I love audio books. One of the first things I wanted to hear when I discovered audio books was stories by Robert A. Heinlein. And the first books I wanted to hear the most were all the Heinlein juveniles. I joined Audible.com at the beginning of 2002 and my first two monthly selections were The Menace from Earth by Heinlein and Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson.
At the time they didn’t have any of the juveniles, unless you count Starship Troopers, the intended thirteenth book in the Charles Scribner’s Sons series that was turn down causing Heinlein to leave the publisher, and I assume give up on writing juveniles. Podkayne of Mars was probably the 14th and last one written. Variable Star written by Spider Robinson and recently published was inspired by an outline of Heinlein’s. Finally, I consider Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin the closest thing you’ll ever get to another Heinlein juvenile, so I’d like to hear an audio edition of it.
Right now, [updated October 4, 2012], if you join Audible.com you can get the following books by Heinlein, including all four of his books to win the Hugo Award, and all twelve of the Heinlein juveniles. The list below are those audio books available through Audible.com in the USA. Other editions might exist.
- Assignment in Eternity
- Between Planets
- Beyond This Horizon
- Citizen of the Galaxy
- The Door into Summer
- Double Star
- Farmer in the Sky
- Farnham’s Freehold
- For Us, the Living
- Friday
- Glory Road
- Have Space Suit-Will Travel
- I Will Fear No Evil
- Job: A Comedy of Justice
- Methuselah’s Children
- Orphans of the Sky
- Podkayne of Mars
- Red Planet
- Revolt in 2100
- Rocket Ship Galileo
- Six Column
- Space Cadet
- Starman Jones
- Starship Troopers
- Stranger in a Strange Land
- The Cat Who Walks through Walls
- The Menace from Earth
- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
- The Number of the Beast
- The Puppet Masters
- The Rolling Stones
- The Star Beast
- Time Enough for Love
- The Green Hills of Earth
- Time for the Stars
- To Sail Beyond Sunset
- Tunnel in the Sky
In the future I still hope to hear:
- The Man Who Sold the Moon
- Waldo & Magic Inc.
- The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag
We’re getting very close to having all of Heinlein’s books on audio. That’s pretty significant. It shows that Heinlein is still well loved – and I hope by new readers. It would be a shame that these audio books are selling only to old fans like me who want to hear his stories once again.
JWH – updated 10/4/12
Auxiliary Memory 
Nice listing. I have a few of these myself, but not nearly as many as you do.
I’m a Heinlein collector and have started a group on Flickr for people to post pictures of their Heinlein memorabilia. If you have physical packages for any of these audiobooks that you’d like to share pictures of, please do!
http://www.flickr.com/groups/heinleinia/
Podkayne of Mars is now available on Audible.com, and Starman Jones is being released on August 1st.
I was just updating this post with Podkayne of Mars when I noticed your comment. Thanks for the tip on Starman Jones, I see it’s coming from Blackstone Audio. It’s $29.95 as a MP3-CD on Amazon, but I hope it goes directly to Audible.com.
That bit of knowledge makes me very happy and I can’t wait for August 1st. Starman Jones is one of my favorites of the juveniles.
Podkayne of Mars was a great production – the reader really brought Poddy to life. However, I sort of wished they had used Heinlein’s intended ending.
This is sooo great. I’ve long been a Heinlein fan, and about a year ago started enjoying his books on CD’s. I think I have about a dozen so far, and I’m REALLY hoping for “Tunnel in the Sky” SOON. I didn’t know about “Podkayne…” so will go check into buying that one. It’s FANTASTIC being a Heinlein fan and meeting others who feel the same!
Just FYI, there is an existing audiobook of Tunnel in the Sky, but I have no idea where to tell you to find a copy. It’s complete, with a run time of about 7 and a half hours. The copy I have has no information on publisher, reader, etc.
Tunnel in the Sky and Time for the Stars were done several years ago, and can be found on some of the Torrent Sites. I tried finding who the publishers were and I think they were done by the Library of Congress for the visual impaired.
* Tunnel in the Sky- coming from Full Cast Audio
* Space Cadet- Coming April 2011 from Full Cast Audio
* Time for the Stars- coming in Dec. 2010 check with Amazon.
This is great news!
The Man Who Sold the Moon
Waldo & Magic Inc.
Methuselah’s Children
Glory Road
Farnham’s Freehold
Sixth Column
The Number of the Beast
To Sail Beyond the Sunset
All of these are available as audiobooks.
Where, I’d like to get them.