I first encountered his work when I was about ten---in the school library, where I'd run through the works of Marguerite Henry and let my fingers wander along the shelves to a chance encounter with six books by Heinlein. The first one was "Space Cadet"---which, when I read it, forever changed my life. I'd read science fiction before, but not like this.

It took me about three years to lay my hands on paperback copies of all his work in print---by which time I had discovered Asimov and Clarke and others, and the magazines as well. By the end of that time I had fixed on writing science fiction as the thing I most wanted to do---and still do, today.

After all these years, I'm not blind to Heinlein's faults, personal, political, or as a writer. But the works, and he, moved me like nothing else had. What could I do? I'd fallen in love.

I gather a lot of us older types first met science fiction through Heinlein. Perhaps the later generations have other works that started them off, but this is what started me.

I found him first in the kid's section of our local library, and could not believe it when I saw his name on a book in the adult section. "What, they write SF for adults too?" I thought. And that led to Aldiss, Asimov, Clarke and the rest.

For me his most influential book was Time Enough for Love which I have reread several times over the years. It spans so many ideas. For me he was a master at speculating how we might behave radically differently given wildly different environments and sciences.

Those of you who first discovered Heinlein in the later books, such as Time Enough for Love. How do the earlier Heinlein novels strike you?