The Number of the Beast by Heinlein (1980)

[AE35Unit]

I was looking forward to reading this and it started off quite pleasantly, I was enjoying the story, such as it was, but then it got dull, quickly, that is about a third of the way in, and its a 500+ page book.

Basically a scientist invents a dimension jumping machine cum time machine, based around an old Ford car, and he comes up with a theory of the number of universes based on the number 6 raised to the power of 6, 6 times - 6 6 6. A group is assembled, a kind of family group, off on their jollies, but I began to find the characters incredibly annoying and twee. I hate that word twee, its such a, well, twee word, but it is quite apt with this book, apart from its size! (drop this on your toe and you'll be hopping round the room!)
"Oh John I SO love you, youre such a remarkable man, my hero, Daddy will be happy to have you as a son" If thats not bad enough the young lady is known as DT, which I discover is short for Deja Thoris. Anyone who has read Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom books will know that name! But also her erstwhile husband just happens to be called John Carter. And guess what planet they land on-its red and ends in 'ars'! For Christ's sake, could it get any more twee? Its like eating a really sweet candy bar, so sweet it makes your teeth itch!
Enough was enough, life is too short etc
Moving on.....

 

[Metryq]

The concept was fun—that all the fictional universes in books are "real" somewhere, and that the "real" universe of the characters in Number of the Beast turns out to be a fiction novel elsewhere—but yes, the characters tended to make long orations. (That was fun in A Princess of Mars because it was so ridiculously flowery.) Heinlein had already suffered the "brain bubble," as one friend put it, and the books just got weirder and weirder after that. (By the way, that "old Ford car" was a "duo," a futuristic flying and ground vehicle.)

Number of the Beast completely falls apart by the time the travelers encounter Lazarus Long. After that it is like being dragged into a hippie commune where all one's dead friends from other novels get together to have group sex.

 

[Foxbat]

I never finished this book. I had about fifty pages to go but couldn't take any more and threw it away.

 

[Vertigo]

It sounds from the comments above that it's a good job I didn't attempt to finish this one. Here's my thoughts:


Sadly I had to put this down after just under a hundred pages; I just couldn’t take any more. Most of my reading of Heinlein was done as a teenager when I absolutely loved his work and I’m guessing I probably would have loved this one as well (I don’t recall reading it at the time). However this was one of Heinlein’s later works and he did get more and more proselytistic with regard to his slightly off kilter views on marriage and sexual freedom and 45 years on from my innocent youth I struggled desperately. And this book certainly has plenty of that preaching, in fact most of those first 100 pages seem to be taken up by Heinlein presenting some sort of utopian relationship ideal rather than doing anything to move the story on. At the end of those first one hundred pages almost nothing has been added to the story beyond the brief burst of action in the first few pages. Instead the reader has to plough through extensive descriptions of how wonderful the close knit group of husband, wife, father and step mother are. This is especially wearing when you consider that, by this stage of the book husband and wife only met, fell in love and got married the previous day and, caught up in the flow, the wife’s widowed father also gets married to his lifelong friend who he hadn’t previously realised he loved! I’m sorry Mr Heinlein but even if you hadn’t swamped me with all the social stuff that alone went way beyond my ability to suspend disbelief.

I still probably could have got past that except for how offensive I (now) find much of his social claptrap. Heinlein seemed to want to present the women – Deety, the wife, and Hilda, the stepmom – as his idea of the perfect “FemLibbers” (his word) – Deety, for example, is an expert at karate and a genius software engineer – and then he goes and spoils it by having both women’s nipples springing to attention at the slightest sign of male macho, all kitchen chores being automatically delegated to these women and even Deety declaring in internal thoughts: “I am good at karate; Pop made sure that I learned all the dirty fighting possible. But not against Zebadiah! If I ever do—Heaven forbid!—find myself opposed to my husband, I’ll quiver my chin and cry.” Bear in mind she only met said husband at a party the previous day. There’s loads more in a similar vein as well as a continuous stream of stuff for which I just couldn’t sufficiently raise that level disbelief (such as a university professor who just happens to own an aircar, privately and secretly souped-up to a military level complete with a “highly illegal laser cannon”).

No, I’m sorry, but I simply couldn’t continue. Sure it’s probably a product of the times, but those times are 1980 so even that’s not a particularly strong an excuse. Maybe I should confine any of my future Heinlein reads to his earlier stuff.


1/5 stars

 

[Parson]

I missed this one too. I remember I was about 20 when I started realizing the Heinlein might tell a good story, but his real objective was to preach the gospel of unrestrained sexuality and to have every taboo broken in a perfectly logical way. I never went back to read those juveniles. I'm afraid of what I'll find I was filling my head full of, when I was even more sheltered and naive.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I'm a big Heinlein fan, and this one was just about more than I could bear. I've never bothered reading it again, which says a lot, considering how many times I've read some of his others. It's not the Heinlein sexuality -- I'm a fan of that, too -- but the sheer ridiculousness of the whole thing.

 

[Vertigo]

I'm a big Heinlein fan, and this one was just about more than I could bear. I've never bothered reading it again, which says a lot, considering how many times I've read some of his others. It's not the Heinlein sexuality -- I'm a fan of that, too -- but the sheer ridiculousness of the whole thing.

Yes, just about everything about the protagonists - what they were capable of and what they did - was just too ridiculous. Also one of the things I found a little disturbing was the paranoia it all showed; a professor with a military grade aircar complete with laser cannon and a scientist who has built a house that is completely undetectable; the smoke from the fires comes out hundred's of metres away at almost ambient temperature, builders brought in from Mexico to be sure they wouldn't recognise the location and the materials all brought in by helicopter with the pilots using a beacon and not allowed to use conventional navigation and then there was all the tax dodging. This is libertarianism mixed with paranoia taken to an incredible extreme and Heinlein presents it all as perfectly normal. Just too much for me. Shame!

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Oh, I believe in a healthy degree of paranoid libertarianism, too. But libertarians now aren't what they were then.

 

[Pyan]

This is libertarianism mixed with paranoia taken to an incredible extreme and Heinlein presents it all as perfectly normal.

Maybe so - but the way the story turns out also shows that on this timeline (and don't forget that it's not ours - Ballox O'Malley is the first man on the Moon, in 1952, not Armstrong, DuQuesne or Fairacre) paranoia is eminently justified...

 

[Danny McG]

I have a feeling that at sometime in my life I've sat and read this.
I have a faint memory SPOILER COMING!!

that at one point they end up in Oz and are mincing about in Gina's palace. Was this that same book does anyone know?
Or was I the only one to read that far?

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I have a feeling that at sometime in my life I've sat and read this.
I have a faint memory SPOILER COMING!!

that at one point they end up in Oz and are mincing about in Gina's palace. Was this that same book does anyone know?
Or was I the only one to read that far?

Yup, that's in there somewhere.

 

[Danny McG]

Ha! Nailed it!
I knew I'd read it at some point, funny how little details stick in your mind.

(Not exactly an earth-shattering revelation that I've read yet another book years ago)

 

[Toby Frost]

Wow. I don't think I'll be reading this any time soon!

 

[Pyan]

Wow. I don't think I'll be reading this any time soon!

But you really should, Toby - the thing is, it's like quite a few of RAH's books, a real Marmite tale (as are Starship Troopers, Stranger In A Strange Land, Time Enough For Love, etc, etc). I wouldn't trust anyone to write an unbiased review of 90% of RAHs' output...

 

[Vertigo]

Wow. I don't think I'll be reading this any time soon!

But you really should, Toby - the thing is, it's like quite a few of RAH's books, a real Marmite tale (as are Starship Troopers, Stranger In A Strange Land, Time Enough For Love, etc, etc). I wouldn't trust anyone to write an unbiased review of 90% of RAHs' output...

In fairness I have since seen that TNotB is generally considered to be a somewhere between a parody and an homage to 1930s pulp SF which does sort of answer many of my criticisms; the problem being that that was not what I was looking for at this time. Maybe I should try again sometime when I'm in the mood for parody.

 

[Venusian Broon]

In fairness I have since seen that TNotB is generally considered to be a somewhere between a parody and an homage to 1930s pulp SF which does sort of answer many of my criticisms; the problem being that that was not what I was looking for at this time. Maybe I should try again sometime when I'm in the mood for parody.

I wish someone had told me that when I purchased this book, when I was a fresh faced teenager in the 80's trying out all sorts of SF. I thought it was awful.

It put me off Heinlein for good. I was truly inoculated. I've only managed Stranger in a Strange Land in the thirty years that followed.

Part of the reason for it's poor reception is that I believe Heinlein refused to allow an editor on it and just got it published on his say-so.

There's too many other books in the world that are and must be better than this! I'd definitely not recommend anyone to try and read it. I expect if you want to experience a much better Heinlein go to his early works (although I can't recommend any as TNoTB hangs heavy over me and I am constantly dissuaded from reading any of his stuff!)

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I feel truly sorry for anyone who read this as their first Heinlein book. It's so not representative of his work that it's a crying shame if you started with that and were turned off.

Of course, one does have to have a certain tolerance of (or penchant for) his political and socio-cultural leanings in order to appreciate any of his books -- but there are brilliant commentaries on human nature among his books, that should not be missed by any genre fan.

 

[tinkerdan]

I enjoyed this novel. I'd always thought of it as an unvarnished unedited version of true Heinlein work. It seemed somehow he was able to not only make fun of a lot of other works, but truly make fun of his own to the nth degree or at least 6 by 6 by 6.

 

[Toby Frost]

Not meaning to derail the thread, but so far, I've read three Heinlein books. Leaving aside the specific politics of the books, and talking only about the writing, I'd say:

The Puppet Masters - pretty good
Star Beast - I can't remember it very well, but my lasting feeling is of it being slight but entertaining
Starship Troopers - pretty weak

Hmm.

 

[Vertigo]

Not meaning to derail the thread, but so far, I've read three Heinlein books. Leaving aside the specific politics of the books, and talking only about the writing, I'd say:

The Puppet Masters - pretty good
Star Beast - I can't remember it very well, but my lasting feeling is of it being slight but entertaining
Starship Troopers - pretty weak

Hmm.

A lot of his early stuff from the '40s and '50s is a bit variable; some is YA stuff that I loved as a YA at the time and I'd now find, in your word, quite slight, some is pure SF adventure romp which hasn't aged well and I'd also find quite slight. From that early period one of my favourites was The Door into Summer.

For me the '60s and '70s produced some of his best more thoughtful work: Time Enough for Love, I Will Fear No Evil, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Though he was beginning to get a bit self indulgent with regard to his social and political views.

His later stuff I have generally found go too far into the self indulgence. Though there are one or two that I liked; Friday was a fun romp.