“PICTURE A SATURDAY MORNING during one of those endless summers of the late 1950s and early '60s. A boy climbs on his red Schwinn bicycle and rides like the wind to the public library, then to several drugstores and thrift shops. He is on a mission. He is looking desperately for a book, any book, by Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), the greatest science-fiction writer in the world.”

My bicycle wasn’t red, but other than that, the paragraph is accurate. His science fiction was probably the single greatest influence on my decision to become a scientist/engineer.