Robert Heinlein was the Jekyll and Hyde of SF writers. Dr Jekyll wrote tightly plotted stories that whisked the reader into a future that was assumed as part of the story’s structure so that it did not require any long explanations as to how the young hero might be able to ride a rocket to the asteroid belt. And it always was a young hero, for these stories were aimed at teenagers – they’re now called Heinlein’s juveniles. There’s not a wasted word in them.

Mr Heinlein’s Hyde wrote interminable novels with only vaguely discernible plots whose main points appeared to be to advocate for guilt-free sex for everyone and, in particular, for men with their mothers (yucky but true), where no woman appeared whose nipples did not go ‘sproing!’ within a few moments of meeting our narrative hero. I was a teenage boy when I read these stories and the female form was a matter of intense interest and complete mystery to me at the time but I still thought this was icky. These stories were supposedly for adults and they are almost all dreadful.

I grew up with Heinlein’s juveniles and loved them. I moved on to his adult books and, having read the few decent ones early (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers) manfully ploughed through the nipple-springing dross (Time Enough For Love, I Will Fear No Evil) before finally giving up on The Number of the Beast.

I thought I had read all Heinlein’s juveniles so it was with delight that I discovered one that I had missed: Citizen of the Galaxy. I settled down to it, expecting to return to the effortless storytelling that had transplanted me into the future when I was young… only to be bored. Reader, I am truly sorry to say this story does something unique for Heinlein. It is tedious. It is humdrum. It drags on until you start looking to see how many pages before it ends. Looking at when it was written, 1957, it stands just on the cusp of when Heinlein stood on the brink of becoming a preacher rather than a writer. While it doesn’t have the worst excesses of his later works, there are signs. Read his earlier works instead.