Job: A Comedy of Justice

Leave it to Heinlein to make blasphemy lame.

Job is a mix of the flavor of early Heinlein with a gritty hero and his girl slugging it out against a hostile world for about the first 17 chapters. From there, we learn that an essentially Christian view of the world is correct and we witness apocalypse and see heaven and hell... Heinlein style. His view of heaven with arrogant angels running a massive bureaucracy is a page-turning delight.

This may be one of my favorite Heinlein novels. It gets five stars on its own from me but also gets the requisite sentimental rating bonus. I read Job at a commune in Virginia called Seven Oaks, where my older half-sister's mother was a librarian. I had taken a bus cross-country, was listening to a tape of Queen's Innuendo on repeat, and was reading Dune at the time. I was fifteen years old and traveling alone for the first time; it's a week or so that is particularly vivid for me.

At any rate, Job is entertaining as a sci-fi novel and also does a fun job (no pun intended) of bringing out the uncomfortable features of god and satan's personae in the eponymous old testament book.

Definitely worth the read.

This book has the triplet distinction of being my first Heinlein book, a book that in which I read extraordinarily fast, and of being one of the funnest books I've read in a long time.

I first came to this book, attracted to the premise of a modern retelling of the Book of Job, and curious as to what an author could do. Heinlein decided not to pursue a completely serious adaptation of the book and instead choose to merely adopt the basic premise - what would happen if the world constantly shifted in subtle ways, and what would that do to a person? What if they had someone to go on the journey with, too?

The result is a book that is not very thought-provoking, or stimulating, or even memorable. In fact, this book is going straight onto my PaperBackSwap list, and onto Amazon if the book will sell for more than $0.01.

However, that is not to say the book is _bad_. Quite the opposite - this book is incredibly entertaining! I haven't had this much fun reading a book in a very long time, and for that it deserves my recognition. I was often surprised that I was so engrossed in the story, wanting so much to find out what would happen next. It's not a memorable time, but it is a very _fun_ time.

Heinlein's writing is superbly funny. Written from the third-person, it includes numerous self-deprecations, internal conversations, and funny ways of phrasing things, using devices such as mock outrage. Fortunately, it turns out the main character's mind is entertaining, and it's often very amusing to follow his thoughts as he attempts to squirrel through another situation problem. I also enjoyed the tongue in cheek descriptions of certain things, like "hollow-grams." Heinlein constantly makes reference to things that are commonplace in our world but foreign in the world of the main character, making it appear at first that he is stepping into our realm and that this is being played for cheap laughs. However, once more reading goes on, it becomes apparent that the new-fangled inventions of each of the worlds that the main character visits are similar but not quite identical to the things in our world, and then the laughter becomes tinged with a touch of uncertainty and discomfort. Excellent writing.

If there is a flaw, it's that most things, places and characters aren't very memorable. The world shifts so many times that eventually it all blends together. However, this is not much of a hindrance. In fact, a potential deal-breaker becomes a flaw as Heinlein acknowledges it and is able to get away with it because he works it into the main character, who is understandably overwhelmed and a little peeved to discover, once again, that he has to continue moving and traveling because the money he earned last night as a dishwasher is no longer legal tender. The formula works until the last portion of the book, when Heinlein attempts to start a few things together and it doesn't succeed as well as it could because the rest of the book has trained us not to care too much, to pay attention to things like we would a movie that has the barest excuses of a plot to justify transferring its characters from set piece to set piece.

RATING: 4 stars (I like it, but I don't love it). I had a lot of fun reading this book, and unlike a lot of other books I found that it was a _pleasure_ to read this, instead of feeling like it was a chore or an obligation. The writing is deliciously clever and funny and I wish I could write like this. But, the plain fact of it is that I remember very little of what happened, and I have no strong desire to re-read or revisit the book, or to find out more about the characters. For that reason, the book will not stay on my bookshelf and I will try to get rid of it. But, it will remain in my memories.

TL; DR: Enormously fun, but not memorable or stimulating.

A bit long but very much classic Heinlein from what I can remember of other books read long ago. "Is this hell? Or Texas?" Funny.

I really don't read a lot of fiction but I first read this book as a young man when I was reading all of Heinlein's work. As I recall this was around the time the man died so that probably will date me a bit for some of you.

In his later books he seemed to be sticking with more of a formula than in the early books and this book seemed to kick off his alternate universe and history section. I think it was also probably one of his best works overall but I'll get into that.

It follows the adventures of a man (a preacher as I recall) who suddenly finds the world is changing and he is shifting through variations on the reality he had grown up in. He finds himself in a world where Zeppelins are the primary air transport not jetliners, and in another he finds himself in Hell and it's whole lot like Arizona with the Devil a retired businessman. I think it's the irreverent side of the book that always liked and why i actually read it twice which is rare for me.

For instance without giving too much away there is a scene where two demons who are tasked with catching sinners as they are cast out of Heaven with what amounts to large butterfly nets are in an argument of sorts. One of them says basically "well if that's true then I'll be a flying pink ape" or words that effect and as they are between Heaven and Hell God hears this and having a bit of a sense of humor (as the whole book suggests) there is a sudden flash of lightening from on high accompanied with the smell of burnt pink monkey fur. God has struck the demon with a lightening bolt and turned him from a fearsome demon bat like wings into a little pink monkey with feathery wings. As I recall this occurs just as Job plummets pass on his way to Arizona but the pink monkey is pissed at his buddy who is laughing at him and they forget to catch him in the net.

Generally speaking I always liked Mr. Heinlein's earlier works but like any literary study you should read them all to get a picture of the guy over the course of his life. He lived to be around 90 as I recall and some of the later works were a bit formulaic but I always thought this one stood out along with many of his best early titles. In no small part because it was in fact pretty funny with the hero apt to show up in unfortunate spots completely nude as he shifts through universes but also because in some sense it also speaks to a deeper meaning.

He takes the title from the biblical book of Job which is about a contest between God and the Devil to see if the later can tempt a righteous man to renounce the former. That's essentially the premise here as well but in Heinlein's work he throws in a decidedly modern cast to the story. As bad as things get there is usually a silver lining or at least a punchline to be had.

Along with Stranger In A Strange Land I recommend this title for the casual reader looking for a new author who has not read any of his works. I would suspect that Stranger In A Strange Land is easier to find among the used paperbacks than this one but if you find you like Heinlein I'd recommend you keep an eye out and give it a read if you can.

This is the first book by Heinlein that I have read, and it will probably be the only one of his that I read.

Even though I found the book quite interesting and containing a surprising lot of theology as well as a Bible verse at the top of each chapter, still I am not inclined to recommend it to others.

I guess my positive thoughts about the book turned negative with the Rapture and all that happened after that.

Still, I don't regret having read this book, and others with religious / theological backgrounds would no doubt find it quite interesting.

One of the best books I have ever read. The utter disregard for any of the societal norms of the time, or any of the organized religions makes this a must read for any pure thinking person!! It will force you to consider alternative viewpoints to your own closely held dogmatic views.