If you read Robert Heinlein's future history stories there is often included a timeline chart. Heinlein wrote stories that spanned the entire timeline. Except

If you read Robert Heinlein's future history stories there is often included a timeline chart. Heinlein wrote stories that spanned the entire timeline. Except he left a gap where the USA became a theocracy and entered a dark age. Heinlein could not bring himself to write about that depressing era. Many have observed that Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale fits perfectly in this gap. In fact, Heinlein's Revolt in 2100 feels like a description of the collapse of the dictatorship in Handmaid. To my knowledge, Atwood has never acknowledged a connection. And it doesn't change that I feel A Handmaid's Tale is a masterpiece.