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Originally Posted by Andybaby
Interesting, that was my least favorite of the Lazarus Series, not time enough for love?
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Time Enough For Love is a classic but it's slow, ponderous, and contains a lot of filler. While it is primarily pieces from Lazarus' life, and each piece is designed to illustrate a particular point, it includes a lot of extraneous material that interrupt any flow of storytelling.
One passage regarding Lazarus running the local bank is pretty much just an excuse for Heinlein to explain his Libertarian theory of money and money supply. It's good stuff, but not very relevant to what goes before or after.
He spends half a chapter addressing the fact that it's okay for a particular brother and sister to crossbreed. Now, most modern sci-fi writers would just gloss that over; e.g. "I did a genetic scan and the two were compatible." Instead, we get page after page of Lazarus analyzing the percentage possibilities of two negative traits reinforcing. Okay, I appreciate the small diversion into hard sf, but he doesn't stop there... he goes through each step of mitosis, pairing, division, etc. He explores best case and worst case scenarios. He does an approximation, and then does it all over again for a better approximation.
And he's STILL not done. He then constructs a very elaborate analogy with a deck of cards to explain these odds to the brother and sister, again going through each step. By the end of it my eyes glazed over; I wasn't bothering to check if Heinlein's math was correct, nor did I care; just tell me and move on, please!
I think To Sail Beyond the Sunset is the best work, not only because it is not hampered by such scenes, but also because it's a summation that's best appreciated through the lens of his other books, at least those that are part of Future History. I confess it probably also speaks to me personally because a good part of it is really a historical narrative of a girl growing up in rural Missouri, something I can relate to and in a time period I can imagine my parents and grandparents growing up in.
If I had to pick another Heinlein book to top the list it would be The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress or The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (though the latter suffers from not having an ending).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andybaby
The Number of the Beast by Robert Heinlein (it gets bad reviews sometimes but I love it)
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It's not nearly as bad as its reputation (the Oz part is particularly charming), but I think it also suffers from some of the weaknesses Time Enough For Love does. A lot of repetitive discussion about time coordinates, the difficulties of command, etc. And a lot of jumping through hoops to explain the precise workings of each voice command they assign to the Gay Deceiver, and making sure in every scene the proper sequence of words is said aloud and executed correctly. I don't need an explanation of Warp Drive every time the helmsman pushes a button, nor do I need to know every button he pushes, you know?
And I say these things as a Heinlein Fan who has read almost all his stuff (just a few juveniles to go). It's all great writing; I can't think of a bad story except maybe "Lost Legacy".