Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag [Paperback]

Robert A. Heinlein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1976

Robert A. Heinlein, the celebrated author of Stranger in a Strange Land, interrupts the lives of two ordinary people for a terrifying night-ride alo ng the interface between reality and . . . our world. "One of the grand masters of science fiction."--Wall Street Journal. Reissue.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Not Avail; New edition edition (July 1, 1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0450028860
• ISBN-13: 978-0450028861
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,951,879 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert A. Heinlein, four-time winner of the Hugo Award and recipient of three Retro Hugos, received the first Grand Master Nebula Award for lifetime achievement. His worldwide bestsellers have been translated into 22 languages and include Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, Time Enough for Love, and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. His long-lost first novel, For Us, the Living, was recently published by Scribner and Pocket Books.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Heinlein's Far Side, October 25, 2005

By 

Patrick Shepherd "hyperpat" (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (Paperback)

Much of Heinlein's early writing was tied to his envisioned Future History, but he had a few stories that didn't fit into that mold, stories that frequently showed a different side of Heinlein, a more mystical, musing, fantastical side than what appeared in his standard science fiction fare. The stories here are part of this very different group.

"The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathon Hoag" first appeared in the Oct 1942 edition of Unknown magazine, as by "John Riverside" (one of about six of Heinlein's pseudonyms). Mr. Hoag has a problem: in the evenings he finds a curious reddish residue under his fingernails, and no memory of what he was doing during the day to get that residue. So he hires a husband and wife team of detectives to follow him around and find out what is really going on. The trail leads to non-existent 13th floors, some very shadowy characters who are part of the Order of the Bird, and a conclusion that reality really isn't what we think it is. Some good suspense, reasonable characterization, but the final answer that Heinlein presents may leave you feeling a little let down, and I had difficulty believing in the scenario.

"They", first printed in the April 1941 issue of Unknown, is a minor classic. Here is paranoia run rampant; the main character just knows that everything around him is just a setup meant to keep him ignorant of the true state of the world. Of course, it's only paranoia if such a belief is incorrect... One of his better early stories.

"Our Fair City" first appeared in the Jan 1949 issue of Weird Tales, and is an out-and-out fantasy, with an intelligent whirlwind used as an instrument to bring down a corrupt city government. Mildly amusing but a pretty slight effort.

"The Man Who Traveled in Elephants" was apparently written in 1948, but didn't get published till Oct 1957 in Saturn magazine. When I first read this, I thought it was a totally unremarkable, very quiet story, detailing a man and his wife who travel to all the various county/state fairs; the sights, sounds, and exhibits of such affairs. By the end of the story it is clear that this is the man's version of heaven. Reading this again, I begin to wonder if this story is actually a key to Heinlein's personal beliefs about both the hereafter and the reasons for living, and the story is actually quite charming and heart-warming.

"...And He Built a Crooked House" first appeared in Feb 1941 issue of Astounding; as such it's the earliest work in this collection. It's all about an architect who designs and builds an 'exploded' three-dimensional version of a four-dimensional tesseract, then has it collapse into a real four-dimensional house when one of California's innumerable earthquakes strikes. A minor piece, though it will warp your mind a bit, and has some historical interest as the street where this house was supposedly built is the one Heinlein was living on when this was written.

"...All You Zombies" is the newest story here, first published in the March, 1959 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It's also, for my money, the best and most inventive story of the bunch, and possibly the ultimate in time-travel stories. Starting from a bartender listening to one of his (male) customers complain about how tough life is in the "True Confession" writing racket, it proceeds to be the complete answer (at least for one person) to the question of the beginning of everything and to the inherent paradoxes of time travel. Warning: this is not a children's story, some of the situations described within it probably make it unsuitable for anyone younger than mid-teens.

As a group, these stories are a mixed bag. They show inventiveness in plot and theme, are all at least reasonably well written, but some cross the line of believability, others make too minor a point to be really good stories. Still, a very different set of stories from what some call the greatest science fiction writer, ever.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heinlein's best short fiction, May 3, 2000

By 

Michael J Edelman (Huntington Woods, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (Paperback)

Why in the world did they let this gem go out of print?Heinlein was often at his best in his shorter works, and each of thestories in it is a matserpiece of the genre. The ideas are totallyoriginal, the writing is spare and sharp, and the dialog is crisp and to the point. No sci-fi jargon, no talk of fusion drives and orbital mechanics.

The title story, "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag", begins with a simple premise- a man comes to a private eye and asks him to figurie out what he does all day. He can't remember anything of the day's events, and worries that the material he finds under his fingernails might be blood. It isn't; it's dirt, but something infintely more bizarre is waiting to be discovered.

"He Built A Crooked House" is one of the wittiest, most imaginative short stories I've ever come across. An architect designs a modern house meant to resemble a three-dimensional projection of a hypercube, but when he and his client arrive after an earthquake, something quite odd has happened to the house. END

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The other side of Heinlein, September 13, 2001

By 

J. Hardy (Columbia, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (Paperback)

This is the side of Heinlein that's not really showcased in his more traditional hard sf: Heinlein the mystic, as in some of his other early work like Assignment in Eternity, etc. This stuff should maybe be classified as horror. The title story is classical horror that stays with you; All You Zombies is an all-time classic time-travel story, but very disturbing. Them is even more disturbing - Stephen King never wrote a more elegant short-short. The sweetest story is The Man Who Traveled in Elephants - which is about death. Crooked House reads like a classical math-problem sf story - but what do they see out the window? Very, very interesting set of stories: a potential revelation for fans of the hard-sf Heinlein. You can really see the seeds that would later sprout into Stranger in a Strange Land and Job.