Customer Reviews

I Will Fear No Evil

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

I probably like this book far better than it deserves; if so, it's because I imprinted on Heinlein's stuff during my formative years. At any rate, this novel is based on a terrific concept but suffers from flawed execution.

The concept: Johann Sebastian Bach Smith is ooooold. Oooooooooold. He's going to die soon. But he's also rich, and he wants to spend a huge chunk of his fortune having his brain transplanted into a younger body. This he does. ('Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . . ')

Well, the joke's on him. The body -- as he learns after the transplant is performed -- is not only female, it's the body of his beloved secretary Eunice Branca (who was killed in a mugging that conveniently left her in brain-transplantable condition, and who conveniently happened to have the very same rare blood type as old Smith). So Johann has to learn how to be female, and also has to get over feeling just terrible about taking over Eunice's body.

Ah, but the lucky fellow gets some help. Turns out Eunice's body is still inhabited by Eunice -- or maybe Smith is hallucinating her (perhaps as her body rejects the transplant?). Or maybe it doesn't matter which; reality is slippery that way. (' . . . I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.')

_Great_ concept. The idea alone is worthy of a Hugo.

Unfortunately, Hugos aren't given for ideas; they're given for execution. And the execution here is troubled.

Heinlein suffered from life-threatening peritonitis during this period of his life, and his wife Virginia had to help him out with the editing on this one. At that, Heinlein claimed to have trimmed the draft MS by some ungodly number of thousands of words, and the result is _still_ sort of saggy in places. Like, between the covers.

There are minor indications throughout that this isn't Heinlein's best-thought-out work. Here's my personal favorite example: when Johann, in Eunice's body, decides on a name, he suggests using 'Joan' but giving it the 'two-syllable pronunciation'. Apparently the author forgot that his character was _speaking_ the name, so that her listeners (who were not reading the text but hearing her speak) would _hear_ the two syllables; what they wouldn't know was how she intended to _spell_ it. (And what, by the way, would have been wrong with spelling it 'Joanne'? Then we wouldn't have had to worry about reader-vs.-listener at all, and I wouldn't have to keep reminding myself all the way through the blinkin' book that it's _not_ pronounced 'Jone'.)

Lots of the content is very dated, too. And it's not very realistic to imagine Joan Eunice spreadin' 'em for every big strong han'some male who treats her nice. (Including attorneys and judges, who might have had some ethical issues here. And please don't email me any lawyer jokes on the subject; believe me, I've heard 'em.)

But there's still lots of cool stuff. The dialogue (especially the _internal_ dialogue, of which there is naturally a long ton) is about as well handled as it could be. Eunice's 'stenodesk', allowing for time and fictional extrapolation, sure looks a lot like a modern desktop computer (in about the way that D.B. Davis's 'Drafting Dan' looked like a CAD system). There's also what must be one of SF's very first sympathetic fictional portraits of a same-sex couple -- and, lurking in the background, some references (in 1970!) to what is clearly the Internet.

So I still rate this one as a rewarding read (and in fact do reread it every now and again myself). It's not Heinlein's best; it's not even his second-tier material -- but it's still pretty darned good.

It's just not _great_. And that's too bad, because I'd have loved to see what Heinlein could have done with this concept had he been at the top of his game.

There was once a time when I thought of writing a science fiction story of a brain transplant into another body. And then thought of a real twist to it, by putting a male brain into the body of a female. Then one day I read a reference that it had already been written, but didn't say by who. So here it is some fifteen years later that I found out that it was by none other than Grand Master Heinlein himself. (It's not like the book title helped, instead of something like `A Tale of Dual Genders' or "When Gender Switches Happen to Brain Transplanted People", it's a fairly indescript "I Will Fear No Evil" from psalm 23.) He's done such a thorough job here that no other book on this subject (with it being the major plot) need be written again.

It's a fascinating concept and the book goes into a lot of detail about sexual identity. From reading this book, and from some subsequent movies (Switched?), it appears that the general consensus is if one's brain is switched to the opposite gender one should take up that person's new gender. Whew, I guess that's clears up that worry for all of us waiting for that brain transplant at the end of our days. So if a heterosexual male's brain gets transplanted into a females body, it should take up female heterosexuality. (Hmmm, what if a male homosexual's brain gets transplanted into a female, does that person become lesbian... hey, maybe there is room here for another book.) There's nothing here written though about the section of the female brain that regulates female hormones (the pituitary gland?) and that it would have to remain from the original brain for the possibility of transfer to be successful. There is quite a bit written on what is the person's actual identity (with regards to financial ownership) and what constitutes death. It's interesting to note Heinlein references a court decision from 1976, which is in the future of when the book was written, thus fictitious.

The main problem is that the book is 2^9 pages long. There's a trend here I noticed on Amazon's review pages that when someone trashes a book or an author they really liked, they automatically click the Not Helpful button, no matter how well the person has articulated why they didn't like the book, and of course that's every person's right. For this book I would recommend reading the negative reviews to get an idea of what you would be in store for. For me, I found the book dragging at about pg 300 or so when Joan goes into the names of her household's entourage, and their first names, and I was constantly go back and forth to know what name belong to who. I have a lot of books on my reading list and this section was really unimportant. When you get to these sections I suggest just plowing through them and any Olga's or unknown names you see later is somebody's wife and doesn't really matter for the story. For all the pages Heinlein dedicates to establishing identity, he does little on how the previous bodies spirit comes to co-share the new mind. Since there's no brain matter left, how does it get there. This open the entire immense field of `is there a soul', but is overlooked. In fact at the end there's a question of whether Joan just imagined it. It's difficult to know, because almost the entire novel is from her perspective and it's said that crazy people don't know that they're crazy.

The general consensus from having read the other reviews, and I concur, is that if you're new to Heinlein, other books of his are recommended. I've read `only' 6 Heinlein novels (now 7) and I'm still considered a relative novice, but a good site is www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/ on where to start. If you're one of the Heinlein legions and have to read everything he's written, well then, you'll eventually have to get to this novel, it's only a matter of when. If you're in the third category, as I am, and find the concept interesting and would read anything anyone has written on it, then this is the book. However, it is long on sexual dialogue, and sure, it can seem interesting and at times are, it's just overdone. I didn't generally find the book dated, the hippy slang, maybe it's too old, I just didn't recognize it. Only towards the ending when they were sailing, which was the hip 60's thang, did it seem dated to me and gave it a feel like the ending of the movie "The Way We Were" or something.

The things I really liked about this novel are the details, the items that didn't cover sexual banter. For instance when Joan is shopping she stops when she's hungry, because from her experience from the Great Depression, she equates hunger with being poor and thus doesn't want to spend money. The prose Heinlein writes here is short but powerful and it feels like Heinlein is himself writing from personal experience. This alone is a moving thought, and there have been a number of high profile movies set in the depression this year (2005) (Cinderella Man, the beginning of King Kong). There's also a section when there's only two eggs left in the kitchen and Joan's experience from the Great Depression enables her to stretch it out (by adding flour, etc) to feed three people. She claims this recipe is courtesy of the W.P.A. I looked up that acronym and sure enough there was (is?) a Works Programs/Projects Administration. It seems during the Great Depression almost everyone was in the same boat, but hunger was prevalent. Hard to imagine today with the record levels of obesity in America. (I bet no science fiction writer saw that coming.)

For those that think this isn't science fiction haven't been reading what's been awarded the Nebula in past years. Faery handbags, magic amulets, Mayan spirits are the norm. This novel in comparison is hard core science fiction. So much has been written on `what is science fiction' that the paper version of them threatens the gravitation rotation of the planet. I would consider this novel to be science fiction, albeit somewhat diluted.

If you want to read a superb Heinlein story that is even more `twisted' in a way than this novel so would give some idea of the identity concepts, but is also a short story so is a quick read AND has one of greatest time travel paradoxes I've ever read, then read `All You Zombies -'.

Heinlein never lacked for ideas. Many were original with him, such as the multi-generational star-ship. Sometimes he took someone else's idea and added his own fillip to it - which is what he does here.

Johann Sebastian Bach Smith is very old, very rich, very stubborn - and caught in the medical straight-jacket of extensive life support. So he conceives of having his brain transplanted - whether the operation is successful or not, he'll at least escape the straight-jacket. So far, an idea done many times before. Now Heinlein adds his own touch, as the 'donor' body turns out to be that of his young, extremely beautiful secretary, Eunice Branca, who was mugged and murdered. When Johann wakes up after the operation, he finds Eunice there in his head, ready to help him adjust to the new world of being very much a female. Is Eunice real, a product of 'body experience'? Or just a figment of Johann's imagination? Heinlein lays clues to this important question throughout the book, but you'll have to read it and make up your own mind.

Given the scenario above, this seems to be a perfect setup for Heinlein's traditional storming of the taboo bastions adhering to sex and gender stereotypes in American society. And there is no shortage of comments, situations, and happenings about just these items. Unfortunately, there is entirely too much of this material, occupying almost all of the middle section of this book, and after the first few sexual situations that Joan (the Johann/Eunice hybrid) faces, becomes extremely repetitious. Joan is not very believable as a woman (female characters were never Heinlein's strong point), nor do her actions really jive with what a 95 year old man would do. The internal conversations between Johann and Eunice are interesting and well done, though here again it becomes somewhat repetitious in the later stages of the book.

When Heinlein leaves Joan's intimate life for a broader look at his envisioned world, it gets much better. The book is set in what he described in other books as "The Crazy Years": illiteracy is common, people need to live in armored fortresses, drive in the equivalent of tanks, court decisions are just as crazy as the one's you read about in today's newspaper, homosexuality is actively encouraged as a way to limit population growth, some areas of cities have been completely abandoned by the police as impossible to enforce. Heinlein's description of ordinary living amongst the youth of the times, his depiction of Eunice's husband Joe as a real artist, his satirical snapshots of the headlines of the day are all excellent, and his headlines are far too close to today's reality to be easily dismissed as 'impossible'.

Heinlein became extremely ill just as this book was going to final edit, and his wife ended up making some of the decisions about the final form of this book. I think that if Heinlein had been well, a large portion of the middle section of this book would have been cut, and some tightening up done on the rest of it. As it is, it is far from his best, even making allowances. But the idea and situation are intriguing (who hasn't fantasized at least once about what it would be like to be the other sex?), in places Heinlein's power to engross and change your world-view are in full flower, his believable world-building skills much in evidence, his messages important and relevant to today's living. Heinlein on a down day was still better than ninety-nine percent of the other material on the racks.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

I've read the majority of Heinlein's work over the past 10 years (in fact, "Revolt in 2100" was my first sci-fi book), and "I Will Fear No Evil" is the worst. It is here that Heinlein sets the tone he followed for all his later books: two one-dimensional characters -- the gruff, wise man who's always right, and the self-obsessed woman who always needs protection from her man -- lots of meaningless sex, and some claptrap about how great life was in the 1920's (when Heinlein came of age).

Heinlein's early work (1930's through 1960's) is superb, and I recommend it all as some of the most creative, original writing around. But please, if you want to begin Heinlein, don't start with "I Will Fear No Evil." And if you are a devoted Heinlein fan (as I am) and want to stay that way, skip this book.

... is not to arrive. Ponder this before you pick up this book: do the books you read have to be action-packed (defeating evil villains, fighting battles in space, encountering extraterrestrials) or is a story of human interaction equally compelling?

This is definitely a dialogue-driven book. After the protagonist wakes up and learns that he is in the body of his secretary, and that his secretary's mind is still in her body even though her brain was removed and his was implanted in its place, there is little of what might be called "action" except for a mild courtroom drama.

I've had little exposure to Heinlein; one of the first SF books I read was _Space Cadet_, which I enjoyed, although at ten I wasn't particularly discriminating. Two or three years ago I tried to read _Stranger in a Strange Land_, and was bored by it; I couldn't make it through to the end.

This book, however, was a completely different animal. The dialogue is compelling, and its frequently sexual nature challenges us to examine our notions of love and gender.

Near the end there is a surprise twist: Was Heinlein playing with our minds, leading us on, throughout the entire book? Is Joan/Johann crazy? Did s/he snap? When I finished the book I was inspired to read it again, immediately, to try and find an answer to this question.

This is one of the most intellectually stimulating, mentally engaging, and challenging science fiction books I've ever read. Judging by the reviews here, you either love it or hate it, and there isn't much middle ground.

Heinlein's fat 1970 tome tells the tale of a powerful tycoon adrift in his private lifeboat (not a literal boat, but rather the opulent, gun-encrusted enclave that only a man of great wealth could afford) somewhere just after the turn of the millenium, in an America swollen with bodies, riddled with violence and insanity. CEO of his own Gatesian empire, Smith has reached his nineties and plans to retire, but has little left to look forward to. Mind youthful but body senescent, he sits wheelchair-bound, swaddled in life support equipment--costly health care gone wrong, for it does not permit him to die. How, then, to shuffle off his mortal coil? In true bullying, billionaire fashion, Smith finds an expensive, ingenious way to dodge doctors, heirs, accountants and other obstacles to his desired suicide: he will have a pioneer surgeon transplant his brain into another body. But what he never counted on was that the operation would succeed; Johann wakes up in a borrowed body. What is more, the body is that of a friend.

A reader can treat I Will Fear No Evil as the exploration of what it might be like to have one's brain transplanted into another's body--that does indeed comprise a large part of the story. Still, there is another powerful aspect to the book: the glimpses one gets of the society Johann Smith has barricaded himself against. Johann's turn-of-the-millenium America has grown into a sprawling urban wasteland throughout which the have-nots wage gun battles in lawless Abandoned Areas. The haves venture out into this war-torn turf only in armored cars with armed guards riding shotgun, and return home to fortified enclaves. It is an America which has dismissed Horace Mann's dream and routinely shunts poor students into "illit" tracks in its public schools, and in which children can be prostituted in the aforementioned abandoned areas. It is an America held spellbound by television and sensa! tional news headlines--classic "Crazy Years" items. Does all that sound a little familiar?

As a dying old man, Johann Smith had no cause to embrace that new society. He once comforted himself with reminiscences about the Roaring Twenties, when both he and America were young and vibrant. But after the transplant renews his youth, he begins to sample the society he had turned his back on, and does so with hedonistic abandon. Beyond the momentary idylls he encounters, Johann concludes that human culture on Earth has entered into its agonal throes and now has only one hope: the transport of its best and brightest to another seat--in this case, the Moon. Thus a metaphorical transplant shadows the real one, and if a reader is looking for "message Heinlein" in I Will Fear No Evil, it resides in that metaphor.

I Will Fear No Evil is customarily panned by the critics for having a number of flaws: too great a length, too little action, arch dialogue and a fantastic premise. While the book is a departure from typical Heinlein material, it remains entertaining, readable and thought-provoking. Heinlein fell seriously ill with peritonitis after wrapping up the first draft of the novel, so the manuscript never got the cutting and tweaking that Heinlein usually gave a book before it hit the presses. Nevertheless, the book is still in print, selling well, and highly regarded by a good proportion of readers.

What could this have been had RAH been well enough to edit and rewrite it? As most fans know, Heinlein suffered periods of sickness. I think this time it was peritonitis, but I am not really sure. He did not get to edit or rewrite to his standards, and it shows. What you are reading is one of his rough drafts, not a finished product. That makes a big difference, and for that reason, I can't really recommend this except to die-hards. However I am surprised at the number of people who are not die-hards who seem to enjoy it. I would just hate for this to be someone's first or second experience with this wonderful author. May I suggest Citizen of the Galaxy? Time Enough for Love? Even To Sail Beyond the Sunset? This should be one of the last books Heinlein competists like myself should read.

Heinlein has always had a problem with fleshing out his female characters (particularly in his early works). Either they are strong and souless, or weak and mushy - there has never been a perfect balance. I commend Heinlein for attempting the impossible journey into the mind of a female, but in the end you wind up with no more than you came in with. This is very unlike Heinlein.

I differ from the rest of the detractors who have posted their reviews in that I actually liked the book. It was an interesting and fun read - a good little bit of 'fluff'. However, it is a poor representative The Master's work - it reads more like something he wrote to pay the bills.

If you have read everything else by Heinlein, or you want to read one of his works that doesn't make you think so hard, by all means read this one.

On the other hand, if you are a First Time Heinlein reader, induct yourself with Stranger in a Strange Land (the book that got the majority of us addicts hooked). You should also read Time Enough for Love (still amongst my favorites) and Job: A Comedy of Errors (an atypical Heinlein experience, but well worth it - it's a top contender for the title of My Favorite.)

However, if you are indeed a reader of Danielle Steele, and you want to dabble in Sci-Fi... |8^D

--Adam Selene--

. . . and this opinion coming from a person who truly enjoys much of Heinlein's material.

Actually, the premise of the story has a great deal of potential. The problem is, is that potential is never realized. The book is a poorly written, poorly edited hash. Other reviewers have noted that Heinlein was desperately ill when the book was being written and edited, and I suppose that provides some excuse -- for Heinlein. But not for his publisher!

Other reviewers have noted Heinlein's, shall we say, unconventional views of sexual relationships -- a theme which plays out in many of his later novels -- but even in the later novels, there is a coherency and a consistency -- even when he is at his most unusual. ("Time Enough for Love" has some truly tender moments.) But sexual behavior in "I Will Fear No Evil"? -- Just bizarre.

If you are a Heinlein fan who wants to read everything the Master ever wrote -- then read this -- considering the perspective of Heinlein's health at the time. But if this had been the first Heinlein novel I had read -- I probably would never have read any others -- and that would have been a great tragedy.

Heinlein is a fantastic author and one who has often made some pretty adventurous tours into the sci-fi genre. I have often been taken with his willingness to push the envelope and tackle some interesting questions with a unique and, at times, disturbing angle.

The basic theme of cheating death by having your brain transplanted into another person's body is weird enough in its own right. However, add that the main character, Johann Sebastian Bach Smith, is male and he wakes up to find he is now a she in the body of Eunice, his personal assistant. The book basically follows his struggles to cope with the new identity, and also deal with the residual presence of Eunice in the body.

Action-packed sci-fi this is not, but it is interesting in the ethical issues that it raises. The questions posed about prolonging life by the use of another's body are interesting and distasteful in some ways.

The association of a name carrying heavily religious and musical connections with such a selfish man as Smith adds something of a commentary on the book's central premise and the issues connected with it.

"I Will Fear No Evil" is not a bad book, but certainly one for select tastes and only hardcore Heinlein fans. Those readers who have some philosophical interests in ethics might also enjoy the book. For those looking for more conventional sci-fi novels, treat this one with caution.