Later Works

Heinlein Cover Art: Later Works

This page is another that is something of a mixed bag, for “later” is, I’m afraid, somewhere between slippery and ever so slightly a misnomer. Now, the fiction here is all from 1961 and following, so at least that’s clear. Things like “How to Be a Politician,” Tramp Royale, much of the nonfiction collected in the Virginia Edition, and “Science Fiction: Its Nature, Faults and Virtues” in Davenport’s The Science Fiction Novel, however, certainly predate Stranger...but at least we could say, with a shrug, that they’re later than the 1940s pulps. I confess, though, that “Heinlein on Science Fiction: The Discovery of the Future” from the April 1973 Vertex truly is a categorizing conundrum because it was delivered as the Guest of Honor speech at the 3rd World Science Fiction Convention in Denver on 4 July 1941, but of course it had not been published earlier, so...hmm.

Regarding things like Vertex, by the way, remember that for anyone trying to collect old Heinlein stories or articles, I have compiled Heinlein Magazine Appearances, which organizes all such appearances, whether in the pulps, in the slicks, as serializations, or in other stray magazines, first alphabetically by magazine and then chronologically. This list has served me well in many a bookstore and internet prowling!

“Science Fiction: Its Nature, Faults and Virtues”

Back cover art by John Stopa

Cover art by John Stopa

Stranger in a Strange Land, 1961

Cover art by Ben Feder

Cover art by Carl Lundgren

Cover art by Carl Lundgrem

Cover art uncredited...but it rather reminds me of James Warhola (See I Will Fear No Evil below).

Cover art by One Plus One Studios

Podkayne of Mars, 1963

Podkayne is a “juvenile”—Heinlein’s last, actually—rather than a work aimed at adults per se, but after his post-Starship Troopers split with Scribner’s, it was published by Putnam’s, so the covers appear here rather than on the Scribner’s YA/Juveniles page.

Cover art by Irv Doktor

A tad more drab under the jacket, but interesting color.

No dust jacket with this copy, but the binding is a different color from the previous.

Cover art by Paul Lehr

Cover art by Carl Lundgren

Cover art by James Warhola

Cover art by Matt Stawicki

Cover art by Stephen Hickman

Cover art by Scott Grimando

See my “Serialized Novels” page for Podkayne art by Virgil Finlay from The Worlds of If Science Fiction of November 1962.

Glory Road, 1963

Cover art by Irv Doktor

Cover art by Paul Lehr

Cover art by Carl Lundgren

Cover art by James Warhola (?)

Cover art by Clyde Caldwell

Cover art by Stephen Hickman

Cover art by Gregory Manchess

See my “Serialized Novels” page for Glory Road art by Ed Emshwiller on the covers of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for July, August, and September 1963.

“All Aboard the Gemini,” Popular Mechanics May 1963

Farnham’s Freehold, 1964

Cover art by Irv Doktor

Under jacket art by Irv Doktor

Not the flashiest cover, shall we say, but a nice old library copy from 1964.

Cover art by Gene Szafran

Cover art by Carl Lundgren

Cover art by Stephen Hickman

For the version first serialized in F&SF in July, August, and October 1964 with Jack Gaughan interior illustrations, see my “Serializations” page.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, 1966

Cover art by Irv Docktor

Rather drab under the jacket, without even a thumbnail silhouette from the cover...

Cover art by Carl Lundgren

Cover art by James Warhola (?)

See my “Serializations” page for various covers plus interior art by Gray Morrow on The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress when it was serialized in The Worlds of If Science Fiction from December 1965 through April 1966.

I Will Fear No Evil, 1971

Paul Bacon cover art

Cover art by James Warhola

See my “Serializations” page for Jack Gaughan illustrations of I Will Fear No Evil in the June-July, August-September, October-November, and December issues of Galaxy in 1970.

Time Enough for Love, 1973

Cover art by Carl Lundgren

Cover art by James Warhola

Cover art by Matt Stawicki

“Heinlein on Science Fiction: The Discovery of the Future,” Vertex April 1973

Cover art by Vincent DiFate

Interior art by Rogers

“The Discovery of the Future” of course is “later” only in its printing, as it had been delivered 30-some years earlier—by someone who had been writing professionally for not quite even 2 years, we should remember—as the Guest of Honor speech at the 3rd World Science Fiction Convention in Denver on 4 July 1941.

“No Bands Playing,” Vertex December 1973

Cover art by Kevin Davidson

Back cover art by Don Dixon

Interior art by C. Austin

“Channel Markers,” Analog January 1974

Annapolis “Channel Markers” speech, cover art by Kelly Freas

The Notebooks of Lazarus Long, excerpted in Omni in August 1979

Cover art by Peter Goodfellow

The Number of the Beast, 1980

Back cover by Richard M. Powers

Cover art by Richard M. Powers

This edition also is copiously illustrated inside by Powers in black-and-whites much more charming and subtle than the cover.

Frontispiece by Richard M. Powers

Interior art by Richard M. Powers

Interior art—the doohickey that precedes each of the many chapter breaks—by Richard M. Powers

Interior art by Richard M. Powers

Another lovely Commonwealth-version cover that has zero relation to the actual plot...

Nice Mars, Oz, and ornithopter, but that blunt-nosed ship does not look supersonic...

“Over the Rainbow—,” Future Life August 1981

Cover art (photo) by Ctien

Interior art by S.R. Dodd

Friday, 1982

Back cover by Richard M. Powers

Cover art by Richard M. Powers

Back cover art by Richard M. Powers

Cover art by Richard M. Powers

Cover art by Michael Whelan

Another peculiar British cover, this time with some quirky lettering, too...

Job: A Comedy of Justice, 1984

Cover art by Michael Whelan

Cover art by FTac (?)

The Cat Who Walks through Walls, 1985

Cover art by Michael Whelan

That is the strangest looking cat...

To Sail Beyond the Sunset, 1987

Cover art by Boris Vallejo

Back art by Gerry Grace

Spine art by Gerry Grace

Cover art by Gerry Grace

The Pursuit of the Pankera, 2021

Cover art by Scott Grimando

The Pursuit of the Pankera was not published until 2021, over 30 years after the death of the author. Unlike the 2006 Variable Star, however, which Spider Robinson wrote based on a long-forgotten outline for a YA novel Heinlein himself never started, The Pursuit of the Pankera, essentially an alternate version of The Number of the Beast, actually was put together from the various parts of manuscript Heinlein already had produced but just not assembled...