Review of Expanded Universe

If you haven't read Heinlein before, I wouldn't start here -- try The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, then maybe Starship Troopers -- but if you're a diehard fan, you can't go wrong with the extra dose of R.A.H. which this book provides.

The short stories in this collection are classic Heinlein: expect a lot of tight, dialogue-heavy prose between competent, confident (but not two-dimensional) characters. There are also non-fiction essays on several topics, including an amusing and cynical diatribe against public education standards organized around a disheartening exploration of just how little some students actually learn while supposedly "earning" a bachelor's degree at UC Santa Cruz. (Having attended there as a master's student through the end of last year, I can tell you that at least from what I saw, the situation hasn't changed much in 2024.)

Roughly half of the material in this book is concerned with the advent of nuclear power and the development of nuclear weapons: WMD proliferation, hot and cold wars between superpowers, and atomic energy appear again and again in the stories, and several of the essays were written expressly to inform about nuclear weapons. You might think these entries would feel dated, but Heinlein is too good a writer for that: the happier stories evince his optimism for mankind's energy-rich future; the darker ones express his fear of what horrible and irreversible acts people might perpetrate on one another in the post-nuclear world.

Honorable mention: a guide to tourism in the Soviet Union, with instructions for how to get real information instead of just what the "Intourist" government handlers will give you -- certainly obsolete, but a fascinating time capsule -- and a lecture, delivered to naval academy midshipmen, which expounds Heinlein's theory of patriotism.