THE GREEN HILLS OF EARTH

by Robert A. Heinlein

With an Appreciation by Mark Reinsberg

What's married life really like in the 21st Century? Don't kid yourself. There'll still be men and women, loving each other, trying to work out personal problems, adjusting themselves to daily life on the Moon and neighboring planets.

A father and mother get upset nowadays if a child doesn't come home on time for dinner. How do you think a family feels when a kid of theirs gets lost on the Moon, with only enough air in his tiny spacesuit to last a few hours?

Or consider the space pilot trying to land his passengers and cargo with 10% less fuel than is safe, meanwhile wondering whether his wife, back on Earth, is faithful to him. Or consider the man who must choose between joining a military coup aimed at world dictatorship, or stopping it at the cost of his own life. Or how would you like to be sold into slavery on another planet?

But, there are lots of compensating features about tomorrow. There's General Services, for example, a firm that will beg, build, borrow, buy or — if necessary — steal almost anything you want. Then there are those wonderful living conditions on Luna, for which more than one newly-married couple have forsaken the Earth.

And there are the songs of Rhysling, blind singer of the spaceways. No one will ever forget his songs. And no one will ever forget his heroism on the flight from Venus.

There is a good reason why Robert Heinlein is the leading science-fiction writer of today; it's because he writes so well about tomorrow! Each story in this volume is independent in itself, yet each is another connecting link in the vast chain comprising the Future History. THE GREEN HILLS OF EARTH is the eagerly-awaited second volume in this series, a thrilling successor to THE MAN WHO SOLD THE MOON.