It doesn't matter if a girl is a complete innocent from a Puritan society: she'll naturally know how to be a cocktease. If a woman wants to get a man's attention and get the information she needs to further her career, she should just act like a moron coquette. Here's what I learned from Podkayne of Mars, courtesy of Professor Heinlein (blech):Ī woman should always hide how smart she is, so she doesn't scare off the men. Needless to say in typical RAH fashion, adventures ensue, so if one enjoys any RAH books then this should also be put on your list And in typical Heinlein fashion within the first few pages we are immersed in the belief that in no possible way could humans have evolved on Earth, only weird geeky anthropologists believe that, and even they can't agree.

This book introduces us to the Fries family from Mars, and in particular the precocious daughter Podkayne. He certainly did have an amazing ability to develop a storyline and make the future setting seem unbelievably natural. This book is seen now as one of his YA novels, although in my opinion as an (early ha ha) middle aged man I still enjoyed both the characters and the story.

I never did quite catch up with his prolific output as in my honest opinion his standard declined rapidly, and so I had (and still have) no desire to read some of his later novels. He was still merrily writing away as I grew up and started reading his early novels. RAH was one of the first authors that I read way back in the mid 70s in my early teens as I got into sci-fi in a big way (Wells, Asimov and Clarke were also amongst the first).

Podkayne of Mars by Robert A. Heinlein