So, it has been a long road. Here's my original premise, which I stated in the first essay: In short, I'm advancing the premise that Heinlein had the foresight and patience to create his own audience for his future work. Has my analysis of the juveniles borne out this original thesis? I think so. In fact, the proof was stronger than I expected.

Six months ago, when I started this series, I had no idea of the scale of the project. The essays have run to about 3,000 to 4,000 words each and there have been 13 of them. That's about 45,000 words. In his memoirs, Heinlein mentions that Starship Troopers weighed in at 60,000 words, which was about what Scribner's wanted. Yikes! I've inadvertently written a novella!

Every single one of the Heinlein juveniles (with the possible exception of Time For The Stars) is clearly an attempt to improve the minds of the young readers, in addition to the obvious mission of entertaining them. This is an unusual feature for a juvenile novel of the 1940's and 1950's. So unusual that I can't find another example of it. The Tom Swift books, for example, make no attempt at educating readers, whether it's with engineering or scientific facts (they get all of the science wrong anyway), morality (Tom is always perfectly right and his villainous opponents perfectly wrong) or citizenship (Tom has a sort of knee-jerk, unexamined patriotism and that's it). Ditto for the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and the rest. Modern times aren't much better. Harry Potter doesn't seem to go in for improving anyone's mind. Juvenile fiction still pretty much goes for "fun" and "intriguing" over "educational".

Heinlein left behind his wife, Virginia, to carry on his mission. She did so by starting the Heinlein Society, which has as part of its mission to "Place the books of Robert Heinlein in libraries everywhere, especially in school libraries where his juvenile novels may continue to help to form character and provoke critical and intelligent thinking among our young people." This wouldn't have been built into the charter of the Heinlein Society if it weren't near and dear to Heinlein's heart.

Is this enough? Is obvious evidence of an effort to improve the minds of his young readers enough to carry the charge of "creating a future audience"? Well, I think so, but that's not all that was going on here. Remember, Heinlein himself referred, somewhat cryptically, to his "propaganda purposes" in writing the novels and we saw that Starship Troopers was a deliberate exercise in pamphleteering. There is also the fact that his adult novels of this time don't follow this pattern of improvement. There is little in Double Star, The Puppet Masters, or The Door Into Summer that follows the pattern of the juveniles. There is no possible doubt that Heinlein wrote the juveniles with a different focus than the adult novels.

As I mentioned in the first essay, Heinlein's first adult novel was chock full of interesting ideas (here is my full take on Beyond This Horizon), but not necessarily successful. He tackled big, important questions of philosophy and technology and mostly got a yawn in response. In light of the way the juveniles turned out, it just seems undeniable that he took the response to Beyond This Horizon to heart and tackled the juvenile market with the deliberate intent of bringing up a generation of smarter readers who were interested in the big questions.

He had to do more than improve his readers, however. He also had to improve the genre's standing with the reading public. It's also interesting to note that, while Heinlein came to science fiction in its' Golden Age, it was also an age when science fiction wasn't taken seriously as a genre. Heinlein tackled big important questions of philosophy and technology in a medium that most people ranked only a nudge above the comic book. The juvenile novels were able to raise the genre out of the comic book tier an into something more respectable. By tackling big things like racism and tolerance, real science and engineering, and the philosophical underpinnings of duty, patriotism and loyalty, Heinlein introduced readers to concepts not previously found in juvenile novels. This gave some cachet to both juveniles and science fiction in general.

We'll never know Heinlein's inner thoughts (unless something comes from the newly available archives), but all outward appearances support the idea that Heinlein used the juveniles to pave the way for – and establish an audience for – his future novels. I'm going to stamp this series "mission accomplished".

Now, you might be thinking that I've used a mountain of words here to support a molehill of a conclusion, but if you're thinking that, you're wrong. The first juvenile appeared in 1947. Stranger in a Strange Land – a novel of big, challenging ideas – was a wildly successful best seller (still in print after more than 25 years) and Hugo winner of 1961. When, in your own life, have you plotted a plan for success that spans fourteen years? Look at it another way. You're a writer here in 2007 and you've just published your first big novel of ideas to so-so success. How confident are you that you can plan a course for your career that involves educating your readers and improving your genre so that when you're done in 2021 you can step into the "best seller" category with your next big novel of ideas?

Put that way, Heinlein's result seems almost miraculous. Who can keep the faith with their strategy for more than a decade? Who has the patience to nurture their ideas and save them for more than a decade until the market is prepared for them?

Heinlein did more than sell his books, though. His books inspired generations of young readers to become scientists and engineers and explorers. NASA recognized this by awarding Heinlein the Distinguished Service Award (even though he never worked directly for NASA). And his influence lives on. The books are all still in print and likely to be so for a long time. The Heinlein Prize For Accomplishments in Commercial Space Activities is awarded to the individual or individuals who achieve practical accomplishments in the field of commercial space activities. The first award of the prize was in 2006, with $500,000 going to Dr. Peter H. Diamandis for his work in the X Prize Foundation (which awarded $10M to Burt Rutan for his SpaceShipOne, the first private space ship to reach an altitude of 60 miles twice in fourteen days). Heinlein did as much to further the exploration of space as any astronaut. Our debt to him can never be repaid, we have to "pay it forward," which is how he wanted it.

There, my first installment is paid.