The beginning of the 20th century was marked by the birth of an incredible number of gifted children, who made this century the most progressive in history. And a great contribution to the development of mankind was made by magnificent writers. Robert Heinlein, a gifted American science fiction writer, author of cult books, is one of them.
Writer childhood
Robert was born in the capital of Bates County, Butler, Missouri. This significant event for the Heinlein family occurred on July 7, 1907. The main person in his childhood, Robert, who gave him a love of chess and instilled a passion for logical tasks, was his grandfather.
The family of the future science fiction writer lived according to the teachings of Christian Methodists, with a strict ban on entertainment and alcohol, raising a child in the spirit of Puritanism. At school, under the influence of the same grandfather, Robert became interested in the exact sciences: physics, mathematics, followed by an interest in biology and astronomy. Then the Heinleins, who by then already had seven children, moved to Kansas City, where Robert became a regular visitor to a large local library.
Education and Service
Heinlein dreamed of naval military service, but at that time only one child from the family could enter the Annapolis Military Academy, and Robert's older brother was already trained there. But thanks to his perseverance, the future writer was able to achieve admission to the cadets.
There, he quickly became one of the most successful students, setting records in all disciplines, including fencing and shooting. In 1929, with the rank of Ensign, a junior naval officer, Robert went to the famous aircraft carrier Lexington. However, the career was cut off due to health: tuberculosis was found in the young officer, and even a miraculous recovery did not save the situation - Heinlein was dismissed by appointing a small pension.
Writing career
10 years after graduating from the Military Academy, already being a retired officer, having rather serious financial difficulties, Heinlein begins to write science fiction. The very first stories were welcomed by the public and publishers, and since then everything else in Robert’s life has been relegated to the background.
Every reading enthusiast knows the name of Heinlein, who, together with Asimov and Clark, is considered one of the "Big Three" that formed this genre of literature. He created incredible, detailed and miraculous worlds of the future. Six novels of the writer were awarded the Hugo Prize; he was named after an asteroid and one of the craters of Mars. Many of his books are filmed in different countries.
The book Stranger in a Strange Land became a special one. It embodied a whole philosophical doctrine, changed the attitude to human sexuality, raised many life and religious issues and became the hippie handbook. This novel shocked the world community so much that it saw the publication in its entirety, without censorship and corrections, only in 1991.
