James Nicoll Reviews

Robert A. Heinlein’s 1951 The Puppet Masters is a near-future paranoid SF novel.

2007! Although lightly singed by World War III, the US has made great strides. Cars fly, guns ray, and, like so many democracies, the US features at least one intelligence organization operating outside formal lines of control.

Section agents ​“Sam” and ​“Mary” work for the Old Man, obediently following orders to the letter. After all, the Old Man knows best! And in any case, the Section indoctrination is unbreakable.

Their latest assignment would test lesser people’s loyalty. Not only do the hunky Sam and the pleasingly mammalian Mary have to pretend they are brother and sister, but they are supposed to investigate a flying saucer, of all things.

The flying saucer is an obvious fake.

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Robert A. Heinlein’s 1959 The Menace From Earth is a collection of science fiction stories.

So, about Signet, the publisher of my copy this volume.

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Robert A. Heinlein’s 1963 Farnham’s Freehold is a stand-alone post-holocaust novel.

Middle-aged contractor Hugh Farnham and wife Grace host a bridge party for their son Duke, daughter Karen, and Karen’s friend Barbara. Also in attendance, the Farnham’s African American houseboy Joe. The party is marred by alcoholic Grace’s behavior¹, for which Duke blames Hugh’s obsession with nuclear war.

The massive Soviet nuclear attack that ensues lends credence to Hugh’s concerns about nuclear war. Luckily for the Farnhams, Karen, and Joe — perhaps less luckily for the reader — Hugh’s preparations include a well-prepared subterranean shelter.

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Robert A. Heinlein’s 1980’s Expanded Universe: The New Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein is a greatly expanded edition of 1966’s The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein.

New Heinlein collections were not exactly common in 1980. News of an impending collection, which would include post-1966 published material and never-before-published material new to this volume, was a big deal to Heinlein fans forty-two years ago. Publisher Jim Baen of Ace did his best to make sure fans knew what was coming.

I was one of those fans. 

Did the collection live up to the hype? Well … it was better than Number of the Beast.

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Robert A. Heinlein’s 1957 The Door into Summeris a standalone SF novel. I am glad that it had no sequels and no prequels, as I am sure I would have grown to hate them as well. Why? Read on. 

It’s 1970 and Dan Davis has survived World War Three. He and his business partner have started a cutting-edge cybernetics company. The business is stolen from him by his conniving fiancée (Belle) and his equally traitorous partner (Miles). Who could have predicted that blindly signing business documents could turn out so badly?

The evil pair aren’t satisfied with bilking Dan out of his company. They want him gone; he might make trouble. Murder, they feel, is too risky. But drugging him and putting him into suspended animation … that’s different. 

Dan goes to sleep in the futuristic year 1970. He wakes in the even more futuristic year 2000.

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Off the Main Sequence: The Other Science Fiction Stories of Robert A. Heinlein was edited by Andrew Wheeler, then of the Science Fiction Book Club. It delivers exactly what it says on the tin. 

This book has been out of print since its first and only printing in 2005 [1]. It seems to be surprising available as a used book (which I would not have expected) but I was spared the immense difficulty of ordering and waiting for a copy, as I already owned an early cut of the book, thanks to my then job at the Science Fiction Book Club. 

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1948’s Beyond This Horizon¹ is a standalone novel by Robert A. Heinlein. 

The development of workable methods for genetic selection sparked two genocidal wars. But all that’s in the past. The world has recovered. The Americas are practically a utopia. A long-running program aimed at creating the perfect human is close to completion. The latest iteration is Hamilton Felix. He would be the perfect man save for two flaws: 

• He could have a perfect memory (or so think the program planners²).

• He refuses to marry and produce the child who would be the perfect human. 

Oh, and his pal Monroe-Alpha has committed a spot of treason. We’ll get to that later. 

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The Day After Tomorrow is an alternate title for Robert A. Heinlein’s mercifully standalone Yellow Peril novel, Sixth Column.

Fifty years after the Noninterference Act ended contact between America and PanAsia, PanAsia launches a sudden and overwhelming attack on the US. Armed with superior military intelligence and impressive weapons, the PanAsians crush the Americans. Having won the war, the PanAsians move onto the next phase of their plan: reducing white Americans to slaves in a land they once called their own. 

All is not lost. The Citadel remains, an advanced military research facility overlooked by the PanAsians. It is America’s last hope. 

If only most of the personnel were not dead. 

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I no longer remember why I thought it would be a good idea to review 1973’s Time Enough For Love. It is by no means the worst of Heinlein’s books — that’s probably Number of the Beast, although I am told that The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, which I have not read, gives NotB a run for its money — but considered as a whole, TEFL is not very good. It is, however, very long. As is this review. 

And yes, I am aware this book was nominated for a Nebula ¹, a Hugo², and a Locus ³.

Lazarus Long was a mere 213 years old when he first appeared in Methuselah’s Children . By the beginning of TEFL, he is an impressive two millennia old. Time weighs heavily on the ancient grognard. All he wants to do die. 

His descendants are not done with him and while dying may be every person’s right, it is not one Lazarus will get to enjoy. Chairman pro tem of the planet Secundus, Ira Weatherall, tempts the Methuselah with the one thing he cannot resist: an audience. 

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Robert A. Heinlein’s 1963 fix-up novel, Orphans of the Sky, was originally published in two parts, Universe and Common Sense, in 1941. I have chosen it for my 100^th Because My Tears are Delicious to You review both because it was extraordinarily influential on a very specific subgenre, but also because it happens to be an important book to me. More on both later.

Hugh Hoyland has lived his entire life in the Ship. Indeed, he cannot imagine a life elsewhere, because as far as he and his people are concerned, the Ship is the whole of the universe. An inquisitive young man, his curiosity and native intelligence win him a place as a Scientist, one of the aristocrats of the Ship. Lucky for him, because the alternative destination for inconveniently curious young men is the converter, where their dissolution will provide power to the Ship.

Hugh’s curiosity proves his undoing; his exploration party is ambushed by Mutes and he is left for dead. 

His story does not end there.

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