This month is Robert Heinlein’s 100th birthday, and in honor of the man who’s written the only pre-1980 sci-fi books I’ve ever loved, here’s my favorite Heinlein quote:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

My first Heinlein novel was Starship Troopers, which readers seem to love or hate very strongly (and don’t get me started on that shit-heap of a movie adaptation by Paul Verhoven). I read it as a young teenager, and loved it immediately. My favorite Heinlein work was without question The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which I read when I was 19 or 20. I rather hated Stranger in a Strange Land, whose only redeeming quality was the character of Jubal Lowry, whose distaste for and defiance of government authority was immensely satisfying. I can also strongly recommend Citizen of the Galaxy, and Puppet Masters.

If you’ve never read any Heinlein, you really ought to give him a try. Any author who can write a military SF masterpiece like Starship Troopers and follow it with a free love/communal living hippie fantasy like Stranger in a Strange Land has to be worth a look.