Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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78 of 84 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
4 and 1/2 Stars, June 2, 2001
A lot of reviewers seem to have misunderstood this book. It is not meant to stand on it's own. I've never understood the type of reader who, when choosing which book to read first when encountering an author new to them, randomly pick a book off the shelf. This is usually a recipe for disaster in science fiction, and Heinlein is no exception. For everyone's convenience let me hereby make a list of...BOOKS YOU MUST READ BEFORE READING THIS ONE IF YOU EXPECT TO LIKE IT OR HAVE IT MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL: Methuselah's Children, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Time Enough For Love, and The Number of the Beast. (Characters from The Rolling Stones, Stranger In A Strange Land, and The Man Who Sold The Moon, among others, also appear, or are mentioned, but reading those books is not necessary to understand this one.) Clearly, this is a book for the hard-core Heinlein fan. Newcomers to the author should definately start elsewhere. As for this book itself... how good is it? Well, if you've read all the books I've mentioned, quite good. It starts out as a very fast-paced and cleverly told adventure story (reminiscent to 50's-era Heinlein) on a seemingly unrelated note to the books mentioned above. However, mid-way or so through, the plot changes abruptly, as The Number of the Beast did. This sudden switch is a bit annoying, because the events of utmost signifigance in the first part of the novel are not resolved until the very end of the book, and a few minor ones are not resolved at all (wait for the next book, To Sail Beyond The Sunset.) (This segment of the story is not, however, abandoned completely as some reviewers have incorrectly stated, but rather resolved at book's end. I am forced to believe that some of these reviewers did not finish the book.) In hindsight, it probably would have been better had Heinlein finished up the story started early on in the book in a more standard fashion, and then have the events in the latter part of the book fleshed out and expanded in a different book. But Heinlein was always an idiosynctric writer, and Cat is no exception. Don't be turned off by the other reviews. If you are a Heinlein fan, and have read the books I mentioned, you will enjoy this book.
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32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A book of potential unrealized - a rare Heinlein stumble, March 20, 1997
By A Customer
No one is a big a Robert Heinlein completist as I am. I even own the hardcover of "Tramp Royale." I've read and reread my Heinleins happily for years. Including "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls."
Sadly, it is a completist who will get the most enjoyment out of this book.
The first half of the book is a true adventure, and is very well told and paced. It features the tight characterization and dialogue that made Heinlein's reputation, along with the hard science fiction that Heinlein championed and told so well. After the first half... it slips. Badly. It slows to a crawl, it becomes nearly opaque, and the heart of the book -- Richard's banter with his wife -- is almost completely missing.
There are many cries about Heinlein's physical condition at the time he wrote "Cat." His latter years were in poor health, to be certain. But this health did not affect his writing (save for a condition he underwent around the time he wrote "I Will Fear No Evil," which precluded his editing the novel, which suffered for it). Indeed, two of his more successful later books -- Job: A Comedy of Justice, and Friday -- were both worked on and written in the neighborhood of this one. "To Sail Beyond the Sunset," Heinlein's last (and much much better) novel that was a sequel to this shows his acuity as a writer continued. My assumption is that Heinlein had certain events he wanted to set up for "To Sail..." and therefore wrote this book.
Nevertheless, I have read it several times, and do enjoy it. Fans of "Time Enough for Love," "The Rolling Stones," "The Number of the Beast," and "To Sail Beyond the Sunset" will want to read this. Fans of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" will likely want to give it a look. But newcomers to the Grand Master should go elsewhere -- "Starship Troopers," "Double Star," "Stranger in a Strange Land," or "Citizen of the Galaxy," to name some -- to cut their teeth on this seminal Science Fiction author's work
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31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Better than you've heard, but don't start with it, March 25, 2004
This isn't by any means Robert Heinlein's finest work, and I highly recommend _not_ reading it as one of your first few Heinleins. But you'll want to get around to it eventually, because (a) you should read it before you read the marvelous _To Sail Beyond the Sunset_, and (b) it's really not that bad.
Oh, you have to be really into Heinlein in order to appreciate it. As in _Friday_, the cool intrigue at the beginning peters out partway through and never quite comes back. (It does get resolved to a degree at the end, but in my view not very satisfactorily.) So you have to be prepared to enjoy a few hundred pages of character interaction and dialogue.
If you like the way Heinlein handles such things, you'll like this; otherwise not. Me, I like Col. Colin Campbell a.k.a. Richard Ames, and I like Gwen Novak, so I enjoy their company (and their arguments, and their lectures).
Some readers have had misgivings about the ending, but I don't mind it; besides, if you have trouble figuring out what happened, you'll find out in _To Sail Beyond the Sunset_. The real problem here is that the first two-thirds of the novel is two-thirds of a good novel, the last third is one-third of a good novel, but they're the good parts of two different novels.
You'll see what I mean if/when you read it; I can't explain it any further without giving things away. But do read it if you like Heinlein; it's better than you've heard.
(It's also a sequel of sorts to _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_, which you might want to read first, mainly because you'll want to read it anyway, since it's the finest SF novel ever written by Heinlein or anyone else.)
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