65 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Do. Not. Start. Here., March 24, 2004
This review is from: The Number of the Beast (Mass Market Paperback)
Do not, under any circumstances, make this your first Robert Heinlein book. Don't make it your second or third, either. (And don't make it your _last_.)
Heinlein wrote this book right after recovering from a carotid bypass. Those of us who had been reading his stuff for a while were thrilled to see it (I remember lapping it up when it was serialized in _Omni_ magazine), largely because it meant he hadn't been permanently rendered unable to write.
And there's certainly stuff here for Heinlein readers to appreciate. Some readers don't like Heinlein's dialogue, but I like it just fine and I enjoy the interplay among the four main characters in this one. (Nor do I have any trouble telling which of the characters is narrating at which point.)
This is also the novel in which Heinlein sets up the concept of the World-As-Myth. Apparently tired of listening to his characters invite one another to 'have a go at solipsism', he finally has a go at it himself -- and comes up with a 'multiperson' version of it, in which various 'real' universes are 'fictional' relative to one another, yet accessible via six-dimensional rotation using a nifty device invented by protagonist Jake Burroughs. (At the very least, this clever trick allows Heinlein to bring together lots of his characters from his various fictional worlds and let them all have free-love open relationships with each other.)
The downside is that it's somewhat self-indulgent. First we visit some of the fictional worlds created by several of Heinlein's own favorite writers. On top of that, the name of every one of the 'bad guys' is an anagram of some variant of Heinlein's own name, or Virginia's, or one of his several early noms de plume. Then, in a very confusing ending, we're sort of given to understand, more or less, that all of them are Heinlein himself, somehow, maybe. My, what a powerful fabulist he must therefore be.
Back to the plus side. Readers of _Time Enough For Love_ -- those who liked it, anyway -- will cheer the return of Lazarus Long, as this novel not only brings him back (together with some new members of the Long family) but sets up two further novels in which he appears (_The Cat Who Walks Through Walls_ and _To Sail Beyond the Sunset_; don't start with _those_ either). Of course this is a plus only for those of us who _did_ like _TEFL_; those who didn't won't care for this book either.
Interesting late-period Heinlein, then, filled with what Heinlein fans will regard as great characters and great character interaction -- but somewhat bloated with some stuff that doesn't make very good sense and shot through with some extremely trivial intellectual puzzles. (Most of the anagrams aren't very hard; even the one or two comparatively difficult ones won't pose major problems for anyone who knows anything about Heinlein's [and Ginny's] naval service.) The casual Heinlein reader probably won't like it and won't grok it.
It's not my favorite either, but I don't think Heinlein wrote any _bad_ fiction. (His nonfiction is another story.) He _was_ a powerful fabulist, and I don't mind indulging him while he celebrates the return of his power in this novel.
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70 of 87 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
3/4's of a Good Novel, but what happened to the ending?, March 27, 2001
This review is from: The Number of the Beast (Mass Market Paperback)
I've read most everything Heinlein ever wrote. I have read many of the books he refers to in this novel. I have tried this novel on for size three times. Each time I bog down between 60% & 80% of the way through. Each time I finish it anyways. I find this his most disappointing novel.
He begins to develop a great story line, valiant intellectual warriors running from an unknown menace. They demonstrate their ingenuity and adaptivity to rapidly changing situations. As the pages turn, the story departs further and further from it's beginnings and mutates into a reality hopping, story jumping house-that-Jack-built of a book. The characters become less interesting as we realize that little new about them will unfold as Heinlein indulges his fascination with hopping through the space-time axes into alternate fictons. I also find him a bit preachier than he is in most of his novels, especially about gender roles. Sigh.
This book is only for the die-hard Heinlein fan. There are plenty of other great reality tweaking books out there. Robert Anton Wilson's Schroedinger's Cat comes immediately to mind. Jack Chalker has written a number of them.
(If you enjoyed this review, please leave positive feedback. If you feel it besmirches the Master of SF, then email me. Click the "about me" link above for more of my reviews & my email address. Thanks!)
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pure genius, thought provoking and fun, October 27, 2001
This review is from: The Number of the Beast (Mass Market Paperback)
This is one of Heinliens greatest books and thus de facto one of the best sci fi books ever written. BUT, if you haven't read a good amount of Heinlien, don't start with this one as you'll be missing out on a lot of nuances. He brings in characters from other books, and not just his own either.
I recommend reading several early works and include at a minimum 'Stranger...', 'Time...', 'The Moon' and a couple of the shorter novellas.
Heinlien plays with time, multi universes, history, politics and religion and of course does it with "real" heros, characters that love and live, fight and play and in general have adventures that stimulate the mind of the reader.
Like almost all of his books, it's a better read the second time around because there is just so much there, but even if read just for the adventure without thinking about all the between the lines stuff this book is just plain fun.
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