Short Stories of Robert A. Heinlein – A Short Discussion

For some unknown reason today, I was thinking of Heinlein’s short stories.  Heinlein was probably as well known for his short stories as for his novels.  I guess my first exposure to this part of his work was when I got a copy of the Green Hills of Earth.  And even as a dopey kid I could tell that Heinlein’s stories had a more polished and professional feel to them than many of his contemporaries.  His stories of the early days of human space flight sounded as if he had been there.  Maybe it was his engineering background.  He made something like a lunar construction site sound not only plausible but almost mundane.  Dealing with the pressure loss from a moonquake (“Gentlemen, Be Seated!”) sounded like something that you would be reading about in a newspaper story someday soon.

One that captured some of the consequences of subjecting humans to the rigors of Heinlein’s “torch ship” technology was “Skylift.”  A pilot runs a virtual suicide mission to reach Pluto with medical supplies in time to save the inhabitants of a research station from a plague.  Surviving multiple g’s of acceleration for an extended period is highlighted in this adventure story.

Of course, some of his short stories were of an entirely different sort.  One somewhat tongue in cheek story (“And He Built a Crooked House”) purports to describe what might happen if an architect built a house in the shape of an unfolded tesseract and then a California earthquake strikes and folds it up.  Very ridiculous but I think quite entertaining.

Then there’s one that could have been used for a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits episode (“They”).  A case of paranoid delusion but with a fun twist.

And of course, it wouldn’t be Heinlein without his tribute to robber barons in space, Delos David “D. D.” Harriman and his dream of putting a man on the moon (“The Man Who Sold the Moon“) and then his tragic finale (“Requiem“) when he tried to go there himself.  I always thought it was a nice touch using Robert Louis Stevenson’s epitaph for Harriman.

Under the wide and starry sky

Dig the grave and let me lie:

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will!

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

I picked six of the stories I think of as vintage Heinlein.  I probably could include another dozen if I wanted to make this post overly long.  But I’ve included the list of Heinlein’s stories in case anyone wanted to pick their favorites for the comments section.  Enjoy.