Reviews

Everything I can say is a spoiler. When I picked up the book, I knew nothing about it. And everything about it was surprising. So, I'll hide my review from those that do not want the surprise to be spoiled. Those who have read it, go ahed.

Spoiler

Half the book is a libertarian/prepper post-apocalyptic wish-fulfillment fantasy. And the other half is an interesting distopyan thought experiment about race. It was first published in 1967. Five years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, still in the height of the fear of nuclear anihilation, during the Cold War. And before the 1968 Civil Rights Act, that would become one of the most important steps to fight segregation in the EUA. Heinlein writes a strange book. Half of it has a survavalist appeal. A bunch of people are struggling to survive, after a nuclear disaster. And they seem to be doing quite well. They don't seem to need much clothes, at first. The lead character uses military draconian discipline to impose himself, in a martial law kind of way. Then things get a little better, when they can get out of the bunker. Not much happens, plot wise. But then, they get caught by people. There are people in this world. And they get to find what world this is. They are in the future. In the far future. 2000 year have passed. And the future is a dictatorship, where africans and indians, or people of african and indian ancestry became the ruling class, and those of light skin became slaves. It would be interesting to find what was the criticism Heinlein faced at the time. Heinlein is not the most effective political creator of such a story. Ursula K. Le Guin, in her stories about planets Yeowe and Werel, created a very consistent world of masters and slaves, where the color of the skin mattered, and the colors happened to be different from our usual dichotomy white/black. Robert E. Heinlein falls into a trap.

He cannot, suficientely, raise his narrative above the easy criticism that his story conveys a common sense worldview "they're just as racist as white people". The fact that his black character sell out, and prefers to live in the dictatorship as a master, instead of going back to the past with his "white friends", helps with this notion. The story that Heinlein created is a good one. And the society that he constructed even seems to be echoed in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, 30 years later. He was able to show how human societies can regress. And gave us a dystopian future, 2000 years from then, with a highly repressive patriarchal society, that had castes of slaves, regarding them as stuff, to be broken and used. He should have been able to go beyond that illusion that we have created of having a white race and a black race. This book is probably too much a product of his time. Or not enough.

bent's review against another edition

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I have to admit that this is the first of Heinlein's books that I've attempted to read, and I couldn't get past the introduction and the first chapter. The dialogue and action is so corny and lousy that I couldn't bear to read any more. I'll admit the introduction to the book didn't really pique my interest, and flipping through the book I didn't see anything worth continuing to make an effort. I haven't given up on Heinlein - I'll still give Stranger in a Strange Land or Starship Troopers a shot - but if the tin ear for dialogue he exhibits in the first chapter is any indication, I don't think I'm going to be a Heinlein fan.

hamaker's review against another edition

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I have no memory of this book's contents at all, which is a review in and of itself.

andrew_c's review against another edition

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1.0

A steaming pustule of racism & misogyny masquerading as a novella.

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