Alright, that's it....
All these great posts have forced me to rummage around in my attic for the Heinlein box. Think I'll start with 'Tunnel in the Sky', then move on to 'The Puppet Masters', 'The Door into Summer', 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress', 'The Day After Tomorrow', 'Time for the Stars'.... and then the rest.
However, I WILL leave my Tom Swift box up there.
I was addicted to Tom Swift around age 13. Re-read few of 'em recently -- and was shocked/nauseated at what lousy writing and even worse science they contained! Instead of a "deus ex machina," the teenage superman would annul an existing law of nature, or discover a new one just in time to solve his dilemma!
I guess the genre appealed to frustrated nerds who needed a surrogate who succeeded in every area wherein he himself was a failure. Somebody who actually got things done.
In retrospect, Cordwainer Smith put in a kind word for Jesus in an otherwise hostile mileu. The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester) provided a vivid image of transcendence at the end of angst, turmoil, and rage. (that's one I've re-read many times!)
And it's amazing how many people in Christian Reconstruction (calvinism on steroids) grew up on RAH. Learning from that exemplar of an earlier America's attitudes that welfare statism need not be the norm.