I wanted a paperback to read on the plane recently, and this one was right on top of a stack of books, so I reread it. I've reread a few Heinlein books recently, and I realize as I have with so many other books that I read when I was young, (believe it or not, I think I might have been 10 the first time I read this, I was certainly no more than 12) how much they shaped my sense of myself. For instance, every Heinlein book has pages and pages devoted to math, and not glossed over math, real math. It always seemed natural to me to use math to solve problems. I also realize that my attitude towards accepting people into my family circle comes in large part from Heinlein and to some extent Bradley, who I also read at an early age. Rereading these books as an adult is odd, because I see the foundations for many attitudes that I never consciously considered. I will need to scare up a copy of I Will Fear No Evil next, I can't find mine.

Note: Although, I must say parts of this book are downright silly, parts of it are very good.

Well, it's been a while since I read any of RAH's books. One of the all-timers in sci-fi. My copy is an old paperback from 1973 with the cover flap missing, so any old cover image will have to do. This book is supposed to be a classic, and I do fancy sci-fi classics from the 50's - 70's so this will be fun. Lotta words, though, as I have already encountered. Mr. Heinlein wasn't stingy with his verbiage. Another thing we can get out of the way now. Lazarus Long IS Heinlein, as most of RAH's protagonists are extensions of his own real and imagined self. Think curmudgeonly. NOT unusual at all for sci-fi writers(and others - I'm looking at YOU Robert B. Parker) to ride their own horse through a story. Easy readin', if a bit dated, so far.

- A promo blurb on the back cover of the book is courtesy of John Leonard, a man I recall seeing/hearing on TV BITD. He was identified as a reviewer, but I can't recall from/for what. He always seemed like a high-strung, possibly Catholic fussbudget(sp?). I ALMOST couldn't stand him. Prim, supercilious, etc.His expressed good opinion of some book, movie record album would prejudice me against it.

- Typical Heinlein = 2,000 year old coot lusts after young women and is in love with himself.

- Accurately predicts full participation of women in the military.

Getting further into this so far plotless book and getting the wee-est bit antsy waiting for some kind of plot to get going. Meanwhile we get a lot of moderately(at best) interesting yak-yak from the protagonists. The self-adoring Mr. Long goes on and in praise of his(i.e. Heinlein's) erudition and low-ish opinion of women. He just can't seem to get over that dirty-old-man thing lurking inside. The quality of the prose is middling. Already "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress"(probably others as well) have been borrowed from. C'mon Mr. H. - let's get GOING! Otherwise, I may have to abandon ship. It wouldn't be the first time, as I dumped "Stranger" midway many years ago. Later on and not too long ago I read the whole thing, but still thought it to be a VASTLY overrated vision of the Hugh Hefner-izing of society. Promo-lit for widespread obsession with sex.

- An extended, exasperatingly stupid, three-way conversation around a massage table gives the author the opportunity to think up silly variations of the name "Hamadryad," a word I have liked ever since encountering it in Hans Kummer's study of Hamadryas Baboons in East Africa. It has other applications(tree-dwelling spirit = that one was in "A Glastonbury Romance) as well but it's deployment here as the name of a lovely "young" woman has Heinlein turning it into such word-turds as Hamadarling, Hamasweet, Hamadear and on and on to no good purpose AT ALL. Talk about authorial indulgence!

Now back to a story out of Laz' past = automatically more interesting.

- All the genetic engineering lingo and computer talk mostly flies unimpeded over my head. No problem... I supposed I might be impressed with the author's scientific erudition, but one assumes that MOST readers are where I am = baffled, and more impressed with the size of Heinlein's ego than anything else.

- And again I say: What's the need of all the genetics trivia here???? Seems only to serve the purpose of the author preening his knowledge. This is an f'ing novel(i.e. NOT a textbook) for Christ's sake! Much of last night's "reading" turned into skimming. At this rate it may be a close thing whether I can finish this or not.

More skip-skimming along until I can light on something interesting. It's the only way I can get to the end of this turkey and even then its gonna take a while.

I'm about halfway through now and it's not getting any better. The most recent story is of Laz' loving marriage to Dora, an ephemeral he rescued from her burning home when she was but a little girl and knew all of her childhood. And so - there it is - the dirty old man. The story is no more than a word salad account of cardboard pioneering stalwarts from a western novel. Dora wields a gun with deadly effectiveness early on and dispenses a drooling baddy or two right out of "Will Penny." And then she dies and Laz moves on. Mixed in were a few more pages of snooze-inducing blah-blah out of Laz/Heinlein's "wisdom" file. Thank God for my skip-skim mode.

- The lingo coming out of Laz' mouth is often dreadful and hardly ever colorful or interesting, a testament to the stilted/dated nature of the book. SO MUCH of the text is Laz verbalizing, remembering, opining, pontificating, scolding etc. He even uses the word "shan't" - REALLY!?!?

I've given up the ghost and lowered my rating to 2* from 3*. To be BRUTALLY honest, this is one crap-pile of a book. Half of what's wrong is that it's badly dated, half of what's wrong with it is the boring, badly outdated sci-fi, and half of what's wrong with it is the endlessly smug/cranky/bossy/little-girl loving old-prospector prose voice of Laz/Heinlen. I suspect that Heinlein prayed every day of his adult dirty old man life that all American legislatures would come to their senses and decriminalize man-child sex action. UGH! And still I plow onward as I hope for another halfway interesting sci-fi story or two amid all the soft-core Hugh Hefner drek.

- Laz calls children "brats" and "Hellions." Old women are "harridans." Of COURSE he's a frequent "you see"-er, a sure sign of outdated prose. Booze gets kind words.

- Laz' house on Tertius( I think) is a super-sized Playboy mansion.

- Oh yeah... it just re-occurred to me how Heinlein's degradation as a writer(as indicated by this weird "thing" of a book) mirrors that of J.D. Salinger's post WWII mega-boring Glass extravaganzas. Both authors indulge in endless Hollywood/TV overexcited self-conscious artificial happy talk.

- Ira says "shan't" = another old fogie word. And again and again...

And so to the end of this horribly disappointing book - bad stuff badly written. Self-indulgent would be a good descriptive for it. My hopes that the final story would provide some legit sci-fi entertainment were dashed by the endless soft-core love-sex goggle-eyed conversation and groping between Laz and his beautiful mommy before they - you know - DO "IT"(and do it and do it). At least the WWI stuff made for an ending to all the bullshit. Steven King is a similar wordy/corny over-writer but not in the Heinlein class.

- I have more notes to draw from but a lot of it is stuff already said in other negative reviews so I'll let it go.

- Tough to rate this book as my resentment at being let down influences my final rating. I WANT to give it a 1* rating, but I'll stick with 1.75* rounding up to 2*.

Woah.

One of the compilations -- you kind of need to already be an inveterate Heinlein fan to enjoy this one.

30% meh sci-fi : 70% psychosexual conflict/incest/Oedipus complex exploration.

SPOILER:

Bro time travels and gets busy with his momma….she’s all like ‘Same’

A bunch of other stuff happens, but all that nonsense at the end took away from the rest…which wasn’t great enough to stand on its own anyway.

Other than a couple of title like this, I love Heinlein works

A stunning work of imagination. The original LGBT novel, but so seamlessly integrated that you don't notice it. Heinlein's last great book, if you have not read it then you have not experience a capstone of the SFF genre.

Second DNF of the year. Maybe I'm not in the mood for self-congratulatory philosophising that goes nowhere and accomplishes little, maybe it's maybelline

I have had this one my "to read" pile for probably 10 years. It's unfortunate, then, that it ended up being a huge disappointment.

There is really no conflict or strong central plot; the book is literally just people sitting around and having conversations. Honestly, this novel seems to exist just so Heinlein can talk about how swell incest and communal sexual families are. That doesn't offend me in the least (I'm a big boy and can handle people talking about things I don't agree with. Also, I LOVE Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, which also touches on some similar topics but at least has a plot) but what does offend me is a slow, boring novel.

Yuck!

“A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.”



There is plenty of Heinlein's reshaping/questioning of social mores in Time Enough for Love (much like .Stranger in a Strange Land); however, without the driving force of Stranger's narrative behind it, Time Enough mostly feels disjointed and long-winded. The novel begins with a recalling of adventures from the oldest man alive, Lazarus Long. There are some interesting stories here (including one involving colonization on a more primitive planet and time travel to one's own youth); however, the more developed stories occur very late in the novel. Throughout the book, his spokesman makes interesting observations on life and love (but some of that is undermined by Heinlein's patriarchal tone, preoccupation with incest and his seeming belief that most women want to have lots and lots of children). The biggest problem, though, was lack of a sustained narrative. There were some great quotes--I will read more Heinlein--but this one didn't quite do it for me.

I have mixed feelings about this one. Heinlein always makes you think and challenges beliefs and commonly held morals/taboos, however, this book felt like it was an excuse to collate a bunch of his latest ideology with a thin premise. Many books use the "from the archives" approach to add some sort of reliability or historicity, however, I would say that this is not a particularly sophisticated attempt at that (Dune and Foundation are a couple of examples that I can think of that pull it off better). The political and social commentary is very biting and enjoyable to read, especially towards the beginning of the book and is couched in the classic Heinleinian 'otherness' of the distant future and a foreign planet, letting the reader connect the dots and apply it to Earth's current state (and that of the book's - 1970s Earth). However, some of this became quite obtuse and thinly veiled as the book went on.

Obviously, reading this 50 years on from its publication obscures a lot of the backdrop of the book and therefore makes parts of Heinlein's social commentary (particularly that about marital roles) not particularly pleasant reading - especially if contrasted with contemporaneous feminist science fiction. Heinlein often sets up worlds where women are superior to men or at least more vital in a genetic/scientific sense, however, here, the playful flirting and banter between the characters often undermines this social structure and detracts from the setting. The power relations in the sexual relationships (sexual relationship being a somewhat tautological term here) are ignored and instead everyone is always available and ready for sex at any time in a Bacchanalian-style situation, which when extended to subordinates and children feels off. Lazarus Long is talented in almost every field, very intelligent, well-endowed and sexy, witty and just generally an Übermensch, which seems to imply through the story that he is therefore entitled to have whatever he wants at whatever time, and Heinlein sets this up in a situation where there are next to no consequences for him. There are times when characters refuse to do things for him or do things against his will, however, this is generally all done within a worship-like framework. This valorises traits of toxic masculinity and feels unrealistic, particularly when almost all of the female characters at some point lose all personality and turn into the same kind of sex object for Lazarus to do what he pleases with (or refuse, as he sometimes does too).

In saying this, Heinlein does interrogate a lot of socially ingrained beliefs and builds a very sophisticated future of humanity in his classic hard science fiction shell which is enjoyable to read and convincing. However, it really does feel like a container for a lot of ideology he wanted to expound upon in quite a lengthy manner - 607 pages was definitely more than required, particularly when about 250 of those are primarily concerned with exploring incest.

tldr I'd say closer to 2.5/5: too much incest (and too much book generally), interesting world, characters are interesting but inconsistent, largely an excuse to expound upon contra-moral ideology.

Equally as packed full of amazingly interesting prospection as it was trying to sell Heinlein’s incestuous perversion as sexual progressivism, but there we’re definitely some interesting ideas:

- An argument for space colonization that I had never considered, but really only restricted to planets that are inherently habitable (so fuck going to mars)

- The potential change in societal norms (career, leisure, marriage) change when life expectancy increases by orders of magnitude.

- Paradox-less time travel (with associated changes in syntax to accommodate this) - very similar to Tralfamadorian time.

- The design of an organization that functionally supports modern eugenics in the form of legal, institutional, and financially incentivized human breeding program. I am so surprised this hasn’t happened yet. Given the incentives in our current economic system, I think this would work way better than genocide.