“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.

If anything, he was a libertarian, end-times, Ludite prepper with delusions of superiority.

Just look at that whole segment of “Time Enough For Love” where he homesteads on that new planet. He goes on and on about all the tools he’ll need, what he can make, how he defends himself… Very much the prepper fantasy.

Or, have a look at “Farnham’s Freehold.” Seriously, this is weird stuff. If you want the spoilers, the plot is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnham%27s_Freehold It’s like a manifesto for bored racist misogynistic survivalists. Otherwise, find a copy in a secondhand bookstore and give it a read.

Again, sometimes I wonder what was satire, but he did have a bomb shelter.

The protagonist of Heinlein always winds up being the same character. Him. Idealized him.

Which is okay. Heinlein is one of the most influential authors of Science Fiction. In both positive and negative ways. He was ultimately an optimist, stressed science, distained religion and magical thinking, promoted self-education and a broad skill set. The Sayings of Lazurus Long contain a certain amount of wisdom.

that he quickly learned who his audience was. As you say: the juvenal male. As he aged, and so did his acquired audience, he moved from the juvenal Sci Fi to more adult fiction, but that horney, hero worshiping adolescent never really left his prose. His last novel, “Friday”, has some truly cringe worthy passages.

Pretty much a dirty old paranoid man.

He was a great story-teller, one of the best, but a strange character. Hard to tell when he was being serious or satirical.

WHY the arachnoids are invading earth space is never very clearly explained. All we know about them is they are vicious killers; “the only good bug is a dead bug”. Why they must be exterminated is never questioned, and every alternative to ethnic cleansing is dismissed as Liberal squeamishness. (Extra credit (read “Citizen of the Galaxy”, same shoot-em up, same rodeo. Great read, though.
Heinlein may be Fascist, but he is a very good writer, especially for grooming teen-age boys for the Dark Side. He’s a lot like Ayn Rand in that respect.

My view of the book is that it is a damn good read. Its well written, exciting, has a lot of novel and clever ideas, and for an adolescent audience, its an absorbing story. But it is also very effective political propaganda aimed at young readers. It paints a picture of a benign fascism as the only way to defend ourselves from the socialist bug collective, all justified by an imaginary history based on events that haven’t happened yet. The fascist state described by Heinlein is as seductive as the Socialist Worker’s Paradise envisioned by the Lefties. And its just as cherry-picked and just as phony.

Now, I don’t believe Heinlein is a racist. Indeed, his hero, Johnny Rico, is of Filipino stock, and he lives in Argentina. Nut he and all his pals all talk, think and act just like 1950s North Americans. I picked up on that real quick. And I don’t think his idea of limiting the voter franchise to veterans because they have demonstrated their commitment to sacrifice for the community should be dismissed outright. Actually, that may not be a bad idea!

When I read “Troopers” and “Citizen” in high school, I was very much impressed by them. But fortunately, something in the back of my skull warned me; this is too glib, too easy, too obvious. The more I thought about them, the more I could see these books were not designed to give me an exciting adventure science fiction story, they were very cleverly constructed to teach how a society should be constructed, from the ground up, and that any attempt to question that was wrong, it was evil, and it was not to be countenanced.

I’m not to surprised that “Troopers” was required reading at the US Naval Academy. I wonder why.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-mandatory-military-service

Haven’t read Troopers but assume it might be what you’re talking about?