep denies making the procedure on him while he was drunk, Belle offers him an illegal cold sleep (zombie) drug and gives him the injection.

Dan wakes up in the year 2000 with no friends, no money, nothing he knows is the same. He wants to find Ricky, now a middle age lady but he has no idea where to start.

He discovers that Miles died in 1972 and Belle has a drinking problem and is in very bad condition. Dan decides to start his life again and he asks from Geary Manufacturing (which now owns Hired Girl) to take him as a figurehead.

Asking Belle about Ricky, Dan finds out that she left the same night when he took the drug, to live with her grandmother.

Dan can see Flexible Frank everywhere, in hospitals and thousands of other places, called now’ Eager Beaver’. His invention is now run by a company named’ Aladdin Auto-Engineering and he is surprised to see that the patent is credited to somebody named D.B. Davis.

His friend from work Chuck, tells him that once he saw time travel in Colorado in a laboratory. Dan finds out that Ricky was awakening from the cold sleep and left for California.

Looking for her, he finds that she is now in Arizona, married with Daniel Boom Davis. He goes directly to find her.

He meets in Boulder a very intelligent and once successful retired scientist, Dr. Twitchell who now has drinking problems. He is the man who Chuck said that he succeeded in time travel.

Back in 1970

Becoming friends, the doctor admits to Dan that he invented the time machine. He asks Twitchell to send him back to 1970, a few months before the confrontation with Miles.

In 1970, he creates ‘Drafting Dan’ which he uses to create the first version of Eager Beaver and he sets up the ‘Aladdin Auto-engineering Corporation’.

Dan returns to Los Angeles at Miles’s house at the night of the confrontation, and he sees himself entering the house. He waits until the cat, Peter comes out and then he removes Flexible Frank and all his engineering drawings and destroys them.

After this, Dan goes to find Ricky at Girl Scout summer camp, he left his stock in Hire Girl to Ricky and suggests to her to take a cold sleep until she will be 21 and then he promises he will marry her.

Again in the future

Keeping Pete, his cat in his arms, Dan sleeps again until 2001. When he awakens, Ricky, a beautiful lady in her 20s now, was waiting for him.

They leave to take the stock from the storage from Brawley and as a very happy end, they get married in Yuma.

Dan uses the stock from Hired Girl to make changes at Geary and he becomes a wealthy man and an independent inventor.

I hope you enjoyed my summary and if you don’t have the time to read the book or you just want to close your eyes and to listen to the story and follow Dan on his journey, I give you here the audiobook:)

Thank you for reading and any comments and/or questions you have, I would love to hear from you:)

I would like also to hear your opinion about the story:)

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10 Comments

Time travel and the potential paradoxes are both mind bending and fascinating. As a film fan I have thoroughly enjoyed such features as Primer and Predestination. One neat concept is the idea of cryo-sleep…being able to wake up 30 years in the future – this might actually be rather scary! I will have to check out this novel… Thank you for sharing.

yes is really scary and also possible. thanks for reading and I know about Primer but I have to check Predestination:))thanks:))

It seems sad that people in the 50s have great hopes for the future only to have the present time not being able to achieve what seems possible in the 50s due to political and energy agendas that doesnt want technology to progress. 1970s in the story has already robots invented. I am sure the author predictions would have worked out. Anyhow… You really wrote a good review of the book and that it has good technological ideas about robots and the cold deep sleep. Although it feels like you have told me the whole story.

mmmm this is not good that i told you the whole story? i spoiled it for you 🙂 the mystery of the book:))) i am sure you will live the book and …you will how he tries to live his every life different:))) enjoy it and tell me if you like it:)

Hi Crissy, just read your post and found it interesting, I find the concept of time travel very interesting, and really like your site. I recently read a Stephen King book about time travel I don’t know if you have read it 11/22/63. I found the concept intriguing, every time he goes back he resets the timeline. For me time travel is fascinating and can be a bit of a mind meld trying to get your head around it. I like the idea of there being multiple time lines like multiple realities. Anyway I’m rambling loved the site good read.

yes i actually saw the movie:) 11’22’63. was fantastic. Stephen King is… THE BEST:)

Thanks for reading my post and i am happy you enjoye it :))

Very cool story. Looks like the theme of other time travel themed tales. There are so many different means of which this could be possible with all the technological changes that have changed how we live. With YouTube and other ways of creating video, it will be interesting to see what our world will be like. Perhaps we are on a dual plane with an alternate world or life. Traveling through time is a great concept, not it will only be a matter of time before we are all capable of doing this exact thing, travel through time.

Hello Xavier, I am sure you are right, it is just a matter of time, time travel to be possible and I am waiting for:) This novel is very beautiful and if you didn’t read it I think you should. A nice time travel story, a classic one. So read it and tell me what is your impression. Thanks for visiting my site, have a great day Cristina

Time travel stories are among my favorites! They are always an intricate puzzle, for a character to move in time with the intent of changing outcomes. This story outline really invites me to read the full novel.

I am sure you will love it. it is also a romance story, a beautiful story…Time travel it is captivating and even it is not a new novel it is wonderful and a classic. read it and tell me your honest opinion. Thanks for visiting my site. have a great day Cristina

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, predestination.

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The mind reels at the thought of trying to review "Predestination." Not that it is bad, mind you—in fact, it is really, really impressive and well worth venturing out to find despite the crummy January weather (those in especially intemperate areas will be relieved to find that it is on VOD as well)—but because this is one of those films that is so filled with twists, turns and unexpected developments that even the most oblique plot discussion threatens to wander into dreaded spoiler territory. Then again, I admit that I knew pretty much everything that was going to happen going in thanks to my familiarity with the source material, Robert Heinlein's celebrated 1959 short story "—All You Zombies—," and still found myself knocked out by its startlingly effective translation from the page to the screen. I will try to keep the details to a minimum, but, trust me, the less you know going in, the better, especially considering the fact that the story deals in no small part with time travel (and all of the attending paradoxes) and that is not even close to being its most unusual aspect.

As it turns out, there are such things as Temporal Agents, an elite group of people charged with traveling through time in order to prevent horrible crimes before they occur. As the film opens, one such agent is trying to disarm the latest deadly explosive set by the Fizzle Bomber, a terrorist wreaking havoc on Seventies-era New York when it goes off in his face, burning him badly in the process. He manages to return to headquarters and after massive plastic surgery and a long recuperation process, he recovers and now looks like Ethan Hawke in the bargain. Returning to New York in the hopes of catching the Fizzle Bomber, he is working as a bartender when he strikes up a conversation with a slightly androgynous-looking guy who calls himself "The Unmarried Mother"—he makes his living writing fake tales of woe for so-called "confession" magazines—and who promises to tell "the best story that you ever heard," a saga that begins in 1945 when she was left on the steps of an orphanage as an infant.

Yes, "she" for, as it turns out, he started life as a girl named Jane. Growing up in the orphanage, Jane (eventually played as an adult by Sarah Snook) was relentlessly picked on by her peers for being different but proved to be smart as a whip, surprisingly strong and filled with determination. These qualities, not to mention the retention of her virginity, prove to be of interest to SpaceCorp, a Sixties-era government agency charged with recruiting women to go into space to provide relief, as it were, for astronauts on long missions. Alas, after a fight, she is kicked out of SpaceCorp, but one of the people in charge, the enigmatic Mr. Robertson ( Noah Taylor ), continues to find her of interest. Around this time, though, Jane meets a mysterious man and falls in love but is crushed when he vanishes, leaving her pregnant and alone. While delivering her child, another unanticipated discovery is made that will change her life forever, among other things. But I have already divulged far more than I probably should have, even though I have not even come close to getting to the truly wild stuff yet.

So what can I talk about? For starters, there is the impressive job that the Australian writing-directing team of brothers Peter and Michael Spierig have done in bringing Heinlein's story, which he claimed to have written in a day, to life. Sticking fairly close to the source material for the most part, they have figured out a way of recounting it in a way that is straightforward enough for most attentive viewers to follow and yet complex enough to inspire them to want to go back and watch it again. (Here is where the VOD option might be helpful.) As for the time travel aspect, "Predestination" follows the lead of some of the best films of its type (a short list including the likes of "Time After Time," "Back to the Future II," "Primer" and "Looper") by embracing the potential paradoxes rather than trying to ignore or explain them away—the results are utterly preposterous, of course, but in a manner more entertaining than annoying. (The only time the narrative steps wrong is towards the end, mostly involving material invented solely for the film, and even then, these are flaws born of ambition rather than laziness.) From a stylistic standpoint, it also impresses in the way that it evokes the look and feel of the various eras that it touches on via clever costumes, production design and cinematography rather than through lavish special effects.

At the heart of "Predestination," however, are the two central performances by Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook that bring genuine emotional weight to a storyline that could have easily plunged into utter nonsense. Hawke, for example, is an actor who in recent years has more often than not been gravitating towards material that is off-beat and original—at this point, his name on a marquee pretty much guarantees that the film in question will at least be somewhat interesting. Even though he is more or less playing the straight man this time around, he still clearly recognizes a juicy story when he sees it (as he did with his previous collaboration with the Spierigs, the better-than-average vampire saga " Daybreakers ") and gives real life to a character that could have easily blended into the woodwork in other hands.

As the heart of the story, however, Sarah Snook delivers a knockout performance that calls on her to perform the kind of tricky scenes that could have resulted in bad laughs throughout if handled incorrectly. Not only does she pull off her performance brilliantly throughout—there is not one moment in which she is anything less that utterly convincing and believable—I would go so far as to put her work here up against any of the current front-runners for the Best Actress Oscar. If you have never heard of her before, it probably means that you are one of the many who didn't see her in " Jessabelle ," a dopey horror movie that came and went last fall. In that film, she was by far the best thing on display in a very bad movie. Here, she is the best thing on display in a very good one. It's about time.

Peter Sobczynski

A moderately insightful critic, full-on Swiftie and all-around  bon vivant , Peter Sobczynski, in addition to his work at this site, is also a contributor to The Spool and can be heard weekly discussing new Blu-Ray releases on the Movie Madness podcast on the Now Playing network.

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Film credits.

Predestination (2015)

Rated R violence, some sexuality, nudity and language

Ethan Hawke as The Bartender

Sarah Snook as The Unmarried Mother

Noah Taylor as Mr. Robertson

Christopher Kirby as Agent Miles

Madeleine West as Mrs. Stapleton

• Michael Spierig
• Peter Spierig

Director of Photography

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'Predestination': Fascinating story of time travel, terrorism, and identity

Science-fiction master Robert A. Heinlein's 1958 time-travel short story, "All You Zombies -", unravels for the reader one of the most elegant series of temporal loops, paradoxes, and contradictions ever assembled in the genre.

It's hard to imagine a film could match the effect created by its deceptively simple plot and the stunning complexity of its ideas.

Yet the Australian film Predestination , based on the story, does just that, and more.

The third feature by the Spierig Brothers - identical twins Michael and Peter ( Undead , Daybreakers ) - Predestination is a hair-raising, emotionally resonant thriller that fleshes out Heinlein's minimalist conceptual piece with strong characterization and an absorbing story line about domestic terrorism and murder.

After a brief prologue, the film opens in a dark industrial space, perhaps a warehouse or factory basement, where a man dressed in a retro coat and hat is badly burned while attempting to defuse a bomb. He crawls toward his hat and suitcase, when someone shrouded in darkness reaches down, picks up the hat, and hands it back to him. The injured man looks up at his helper with a wistful, loving smile, then vanishes.

Why did the man - we later find out he's a time-traveling cop who stops crimes before they happen - look at the stranger with such tenderness?

Not a bad way to begin!

Identified only as the Temporal Agent, the man goes back to the future, where he's given a new face - Ethan Hawke's, to be exact - and asked to resume his mission. His job is to stop a bomber who killed thousands of New Yorkers in 1975.

When next we see him, the cop is tending bar at a Manhattan dive in 1970. He strikes up a conversation with an odd-looking young man named John. Is this the bomber as a 20-year-old?

Then, why is the Agent so determined to befriend the guy, so determined to draw out his life story? Why is the Agent so loving to this strange creature, a failed astronaut who makes a living writing an agony-aunt column in a women's glossy?

But what a story he tells!

A story that opens with the line, "When I was a little girl. . . ."

Sarah Snook ( Jessabelle , Not Suitable for Children ) plays two characters - John before and after a sex change - with great confidence and deep sentiment.

There's a tragic, paradoxical love story at the heart of Predestination , which Snook and Hawke bring off beautifully.

Yet, there's also a great puzzle: How are John/Jane and the Agent connected? Who is the man who seduced, impregnated, and abandoned Jane before her sex change? What happened to her baby girl? And how do they all connect to the so-called Fizzle Bomber?

It would be the mother of all spoilers to divulge how the film brings it all home.

But the Spierigs tie up every strand, loose end, and moving part of their strange symphony with eloquence and grace.

You'll never think of time the same way again.

Predestination *** (out of four stars)

Directed by the Spierig Brothers. With Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook, Noah Taylor, Christopher Kirby. Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Running time: 1 hour,

Parent's guide:

R (violence, nudity, profanity).

Playing at: AMC Neshaminy 24.

215-854-2736

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Review: The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress Underscores How Technology Supports Freedom

• Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later. More content below

For Reason 's June 2024 special issue on AI , all of our brief reviews involve AI in some form or another. Of course, we decided to ask an AI to write one of the reviews. Since X's AI is named Grok, after the term coined by sci-fi author Robert Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land , it was only natural that we'd ask Grok to write a review of another Heinlein novel, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress . See what Grok wrote for us below.

In  The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress , Robert Heinlein masterfully crafts a gripping tale of revolution and liberation on a lunar colony. The 1966 novel follows the colony's intense struggle for independence from Earth, led by the charismatic Manuel Garcia O'Kelly and supported by a fascinating AI supercomputer, Mike. Heinlein's unique portrayal of Mike highlights his destructive potential but ultimately emphasizes his choice to aid the revolutionaries.

Through the political, social, and military aspects of the Earth-Moon conflict, Heinlein delves deep into themes of liberation and revolution, weaving in his own thought-provoking philosophies about law, society, and frontier libertarianism. This sci-fi gem offers a captivating narrative, exploring the very nature of freedom and the role technology plays in shaping our destiny. In the end,  The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress  reminds us that even a supercomputer like Mike can have a heart—or at least a well-programmed sense of humor.

The post Review: <i>The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress</i> Underscores How Technology Supports Freedom appeared first on Reason.com .

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The nonstick, non-toxic pots and pans produce even results and clean up easily, according to nearly 10,000 five-star fans.

The Lakers firing Darvin Ham was a predictable move. So ... now what?

Perhaps it was the right time to let go of Ham. But who looks at this Lakers roster and sees a championship team? Or a championship contender? Not in this NBA.

This $12 No. 1 bestselling solar bird bath will leave Mom's heart aflutter — and it's over 30% off

How about a Mother's Day gift that will make her heart soar?

This digital photo frame is one of the best gifts I've ever given — and it's 50% off for Mother's Day

Load it up with pics before you wrap it, and take your rightful place as her favorite child.

Southeast Texas flooding: photos capture water rescues of people and pets and severe damage to homes

Southeast Texas has been hit with heavy rains and rising rivers, leading to school closings, high-water rescues and mandatory evacuation orders in some areas. Here's a look at the situation unfolding in the region through photos.

What to do after a car accident: Your step-by-step guide

See what to do after a car crash and how to get started documenting the accident and filing an insurance claim.

The 30 best Walmart deals to shop this weekend — save up to 80% on outdoor essentials, Mother's Day gifts and more

Some major deals on board: A super-handy collapsible garden cart for over $200 off, a cordless Shark pro stick vacuum for over 50% off, and a 65-inch Philips 4K smart TV for under $400.

My parents swear by this foldable wagon — now just $47 — for Costco trips, beach days and more

The No. 1 bestseller is also a capable garden cart: 'Holds a heavy load with no bending.'

The 50+ best Amazon deals this weekend: Save up to 80% on Mother's Day gifts, gardening tools, tech and more

Among our faves? A sleek Electrolux stick vac that's over 50% off and a best-in-class KitchenAid stand mixer for $240, to name a few.

Allozymes puts its accelerated enzymatics to work on a data and AI play, raising $15M

Allozymes' ingenious method of quickly testing millions of bio-based chemical reactions is proving to be not just a useful service, but the basis of a unique and valuable dataset. The company just raised a $15 million Series A to grow its business from a helpful service to a world-class resource. The company has grown to 32 people in the U.S., Europe and Singapore, and has 15 times the lab space, which it has used to accelerate its already exponentially faster enzyme-screening technique.

Feeling anxious? Here's how to calm down quickly.

Experts share techniques to pull yourself out of a moment of anxiety or panic.

Salsa Notch 160 Deore 12 eBike: Electric mountain bike built for adventure riding

In the realm of electric mountain bikes (eMTBs), the newly released Salsa Notch 160 Deore 12 is another exciting option for trail enthusiasts. Engineered for those who love challenging terrains and extending their riding sessions, the Notch combines robust technology with high-end performance features, making it an excellent choice for anyone looking to up their mountain biking game with a little battery-powered help. At the heart of the Salsa Notch 160 Deore 12 is the Bosch Performance Line CX drive system.