something about a Lunar colony of tough, clever individualists being oppressed by a brutal leftist earth bureaucracy. (Or maybe that was "The Man Who Sold the Moon".) After a while they all blur together.

"Citizen of the Galaxy" is about a vicious and cruel slave empire being opposed by a brave earth federation, except the latter's battle is handicapped by weak peacenik government Liberals who are afraid to fight. He also introduces the Free Traders, a subculture of merchants who roam the Galaxy, free from all control, but tied by their culture and lifestyle to a rigidly restricted clan structure and their ships. Actually, some interesting social speculation there, all worth reading, but beware, it is seductive. Heinlein tells you; "See, it could actually work.", but his proof is a civilization he has carefully made up from the ground up and rigged so it HAS to work.

"Destination Moon" is about a tough, clever, entrepreneur hero who manages to go to the moon even though opposed by (You got it!) a liberal government and a religious fanatic faction. (Yep, "Atlas Shrugged" all over again.) The movie is on youtube and pretty faithful to the book (although the politics has been toned down). The science is excellent for 1950s Hollywood.

Heinlein wrote a lot of stuff with little 'political' or ideological content, but his failure is in character development. His heroes are tough, smart, virtuous, moral. They are logically rigorous, and have an enormous wealth of background knowledge. No second thoughts, no hesitation, no real fear, in other words, everyone is all grown up, they are not real people. No one really struggles. They are so tough and cool the universe just doesn't stand a chance with them. Heinlein despises weakness, indecision, doubt, hesitation, stupidity. And he refuses to see all people are that way, even the best of us, at least some of the time. But not Robert Anson Heinlein. He has contempt for human weakness, which is why I think he's a fascist.

As much as I gripe about Heinlein, I loved his books as a kid. And he taught me a lot, even the stuff I disagree with was argued cogently. He made you think! He tells a great story and his science education is terrific. He taught me Newtonian mechanics when I was still struggling with high school algebra. I still highly recommend him, especially for youngsters. But starting with "Stranger in a Strange Land" it just became harder and harder to read him. Yes, "cringeworthy" is the word. It broke my heart.

Check out his prophetic short story "Blow-Ups Happen", about a near-meltdown accident at a nuclear power plant. It was written during WWII when even mentioning "Uranium" in a letter could get you busted by the people censoring the mail.

My favorites: "Starship Troopers", "Citizen of the Galaxy", "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel" and a novel whose title I can't remember, but is about twin brothers, one who stays on earth, the other who leaves earth on a fusion powered subluminal starship. The twins are telepathic, so they can communicate, although relativistic time dilatation makes things complicated. I also vaguely recall one interesting tale about a multi-generational worldship where the crew has reverted to barbarism and believes their ship is the whole universe. Great stuff.