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cabridges 's review for:
The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes
by David Weber, Robert A. Heinlein
I was a supporter of the Kickstarter campaign that brought this about and I'm glad I did. I liked "The Pursuit of the Pankera" a lot. The idea is that Heinlein wrote this to be published simultaneously with "The Number of the Beast" as a physical demonstration of the multiple worlds concept and it was found in his papers by the people cataloging everything. He had told someone once that it was all written and there it was, ready to be put in order. The man behind the project was very clear when he said nothing was added. It might not be the final book Heinlein would have produced, but there is nothing in it that is not Heinlein's.
Personally, after I read it I came away with the feeling that this was the real book and "The Number of the Beast" was the indulgent fanfic written about it.
As with "The Number of the Beast," the book follows four people -- a scientist, his daughter, a man they believe to be a scientist in the father's field, and their socialite friend. The scientist has developed a device to twist space and time to permit traveling through dimensions and as they're all working it out (and celebrating their marriages) they get attacked by an alien mascarading as a human being. It becomes very clear that this race is out to destroy anyone with this technology and they flee through the dimensions to make a strange discovery: anyplace anyone has ever invented is real, somewhere.
The books are identical up to when they land on Mars and go on their first excursion, and then they go wildly different. In Beast they may have seen banths but they leave before finding out. Here, they go straight into Barsoom and stay there for several chapters. Their visits to other fictional lands are similar but they avoid a few more from Beast and spend a great deal of time in one they ducked out of in the original.
The book's plot is much more straight-forward, with much more emphasis on battling the aliens, a plot that sort of dropped away in Beast. One huge chunk (and the whole ending) are gone, as is a lot of the philosophy, discussions of command and lifeboat rules, and kinda-cringy sex from Beast.
It doesn't replace Beast for me; cheesy as it is, I still love the original. But I'm very glad to have read this alternate version.
Personally, after I read it I came away with the feeling that this was the real book and "The Number of the Beast" was the indulgent fanfic written about it.
As with "The Number of the Beast," the book follows four people -- a scientist, his daughter, a man they believe to be a scientist in the father's field, and their socialite friend. The scientist has developed a device to twist space and time to permit traveling through dimensions and as they're all working it out (and celebrating their marriages) they get attacked by an alien mascarading as a human being. It becomes very clear that this race is out to destroy anyone with this technology and they flee through the dimensions to make a strange discovery: anyplace anyone has ever invented is real, somewhere.
The books are identical up to when they land on Mars and go on their first excursion, and then they go wildly different. In Beast they may have seen banths but they leave before finding out. Here, they go straight into Barsoom and stay there for several chapters. Their visits to other fictional lands are similar but they avoid a few more from Beast and spend a great deal of time in one they ducked out of in the original.
The book's plot is much more straight-forward, with much more emphasis on battling the aliens, a plot that sort of dropped away in Beast. One huge chunk (and the whole ending) are gone, as is a lot of the philosophy, discussions of command and lifeboat rules, and kinda-cringy sex from Beast.
It doesn't replace Beast for me; cheesy as it is, I still love the original. But I'm very glad to have read this alternate version.