 Kipling had picked this up during his time in India, using it to avoid bogging down his stories set in India with explanations for his English readers.This technique—mentioning details in a way that lets the reader infer more about the universe than is actually spelled out became a trademark rhetorical technique of both Heinlein and generation of writers influenced by him.Heinlein was significantly influenced by Kipling beyond this, for example quoting him in On the Writing of Speculative Fiction.