Robert A. Heinlein, author of Stranger in a Strange Land and more than 60 other books, was the greatest science fiction writer of the 20th Century, with an influence that went far beyond genre boundaries, according to William H. Patterson Jr., author of the new Heinlein biography.
During my interview with Patterson for my podcast, Copper Robot. I asked why Heinlein was important enough to rate a fat biography, 22 years after his death. “It’s not because he was a science fiction writer,” Patterson said. “He was an influential public figure in a lot of ways that people inside the science fiction community let drift out of consciousness.”
Read the rest of this post and listen to the interview on the Tor.com blog: Heinlein Biographer Tells All
The longer version of The Puppet Masters, contrary to Mr. Patterson’s assertion at the very end of this interview, has one severe detriment: a much worse (and much wordier) opening. Suggest you find both versions, the current one and the one published from 1951 to about 1990, and see the difference for yourself.