In 1941, Heinlein revealed the plans of his scheme for a Future History series, while [Isaac] Asimov began his long series of stories about robots with positronic brains whose behaviour is guided by three laws of robotics which prevent them from harming men.

In this respect, Heinlein and Asimov brought literary law and order into magazine science fiction….

Both Asimov and Heinlein brought intelligence and wide knowledge to their storytelling. Heinlein's preoccupation with power was sometimes to express itself disastrously, as in his novel Starship Troopers. But that was later; in the early forties, he could do no wrong. In 1941 alone, [the magazine] Astounding published three of his novellas which can still be read with pleasure, Logic of Empire, set on Venus, Universe, set on a gigantic interstellar ship, and By His Bootstraps, a time-paradox story which still delights by its ingenuity, as well as several excellent short stories...