I just spent the weekend at Armadillocon, my first real science fiction convention. This being Austin, it was a very literary event, all about writing and selling. Heinlein is still held in high regard for his style, plot, characterizations, themes, and challenging ideas.

One can enjoy aspects of Heinlein's fiction, but Ayn Rand was the diametric opposite of socialism in all fundamentals: There is no such thing as some degree that is less socialist than she was. A-philosophical libertarians often confuse a vague psychological, hedonistic "libertarianism" with fundamental opposition to socialism. They are not less socialistic than Ayn Rand. Especially when they wander into anarchism their elements of subjectivism have more in common with collectivism, not less.

For sure my second favorite writer of all time!

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at RAH's treatment of moral ethics and behavior. If you read his books you will be greatly entertained and inspired by his celebration of individual liberty, productivity, and the spirit of respectful exploration. There is much to be gained from Heinlein's books if you have the time. Your public library probably has some of his books. His earlier works are more adventure and less morality play, and display remarkable imagination and foresight.

I read a lot of Heinlein after Ayn Rand. He was not an Objectivist, but he was truly an objectivist, a rational-empiricist who applied the scientific method intuitively to his life and his world. Time and again, I found his insights and outlooks helpful, not so much for the answers, as for the questions.

For myself, I contrast Starship Troopers with The Man Who Sold the Moon. But wherever you open any one of his books, you find something to think about. At least, I have.

Thanks Freedom,..Have seen the films but didn't know the man...shame though, he thought moral ethics and behaviors to be bourgeoisie and something to be avoided after all, it's what made America good and great.
A lesson we must re-learn and embrace but this time...in a conscious way instead of a mystical way...in other words, we should treat ourselves as grown ups and not flawed pagan children; even though, most of the world still acts that way.

This article makes me nostalgic. I am a great fan of Heinlein having read Stranger in 1970.
I read Upton Sinclair earlier than that.

"Ayn Rand is a bloody socialist compared to me"
I thought that was our freedomforall speaking!
But Heinlein was not an Objectivist or libertarian or authoritarian or anything
As writer Doherty says in the Reason article
'the best way to understand Heinlein in toto is as a full-service iconoclast,
the unique individual who decides that things do not have to be, and won't continue, as they are.'

I like this observation from from George Bernard Shaw (!) that Heinlein adored:
that only a barbarian "believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature."

This is a good thought-
he gave us "an invitation to think - not to believe."