Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

We were talking over in the Glory Road discussion about our favorite Heinlein books. So . . .

What book would you recommend to someone who had never read any Heinlein if they were ever going to only read one.

And, which top three would you recommend for a friend to take on an ocean voyage.

And which would you not recommend, and why??

Also, which would you not recommend, and why?

1) one book: Starship Troopers.

2) two more books: (list of three includes Starship Troopers)
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Sixth Column aka The Day after Tomorrow

3) Glory Road
Farnham's Freehold

The Door Into Summer would have been on my three "best of" until just recently. Then I suddenly thought, why is (view spoiler)[ Dan wanting to marry some prepubescent girl? Kind of creepy! (hide spoiler)] Has this ever occurred to anyone else? (view spoiler)[ I hope Heinlein didn't have "funny uncle" tendencies along with his taste for sex with his mother and cloned sisters! (hide spoiler)]

Discuss! Or maybe this last thing I mentioned needs a thread of its own so we can warn people who haven't read all his books away!

The Door into Summer would be one of my favorites. I guess that last point depends on the reader. I didn't read that into it when I originally read it, since it happens later. Starship Troopers and The Puppet Masters were the first I read, and they were fast-moving action books, which appealed to my teenage self (I didn't read the subtexts into them at the time). So those three would the ones I'd recommend to a relative newbie. They're very representative of what made RAH a favorite, but you have to remember that these were groundbreaking at the time. I do agree that Friday was pretty good, and then they turn curmudgeonly.

I would highly recommend reading The Past Through Tomorrow, which brings together the short stories related to his Future History. Among them are all of the stories in The Green Hills of Earth except for the title story. The novella Methuselah's Children is in it; it was extended and made into a novel, which serves as an into to Time Enough for Love. I liked the latter, but it's a left turn coming out of the intro and there are mixed opinions of it.

Read in the last few years:
Beyond This Horizon - forgettable, can't remember anything about it
Orphans of the Sky - an interesting idea but it hasn't aged well
Have Space Suit—Will Travel - YA, dorky
Double Star - a great one I'd recommend
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - another great one, often regarded as his best, but the fake Russian accent of the audio narrator was unintelligible; read the book instead.

Ones I've never read but have on my shelf:
The Day After Tomorrow
The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag
Assignment in Eternity - collection of 4 novellas
Space Cadet - one of the juvies; only got it because it was 50 cents.
Job: A Comedy of Justice - a later novel, I think just after Friday, but it's on the H/N list, so I will read it

Not recommended:
I Will Fear No Evil - love the title, great idea, poor execution
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls - a late ramble

A little more than you asked for.......

The same creepiness you describe regarding Door Into Summer, arose in me as I read the beginning chapters of The Time Traveler's Wife. I love that book, but as the mother of a daughter, those secret meetings between a (naked) man and a girl who were destined to marry in a later time period, came much too close to the process that sexual predators use to groom their child victims.

Oh, it is interesting but there are RAH's books I like but which I won't recommend esp. for starters. For example, I Will Fear No Evil was read by me as a teen (I guess 15) and its 'mature' themes were quite intriguing for me. Some of his juveniles were tech obsolete when I read them (Rocket Ship Galileo, Space Cadet), so initially they were meh.

So, I suggest to start with his short stories, from the first - Life Line to the last All You Zombies

Yes, The Past Through Tomorrow has many of his earliest stories, including Life Line. Heck , I might go back and read it again. It’s been a long time.

As a RAH newbie, I think this thread is great!! My partner are going to read one or two together over the next few months and this is where we will get our inspiration 😁

Rebecca wrote: "As a RAH newbie, I think this thread is great!! My partner are going to read one or two together over the next few months and this is where we will get our inspiration 😁"

The man can really write a great story. That's his goal, to write a great story, as he states is the duty of an author. From Stranger in a Strange Land:

But I am an artist, albeit a minor one. Admittedly most of my stuff is fit to read only once … and not even once for a busy person who already knows the little I have to say. But I am an honest artist, because what I write is consciously intended to reach the customer-reach him and affect him, if possible with pity and terror … or, if not, at least to divert the tedium of his hours with a chuckle or an odd idea. But I am never trying to hide it from him in a private language, nor am I seeking the praise of other writers for ‘technique’ or other balderdash. I want the praise of the cash customer, given in cash because I’ve reached him-or I don’t want anything.

Just keep in mind, some books might, in spots, seem outdated and/or have weird dissonances as compared to today's writers. IMHO, he never could really write women characters. For example, although I love Friday, she seems much like all of Heinlein's male protagonists. (Somebody once said that all of Heinlein's characters are just Heinlein.)

Plus, there are sentences here and there that make me cringe. One of the worst is in Stranger in a Strange Land, where he betrays his woeful ignorance of anything but the purest heterosexuality. And there's a line in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress where he says black women would not want to wear black, which I found weird even when I first read it as a teenager. In fact, one GR book club I used to participate in HATED "Moon" because of a couple of offhand remarks by the MC. Even though Heinlein thought that the culture he created in "Moon" was basically run by women, these GR book club members thought the whole book misogynistic. Therefore, though these are two of my favorites, particularly "Moon," I hesitate to recommend them for newbies.

Hey, he was born on July 7, 1907. And he tried. Which, IMHO, is more than most of the authors of that era did. At least as early as he did.

Allan wrote: "Yes, The Past Through Tomorrow has many of his earliest stories, including Life Line. Heck , I might go back and read it again. It’s been a long time."

I read a few of the stories back in February and loved them all over again. I was going to continue, but life intervened.

Hey, what if we made "the past through tomorrow" a challenge here?

Challenge or Buddy Read, I’d join in. It’s been a long time, I not remember snippets of the stories. I think I might have my old copy around here somewhere...

I just finished Farmer in the Sky, Retro Hugo winner for 1951. I genuinely enjoyed it; despite its age and tone, it was a refreshing throwback after reading a lot of darker stuff.

Allan wrote: "I just finished Farmer in the Sky, Retro Hugo winner for 1951. I genuinely enjoyed it; despite its age and tone, it was a refreshing throwback after reading a lot of darker stuff."

Yes, even despite the tragedy it remained optimistic

I think the tragedy was there to add drama. There had to be some action to keep it interesting. It served to remind people that this wasn't just ordinary farming, it was building a community in an alien environment.

Allan wrote: "I think the tragedy was there to add drama. There had to be some action to keep it interesting. It served to remind people that this wasn't just ordinary farming, it was building a community in an ..."

Yes, Cold Equations and the cruelty of outer space, it was a thing at that time