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50 free Robert A. Heinlein trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Robert A. Heinlein trivia quiz covers the 'dean of science fiction writers' from Butler, Missouri, to the Grand Master award. It starts with the boy who lied about his age to join the National Guard, the fifty letters of recommendation that got him into Annapolis, the aircraft carrier where he served under Ernest King, the tuberculosis that ended his Navy career and gave him the idea for the waterbed, and the 1938 California Assembly race he lost by fewer than 500 votes before he wrote 'Life-Line' to pay the mortgage. The second half covers the writing: the Future History, the Saturday Evening Post stories that broke him out of the pulps, Destination Moon's Oscar, the Scribner's juveniles that came out every Christmas, the rejection of Starship Troopers, the Kipling roots of Stranger in a Strange Land, the words grok and waldo, the four Hugo winners, the 1980s novels, the wife Ginny who outranked him in the Navy, the round house at Bonny Doon, the blood-drive pledges, the asteroid and the crater on Mars. Questions range from easy to expert. Every answer was checked against the Wikipedia article on Robert A. Heinlein.
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Q 01Which two authors are grouped with Robert A. Heinlein as the 'Big Three' of English-language science fiction?
Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke
Asimov said the SF world accepted Heinlein as the best living science fiction writer from his very first story onward.
Q 02What nickname is Robert A. Heinlein often given?
The dean of science fiction writers
He was among the first to insist on scientific accuracy in fiction and so pioneered hard science fiction.
Q 03In which Missouri town was Robert A. Heinlein born on July 7, 1907?
Butler
He was the third of seven children and grew up in Kansas City; the 1910 return of Halley's Comet sparked his lifelong interest in astronomy.
Q 04How many of Senator Reed's Naval Academy recommendation letters were for Heinlein?
50 of the 100 he got
Heinlein had been kept out at first because his brother Rex was already at Annapolis; the Pendergast machine helped too.
Q 05Aboard which new aircraft carrier did Heinlein serve in radio communications in 1931?
USS Lexington
Its captain, Ernest J. King, later commanded the whole US Fleet in World War II.
Q 06Why was Heinlein discharged from the Navy in 1934?
Pulmonary tuberculosis
During the long hospital stay he designed a waterbed, which he later described in Stranger in a Strange Land.
Q 07Which piece of furniture did Heinlein design while bedridden and later describe in a novel?
The waterbed
His novel The Door into Summer also anticipated computer-aided design with a machine called 'Drafting Dan'.
Q 08Whose socialist End Poverty in California (EPIC) movement was Heinlein active in during the early 1930s?
Upton Sinclair's
He was deputy publisher of the EPIC News and worked on Sinclair's 1934 run for governor.
Q 09By how many votes did Heinlein lose the 1938 Democratic primary for the California State Assembly?
Fewer than 500
He was a left-wing Democrat in a conservative district; afterwards he turned to writing to pay off his mortgage.
Q 10What was Heinlein's first published story, printed in Astounding Science Fiction in August 1939?
Life-Line
Written for a contest, it sold to Astounding for far more than the contest's first prize; 'Misfit' followed that November.
Q 11Which editor bought Heinlein's early stories and defined the era Pohl said Heinlein was the greatest writer of?
John W. Campbell
In 1940 alone, his second year, Heinlein wrote three short novels, four novelettes and seven short stories.
Q 12Which two SF writers did Heinlein recruit to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard during World War II?
Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp
The three brainstormed unconventional defences against kamikaze attacks, such as detecting planes by sound.
Q 13Which mainstream magazine published Heinlein's 'The Green Hills of Earth' in 1947?
The Saturday Evening Post
Q 21Which Heinlein story gave its title character's name to real-world remote-controlled mechanical arms?
Waldo
He also coined 'speculative fiction' and popularised 'TANSTAAFL', 'pay it forward' and 'space marine'.
Q 22In which 1951 Heinlein novel was the phrase 'pay it forward' popularised?
Between Planets
The phrase already existed as an occasional quotation before Heinlein put it in the mouths of his characters.
Q 23For which four novels did Heinlein win Hugo Awards in his lifetime?
Double Star, Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
It was the first of four influential stories he sold to the magazine.
Q 14Which 1950 film, with story and co-script by Heinlein, won an Oscar for special effects?
Destination Moon
He also invented many of the effects for the documentary-style film, which later earned a Retro Hugo.
Q 15Which publisher issued Heinlein's juvenile novels once a year from 1947 to 1959, in time for Christmas?
Scribner's
The first, Rocket Ship Galileo, was initially rejected because a trip to the Moon was thought too far-fetched.
Q 16What was Heinlein's first novel published as a book?
Rocket Ship Galileo
Eight of the juveniles were illustrated by Clifford Geary in white-on-black scratchboard; Farmer in the Sky first ran in Boys' Life as 'Satellite Scout'.
Q 17Under what title was Heinlein's 1959 Mobile Infantry novel first serialised?
Starship Soldiers
Scribner's rejected the book as too controversial, so Heinlein took it to Putnam and felt freed from writing for children.
Q 18What was the working title of Stranger in a Strange Land?
The Heretic
Heinlein interrupted work on it in 1958 to write Starship Troopers.
Q 19Stranger in a Strange Land began as a modernised version of which Kipling work?
The Jungle Book
Ginny suggested the child be raised by Martians instead of wolves; Citizen of the Galaxy is likewise a reboot of Kim.
Q 20What is the root meaning in Martian of 'grok', the word Heinlein coined in Stranger in a Strange Land?
To drink
It came to mean understanding something so fully as to become one with it, and entered the English language.
He was later given seven Retro Hugos, including two for best novel, for Beyond This Horizon and Farmer in the Sky.
Q 24How many Retro Hugos was Heinlein awarded for works published before the Hugos existed?
Seven
They included novellas for If This Goes On..., Waldo and The Man Who Sold the Moon and a novelette for The Roads Must Roll.
Q 25In which year was Heinlein named the first Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master?
1974
The award, presented in 1975, is chosen by the association's officers and past presidents for lifetime achievement.
Q 26How many novels did Heinlein publish during his lifetime?
32
Plus 59 short stories and 16 collections; nine films, two TV series and a board game have been drawn from his work.
Q 27What was the profession of Heinlein's third wife, Virginia 'Ginny' Gerstenfeld?
Chemical engineer
She was also a rocket test engineer, held a higher Navy rank than Heinlein and won four varsity letters as a college athlete.
Q 28What house number did the Heinleins choose for the home they designed in Colorado Springs?
1776 Mesa Avenue
The area was newly developed so they could pick their own number; the design was featured in Popular Mechanics.
Q 29Why did the Heinleins move from Colorado Springs to Santa Cruz, California, in 1965?
Ginny's illness was traced to altitude sickness
They built a circular house in the nearby village of Bonny Doon; his archive is now at UC Santa Cruz.
Q 30What did Heinlein ask fans to sign, alongside their autographs, at conventions in the 1970s?
A pledge to donate blood
Transfusions of his rare A2 negative blood had saved him from peritonitis in 1970, and he hosted a blood drive at the 1976 Worldcon.