RIP Robert A. Heinlein

Robert Anson Heinlein ( July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988 ) was one of the most popular, influential, and controversial authors of “hard” science fiction. He set a high standard for science and engineering plausibility, and helped to raise the genre’s standards of literary quality. He was the first writer to break into mainstream general magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s with unvarnished science fiction. He was among the first authors of bestselling novel-length science fiction in the modern mass-market era. For many years, Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke were known as the “Big Three” of science fiction.