His earlier works were amazing, I grew up on "Starbeast" "have spacesuit will travel" "the rolling stones" "spaceship gallileo" "farmer in the sky" "Starship troopers" etc... and many more that I cant remember the titles of ... My parents read them to us before we started grade school... His best works were the "juvenile" ones.... however, his later works were very bad.... With the exception of "the 5th column" and "moon is a harsh mistress" he never seemed to write any "adult" sci fi... "stranger in a strange land" I thought was awful, "Farnhams freehold" was just insane drivel...I couldnt get through "Friday"....

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In my view he went around the bend with "Stranger" in 1960. Well before any stroke.
It's supposed to be realy cool to grok Stranger. Guess I never was. He became obsessed with the theme of old men having sex with young horney nubile babes and with his mother. Go figure. Embarasing I'd say.

I love the juveniles. Other good ones were...
Time for the Stars
Starman Jones
Red Planet

He did write adult novels pre-Stranger
The Puppet Masters
The Door into Summer
Double Star
are fine examples. Dated but worth reading

-philw