Robert A. Heinlein: In dialogue with His Century: Volume 1 (1907–1948): Learning Curve. It's not perfect. Notes that should be footnotes are buried with references in the appendix. I'm having to use several bookmarks to read the thing in one piece. (It's like bad Fortran: goto this, return to here, goto another note...) And what were those four lines that John Campbell added after the end of "Requiem" when it was first published in pulp, causing Heinlein to complain that it ruined the story? I mean, the author goes on about them for a page or so, so they must've been important. So why not just give us the four lines? All that, and the title has just too many :'s.
But. It's pretty damned amazing, the whole story of the Dean of Hard Science Fiction's life spelled out in one work. (Well, at least through 1948. We'll all have to wait for the second volume.) I'm 2/3 of the way through, and it's worth the couch time. Now that I'm past the childhood, Navy, and political years, I'm reading it with an old copy of The Past Through Tomorrow at hand so that it's easy to skim (or to sometimes even re-read) the short stories being discussed in the bio.
Get yourself a copy, ASAP.
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