The Number of the Beast

Dec 26, 2007 Owen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Well-read nerds

This book is to science fiction literature as Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is to cinema: a big, fat, sloppy, self-indulgent love letter to everything its creator holds dear. The first time I read it I hated it, but a few years later I got into an argument about it with someone at a party and decided to give it another try just so I could feel good about being right. Um, it's... yeah, it's kind of great. The more of the references you get, the better it is, so just re-read it every few years un...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Kat Hooper rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.

When I was a kid I loved some of Robert A. Heinlein’s “Juveniles” — science fiction stories for children and teens. Red Planet was one of my favorites and I must have read it at least five times. These novels are part of the reason I kept reading science fiction — they left such an impression on my young mind.

Despite this nostalgia, I haven’t read Heinlein in years. When Blackstone Audio recently started releasing some of his later novels on audio, I thoug...more Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.

When I was a kid I loved some of Robert A. Heinlein’s “Juveniles” — science fiction stories for children and teens. Red Planet was one of my favorites and I must have read it at least five times. These novels are part of the reason I kept reading science fiction — they left such an impression on my young mind.

Despite this nostalgia, I haven’t read Heinlein in years. When Blackstone Audio recently started releasing some of his later novels on audio, I thought it was time to check out some I’d never read. The first one I tried was The Number of the Beast, written in 1980 after a seven-year hiatus brought on by ill health when Heinlein was in his seventies.

This story starts when professor Zebadiah John Carter meets Deety (short for Dejah Thoris) Burroughs and her father, mathematician Jacob Burroughs, at a party hosted by a socialite named Hilda Corners. Within minutes, Zebadiah and Deety are engaged and Jacob’s car is bombed by unknown attackers. Zebadiah, Deety, Jacob, and Hilda flee in Zeb’s flying car, Jacob and Hilda decide to get married, and they all hide out in a cabin where Jacob has been working on a device that can access parallel universes. Soon the couples are visiting places such as Oz, Lilliput, and Barsoom (fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs will already have noticed that Zeb and Deety’s names come from the BARSOOM novels). There are lots of SFF in-jokes and Heinlein self-referentially brings in some of his characters from his previous books (he’s assuming you’ve read them) and even he and his wife are mentioned.

The audio production of The Number of the Beast was excellent. It was read by a cast of top-tier narrators: Bernadette Dunne, Emily Durante, Malcom Hillgartner, Sean Runnette, Paul Michael Garcia, and Tom Weiner. They were exceptional. Unfortunately, the story was wretchedly awful and I was not able to finish it. It started off bad from the very first scene and persevered in its badness until I started skimming and finally gave up. (“Life’s too short.”)

Most of the problem was the characters and their non-stop obnoxious dialogue and interactions. We hear from all four points of view and every one of them is odious. The first one we hear from is Zebadiah as he’s dancing with Deety who he’s just met at Hilda’s party. He’s looking down her dress and wishing she’d shut up. Then he asks her about her cleavage: “Is that cantilevering natural, or is there an invisible bra, you being in fact the sole support of two dependents?” Fortunately for Zeb, Deety is just as infatuated with her “teats” as he is and is happy to discuss all of their perfections (often), and all of her other perfections (often), with us every time it’s her turn to talk. To be fair, I must admit that she’s quick to alert us of her imperfections in great detail, too, such as the body odor which requires her to soak in a hot soapy tub twice daily. (Thank you, Deety.)

Despite his annoyance with Deety’s chatter, once they are much better acquainted (i.e., three minutes later), the two are engaged and off they go to get married, with Jacob and Hilda in tow. When they arrive at the cabin, after Jacob’s car is bombed, things get even worse. Now Jacob and Hilda are hitched, too, and the four of them are running around scantily clad. Each in turn regales us with his or her sleazy interior monologues (Deety’s teats are frequently the subject) and the four of them together engage in constant banter that’s supposed to be clever, witty, and provocative but is usually just vulgar, sexist, and boring. When Deety takes off her bikini top in front of her father, and then says that she wouldn’t have refused him if he’d made advances toward her when she was younger, I knew I’d suffered long enough. I stuck it out a bit longer just because I was in the car and had nothing else to listen to and I hoped The Number of the Beast might redeem itself but, looking back, I would have profited more from listening to my squeaky fanbelt.

How sad it is to hate a novel written by an author you loved in your youth. I used to think of Robert A. Heinlein as one of my heroes, but now I find out he was a self-indulgent perverted narcissist with a breast fetish and an obsession with incest. To protect my memories, and to give Heinlein the benefit of the doubt, I’d like to assume that the dismal quality of Number of the Beast was caused by Heinlein’s poor health. I don’t know. I just feel really disappointed.(less)

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Feb 16, 2009 Manny rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

There's this terrible thing that happens to some science-fiction writers near the end of their careers: they want their oeuvre to make sense, with all the books related to each other in some complex structural way. I mean, who do they think they are, Balzac or Powell or someone? Get a grip, guys. You were just SF hacks. If you were lucky, you were good SF hacks, and be proud of that. Don't try and aim higher, because you'll regret it.

Well, it happened to Asimov, who disastrously attempted to lin...more

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Nov 27, 2007 Emu rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: someone trying to get over Heinlein entirely

Shelves: sci-fi, actual-score-of-zero-stars

I've been a big fan of Heinlein for years. But with each successive Heinlein book I read these days, my enthusiasm for his writing wanes just a bit more. This book was so dismal that it actually negatively affected my feelings about other Heinlein books (specifically Time Enough For Love).

In a nutshell, this is Heinlein at his most masturbatory. Towards the end of his career, he set out to tie together not only his own quite broad body of work but also the entire scope of human fiction, sending...more I've been a big fan of Heinlein for years. But with each successive Heinlein book I read these days, my enthusiasm for his writing wanes just a bit more. This book was so dismal that it actually negatively affected my feelings about other Heinlein books (specifically Time Enough For Love).

In a nutshell, this is Heinlein at his most masturbatory. Towards the end of his career, he set out to tie together not only his own quite broad body of work but also the entire scope of human fiction, sending his characters to Oz, Lilliput, etc., ad nauseum. He has his characters discuss his own books during a conversation about sci-fi, and later he even inserts himself and his wife (though they aren't actually present in the scene; they're only mentioned as being nearby).

The "big" idea here that Heinlein is trying to put forward is that writing fiction creates a real universe, as real as our own. The main characters have a device that lets them travel to other universes, and they find themselves interacting with characters from Stranger In A Strange Land, Time Enough For Love, and several other Heinlein stories. In the hands of someone with any modesty at all, this could be humorous and clever, but in the hands of a creepy old pervert like Heinlein, it's just an excuse to get some new characters to have orgies with characters he'd written years earlier.

Heinlein really scrapes the bottom of the barrel here in terms of sexual politics, too; he's famous for endorsing polyamory and multiple marriages, but in this book he seems to be trying to make the world safe for father/daughter incest. I would have loved to hear his half-baked rationale for that one...

Finally, I can't state this strongly enough: if you liked Time Enough For Love and want the memories of that book to stay untainted, stay away from this book. This book takes the edgy ideas of the other and acts as if they're commonplace, which only makes them seem reprehensible in the strong light of day. I'd give this zero stars if I could. Run while you still can.(less)

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Aug 26, 2011 Mike Moore rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book a long time ago, but it stayed with me... oh how it stayed with me. Go ahead and read some of the other one star reviews of this book that are here on goodreads. I'll wait.

...

So, having read them, you might want to ask me "Come on Mike, is this book really that bad?" I'm glad you asked, because it is. It really and truly is. This book is bad in the way that only a master like Heinlein could achieve. Other bad books can only dream of being as bad as this. The hypothetical collect...more

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Apr 19, 2011 Jon rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Teats: A Hate Story

Exploring the super-multi-omniverse sounds like a simultaneously exhilarating and horrifying experience. I would imagine that, were I in the airborne equivalent of a Ford Focus with three of the people closest to me in this world (my brother having been murdered roundabout the same night I was nearly murdered, myself), I would be less concerned with things like maintaining command structure decorum. I also sincerely hope that I would not find vast expanses of breasts (sorry, t...more Teats: A Hate Story

Exploring the super-multi-omniverse sounds like a simultaneously exhilarating and horrifying experience. I would imagine that, were I in the airborne equivalent of a Ford Focus with three of the people closest to me in this world (my brother having been murdered roundabout the same night I was nearly murdered, myself), I would be less concerned with things like maintaining command structure decorum. I also sincerely hope that I would not find vast expanses of breasts (sorry, teats) as compelling as the draw of billions of universes populated by god-only-knows-what. In Number of the Beast, however, our four-man exploratory team is scarcely more interested in their improbable scientific exploits than I was when I took a Greyhound from Manhattan to Ohio. At night. In the rain.

Various reviewers have observed that each of the main characters resembles Heinlein himself. If that observation is accurate, then I am delighted that I never had the opportunity to meet the man, because I would have had to restrain a powerful urge to bring him physical harm. The dialogue in this book chiefly consists of dry, pedantic arguments about computer programming, tactical decision making, and the chain of command among civilians piloting a flying sedan. Most jarring, however, are the incessant asides -- some of them apparently meant to be instructive -- about the size, shape, pertness, and measurement capabilities of breasts. Indeed, the quasi-incestuous evening near the close of the book fails to generate even a basic reaction in the reader, as he has spent hundreds of pages having Deety’s “teats” (and eventually their interuniversal twins) described to him in myriad ways, the most regrettable simile likening her nipples to emotional “barometers.” Perhaps in some other setting, this dialogue would be appropriate; watching four highly intelligent individuals who have just discovered perhaps the most important scientific breakthrough in all of human existence behave this way is as asinine as the fact that a completely serviceable plot is wholly discarded to make room for more banal banter.

Speaking of the plot, the book opens with a rapid-fire introduction to the characters’ plight. Interdimensional “black hat” assassins are trying to crush our mammary-minded protagonists and their incredible new invention. Hailing from one of the myriad alternate universes, they apparently wish to keep this technology restricted to as few hands as possible. Despite nearly being killed three times, our “heroes” spend ample time consuming champagne, having picnic lunches, taking “teat-deep” bubble baths, and thinking disproportionately about trivial nonsense. Perhaps their disinterest in the plot is what ultimately saves them, a surfeit of stale exchanges about nothing armoring them against black hat assault. By the end of the book, nothing is cemented except the reader’s hatred of this story. Characters from other fictional works make impotent cameos; someone throws a party; Captain Zebediah J. Carter assembles the “that’s the last we’ll see of him” plot elimination machine; as the curtain closes, Heinlein pats himself on the back and goes for another in a series of long bubble baths.

To say that my experience with this book was dissatisfying would be to describe chemotherapy as mildly unpleasant. A collection of irredeemable absurdity wrapped in disingenuous jacket copy, this book merely masquerades as literature. Whatever magic Heinlein worked with his previous writing, it is evident that the reader he charmed the most was himself.

In summary: Number of the Beast is a dismal novel that aspires to being forgettable.(less)

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Aug 13, 2012 Smcleish rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

Originally published on my blog here in August 2000.

As Heinlein got older, his books became more self-indulgent; Number of the Beast is interesting when tracing his development as a writer because it marks out the particular ways in which that would become manifest, though there are traces of it in some of his earlier writing. It is easy to criticise this book, which only hangs together very loosely, but it is still in the main an enjoyable read and has some interesting features.

Jacob Burroughs...more Originally published on my blog here in August 2000.

As Heinlein got older, his books became more self-indulgent; Number of the Beast is interesting when tracing his development as a writer because it marks out the particular ways in which that would become manifest, though there are traces of it in some of his earlier writing. It is easy to criticise this book, which only hangs together very loosely, but it is still in the main an enjoyable read and has some interesting features.

Jacob Burroughs is an engineer and physicist who has created a time machine, which also allows access to a multitude of alternate universes as called for by his theory of time and space (in which there are three time co-ordinates to match the three spatial ones). Enemies - aliens already familiar with this mechanism - discredit his work and then try to kill him, and he only escapes with his family by the skin of his teeth.

Making Jacob the centre of the story is convenient for summarising how it begins, but he is not the dominant character of the novel. The four members of his family are all more or less equally important for most of it, though his wife Hilda gradually occupies the spotlight more and more of the time.

Though the arch style in which the first part is told is frequently annoying - occasionally it is as amusing as it is intended to be - the real self indulgence only become apparent when Heinlein begins to chronicle the other universes to where his central characters travel. Without justification (and that is important in science fiction), he makes these universes worlds which are described in the fiction of the Burroughs' home universe, and so they include Oz, Lilliput, Camelot and various pieces of science fiction. Then, in the third part, the universe is that of much of Heinlein's own writing: they meet characters from others of his novels, most importantly Lazarus Long, a long term favourite of the author.

It is from this point that the novel really begins to fall apart, until it ends on an incoherent note at a vast conference attended by delegates from an incredible number of fictional universes. Having many characters from other Heinlein novels does not really help matters, as it merely emphasises how few different ones he was capable of creating.

It is possible to criticise the physics behind the novel, even from a pre-string theory point of view. Burroughs' model of the universe has six co-ordinates, of which four are experienced at a time (three spatial, one temporal). He is able to rotate relative to these, and so for example experience duration on what is normally a spatial co-ordinate. The time axis is different from the others. It has a direction associated with it and, assuming some variant of big bang theory to hold, a minimal value. Neither of these properties holds for the spatial co-ordinates, and this makes a transformation which turns one into the other rather suspect. The original motivation for the idea of six co-ordinates is that there shouldn't be an asymmetry between the number of spatial and the number of temporal co-ordinates. However, this asymmetry is no sooner removed than it is re-introduced, as it is pointed out that we only experience one temporal dimension at a time, even though we see three spatial ones.

Another problem may only lie in the way that things are explained. Heinlein uses the system as though the co-ordinates for the universes need to be what is called orthogonal - at right angles to one another. This is not the case; they only need to be linearly independent - none of them able to be made up as combinations of the others - to ensure that six co-ordinates can pick out any point. There is also no particular direction which is more important than any of the others; we only tend to think automatically in the (approximately) orthogonal set up, left and forwards because we live oriented by a gravitiational field (so up and down make sense).

There are other, less critical errors: Heinlein seems to have misunderstood Cantor's set theory so much that he really should not have used it, for example.

I suspect that for many the annoyances in The Number of the Beast will outweigh its merits, but I still find it enjoyable, one of those books to which I return when I am ill or tired.(less)

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Mar 25, 2012 Alex Ramsch rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I haven't read much Heinlein, and what I've read previously wasn't referenced in this work. Maybe I'd have liked it more if I were more familiar with his future history series or other such, but it wasn't the in-jokes and references I found off-putting. The story was slow, and very little happened during its 500-and-some pages. The characters seemed immature, self-absorbed, and even borderline insane. This is much more fantasy than it is science fiction. I never thought I'd see loads of pop-cult...more I haven't read much Heinlein, and what I've read previously wasn't referenced in this work. Maybe I'd have liked it more if I were more familiar with his future history series or other such, but it wasn't the in-jokes and references I found off-putting. The story was slow, and very little happened during its 500-and-some pages. The characters seemed immature, self-absorbed, and even borderline insane. This is much more fantasy than it is science fiction. I never thought I'd see loads of pop-culture references mixed with such solipsism. WARNING: The rest of this review contains spoilers; read at your own risk.

This book, to me, was just bad. It was slow, boring, loaded with details that I don't really care about, and has characters I'd never want to be associated with. The group spent so much time worrying about who would command their group that they seemed to forget about the "black hats" (I grew to hate that term), who were aliens out to murder them all. If secretive aliens nuked my secret house, I'd rearrange my priorities a bit. But the characters make virtually no effort to stop the aliens or even warn their homeworld (they tried making a phone call and then gave up). These people are supposed to be smart, but they come off as rather stupid ("Someone just tried to blow me up! Let's all get married!"). All they do is bicker with pedantic pomposity.

I mentioned details I'm not concerned with, but didn't elaborate. I shall. I could have done without the mathematical analysis of the machine and its workings, because I'm not a theoretical physicist. I also wouldn't have minded if he'd skipped over the details of their car being programmed; the code was foreign to me and meant very little, and reading code is boring anyway. After a while, I just skimmed the page until such gibberish ceased. Perhaps, if I were a mathematician, I would have enjoyed it more.

Even without the time spent on seemingly-pointless endeavors (mainly on Mars), the irritating characters, and the constant preaching about the way "advanced" cultures think and act, there is still one element that I found utterly appalling. It was their method of travel. I'll let go the fact that his "time-twister" fit into a space the size of a portable sewing machine, but the fact that it required zero power and could teleport itself and others through any dimension just by spinning a gyroscope?! It was so absurd, I was offended.

Don't get me wrong, I love the premise, but the execution was cruel and unusual for this reader at least. There's a lot of potential in this idea, and I think Heinlein butchered it completely in this novel. I was utterly bewildered by the last chapter, and couldn't understand why it was even in the book. I guess it was supposed to bring closure to the "black hat" sub-plot, but all it did was bring in an alien for a few seconds and then have him fall out of the sky (I think). I put this book down confused and feeling mildly disgusted (partially at myself for reading it). I've barely read any of Heinlein's work, and I'd don't want to read any more.(less)

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Mar 21, 2012 Alan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Forgiving souls

Recommended to Alan by: Previous work

Fair warning: this is going to be a contrarian review. The Number of the Beast is roundly recognized to be one of legendary sf author Robert A. Heinlein's very worst novels, right down there with I Will Fear No Evil and his final living works, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls and To Sail Beyond the Sunset. This particular book was written, in fact, while Heinlein was suffering from a debilitating arterial condition that starved his brain of oxygen and caused him to sleep about 16 hours a day... n...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Will Thomas rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: robert-a-heinlein

"He's a Mad Scientist and I'm his Beautiful Daughter."

Even in 1980 who would dare start a serious science fiction novel like that? Robert A. Heinlein, that's who. I bought it the year it came out and I read it until it fell apart. I'm working on wearing out my second copy now.

That is how Zeb Carter meets Deety Burroughs, at a party at the home of Hilda Corners. Soon the three, plus Deety's father Dr. Jacob Burroughs, will just miss dying in an explosion through Zeb's weird superpower (He knows w...more "He's a Mad Scientist and I'm his Beautiful Daughter."

Even in 1980 who would dare start a serious science fiction novel like that? Robert A. Heinlein, that's who. I bought it the year it came out and I read it until it fell apart. I'm working on wearing out my second copy now.

That is how Zeb Carter meets Deety Burroughs, at a party at the home of Hilda Corners. Soon the three, plus Deety's father Dr. Jacob Burroughs, will just miss dying in an explosion through Zeb's weird superpower (He knows when a disaster is about to strike a split-second before it hits, and the way he knows is that he realizes he has jumped out of the way before he consciously knew there was anything to jump out of the way of!) Zeb and Deety run off and elope (Jake and Hilda decide to make it a double wedding), and the four hide out in the Burroughs' underground hideaway.

It turns out that Jake has perfected a way to travel through dimensions. Best of all, they come to realize that every work of fiction is a real world in another dimension. So they meet one of E. E. Smith's Grey Lensmen. They have a picnic with Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (That's Lewis Carroll to you). And they spend a couple of nights in Oz. Finally they end up joining themselves to Heinlein's greatest hero, Lazarus Long.

In his later years, Heinlein's novels became increasingly raunchy. I think this one is about at the halfway mark for raunch. In my opinion, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Though it can be.

In a few of Heinlein's novels, sadly including this one, his ending disappoints. When I was preaching, occasionally I would realize "It's time to end this thing," and I wasn't sure how! Sometimes I just had to quit.

This book seems to end like that. No real resolution, not even a decent pause, as if "To be continued" is about to play across the screen. It just suddenly stops.

All the same, I love this book, and I read it over and over, like revisiting an old friend. This book is an old friend to me, one I loved instantly and have come only to love more as the decades have passed.

My description makes it sound silly. It's not. In the hands of a master like Heinlein, even such a preposterous plot works. I wonder if that isn't what he set out to do.(less)

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Jul 29, 2011 Troy rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

Well, I definitely did not enjoy this one. To be honest, I quickly read the 2nd half of the book and only retained a bit of it. There was just nothing interesting at all in this book. Heinlein essentially takes the reader on the most boring escape in the universe as we listen to the characters banter back and forth for 500 pages without any real action whatsoever.

I am a Heinlein fan - I loved Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but this was garbage as far as I'm concern...more

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Jun 30, 2011 Anita rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I was in elementary school, I went through some boxes my uncle stored in our garage (I was a nosy kid), mostly stuff from his grad school years. Other than a ton of textbooks, I found his diary, some porn, and a bunch of science fiction books. To this day I credit my uncle for my love of sci fi. And porn. Just kidding. Sort of.

This book was in those boxes. I still have it, and it's totally falling apart. I've taped the cover back on a few times.

In elementary school, I could not get beyond t...more

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May 02, 2011 Valerie added it · review of another edition

I don't think I've ever read this in book form. It was first printed in serial form in (I think) Omni Magazine. I read it there, and don't think I ever bothered to seek out a final copy.

I liked a lot of the elements, such as the churches where people worshiped in the nude (as symbolic of their return to Edenic innocence, I guess--it wasn't really explained). I liked that Glinda the Good put a bathroom in the dimension hopper.

Most of the rest I found choppy and boring. If you just keep traveling...more

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Mar 26, 2011 Mike rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: No one.

Recommended to Mike by: Someone who read it when they were a horny teenager and was too hormone-addled to realize how dumb it was

I have not even read enough Heinlein to be over his ideas about sex and monogamy. I still find his attitudes toward sex, nudity, monogamy, etc intriguing and somewhat sexy to read about. That said, this book blows. It gets one star from the small part of me that is still a horny teenager, but the mature adult in me hated it.

The books is about four "supremely sensual, unspeakably cerebral humans" (from the book jacket) who are running from aliens trying to kill them. They have invented a device t...more

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Mar 20, 2011 ***Dave Hill rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: text

This was a re-read (I'm on my second paperback copy).

Despite spirited defenses of this book, I enjoy it solely because I enjoy RAH's writing style. Narratively, it moves along briskly in Part 1 (the setup) and half of Part 2 (Mars) ... but rapidly runs off the rails after that, turning into something I can only, charitably call self-indulgent. Given that he wrote much better in subsequent years (my favorite RAH novel is, in fact, the very next one he wrote), I have to consider it a lapse, an exp...more

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Jul 21, 2010 Sherri rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I FINALLY got around to reading this book after repeated suggestions from just about every fellow Heinlein lover I know. I have to say, I was tremendously disappointed. I think Heinlein's stuff is great. I love the stories, the debates and the politic-ing that goes in to his stuff. I love how all his characters value self-reliance. This book, however, just got foolish. The story features four characters, all of whom are handsome/beautiful, brilliant, handy with a number of weapons, able to pick...more

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Nov 14, 2012 Delicious Strawberry rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, robert-a-heinlein

I like Robert A Heinlein. This book is clever in many asepcts - the Continua Device, the exploration of other worlds and the possibility that worlds we see as fiction (like the Land of Oz) actually exist in other universes, and Heinlein is brilliant when it comes to science, there is some 'hard science' in here. I enjoyed the intellectual parts.

However, the 'free love' and walking around naked gets really old. His later works had a lot of this in it, and to be honest, it got old fast after the f...more

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Oct 26, 2012 Sheldon rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this Heinlein book fairly soon after it came out, possibly 1981-1982. Prior to reading "The Number of the Beast" (also referred to as TNotB) I'd read nearly everything Heinlein had written.

If you've never read any Heinlein, this is not the book to start with. Go read "Glory Road" and "Have Spacesuit Will Travel" and the classic "Stranger in a Strange Land." Then read "Door into Summer" and "Methuselah's Children." Read lots of other Heinlein books before this one. You'll be glad you did....more I read this Heinlein book fairly soon after it came out, possibly 1981-1982. Prior to reading "The Number of the Beast" (also referred to as TNotB) I'd read nearly everything Heinlein had written.

If you've never read any Heinlein, this is not the book to start with. Go read "Glory Road" and "Have Spacesuit Will Travel" and the classic "Stranger in a Strange Land." Then read "Door into Summer" and "Methuselah's Children." Read lots of other Heinlein books before this one. You'll be glad you did.

To me it seemed like I was reading nearly every other Heinlein book written, plus all sorts of other writer's tropes thrown in for good measure. A hint of its origins starts out with the first two character's surnames, Burroughs and Carter, seemed to be derived from W.R. Burroughs author of the John Carter series. A number of improbable things happen straight away (in RAH novels, they always do) and the romp begins.

I see the main characters as exceptionally idealized, almost to the point of a single character being reflected in a 3-way mirror. Much of the pages and pages of banter comes across so much like RAH's circular debating in many of his other books. It like he's more talking out concepts to himself than trying to construct an actual conversation or plot line, while the reader is just there, listening in whether they like it or not.

In "Number of the Beast" ideas are continuously bandied about, improbable, belief-suspending ideas, and then held up as fact. It smacks of nostalgia, offering up such nutty, fantastical devices and concepts as would be manifested in 1930s sci-fi. Pages and pages of wonky explanation and unintelligible technobabble try to make the developments more quantified, it's still hard to swallow.

If you've read lots of Heinlein's work, this will be an interesting read, if, for no other reason, to see where the origins and extensions of his other books have oddly migrated into and depart from here. Not only that, but to see where he has incorporated a few other sci-fi and literature concepts and added them in for some flavor makes it a bit of an egg hunt. My favorite is when the car becomes inter-dimensional itself, and instead of being the equivalent of a feisty compact, now has enough room for everything imaginable (T.A.R.D.I.S., anyone?).

There is lots to put up with. RAH's notions of sexuality, some of his outlandish descriptions and verbal use seem out of touch even with when it was written. Read lots of the other reviews for descriptions of his odd moral and societal views. I'd since found out that he'd been suffering from a brain tumor while writing this, so that may explain the books odd contortions. Delusion? Illusion? Regardless, RAH's fever-dreams are more interesting than anything I'd conceive.

One reviewer I read said "It's complete garbage. That being said, it's garbage at the top of the pile."

If you don't take it too seriously and don't expect too much, it's glorious garbage, indeed.

TLDR: "Number of the Beast" is a huge, dense pile of crap, but if you like Heinlein, it may be interesting to read, anyway.(less)

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Sep 11, 2008 Sara rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Someone who hasn't read Heinlein yet

Shelves: didntfinish

After exhaustive research, I have determined that all Heinlein books are mostly about: time and/or space travel, utopian familial structures, casual nudity, physics, incest, human nature, and what is intended to be witty banter. That sounds interesting, and it was the first 2 or 3 times. At this point though, I feel like I'm reading the same book over and over. Which is why I made it maybe 50 pages into this and called it quits.

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Jul 21, 2011 Anabel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Anabel by: Rfog

Shelves: among-others-list

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. **Él es un Científico Loco y yo soy su Hermosa Hija.** Eso es lo que ella dijo: el viejo cliché de los antiguos pulps. Pero no era lo bastante vieja como para recordar los pulps. Lo único que se puede hacer con una observación estúpida es fingir no haberla oído. Seguí bailando el vals mientras echaba otra mirada a su vestido de noche. Una vista encantadora. Nada de relleno de espuma. Bailaba bien el vals.**

En alguna parte he leído, y lo comparto, que una buena novela lo es, en parte, por sus pri...more

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Jun 17, 2009 Eric Tracy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The premise is that there are as many alternate dimensions, or realities, as the number of the beast, (or 666) and that every time a fiction is created by an author, a corresponding reality is created that can be visited by "the mad scientist's" cool little machine. (I guess if someone goes and writes story number 667 then lives are lost elsewhere...or something.)

This is actually the one that got me hooked on Heinlein, and it did it because it was titillating and quirky. It was a condensation in...more

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Feb 14, 2010 Pete rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is one of my fondest "literary" (is Heinlein actually literary?) memories from my teen years. About a year ago, I set out to re-read the entire World As Myth sequence. Oddly, they were all readily available from the library, except this one, which is, of course, first. I had given up on it and was surprised to find it ready for pickup.

I still enjoy this book, though probably for different reasons these days. The story is a lot of fun, and the concept of being able to enter the worlds o...more

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Aug 03, 2007 Alecto rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I got this book from my parents for my birthday. Obviously they didn't know what they were getting. Yes, it is cheesy. It's the first Heinlein I ever read. One thing it did was show me that there were many different ways to live besides what I saw in the small town I lived in. I gave it a high rating based on it's eye-opening affect it had on a naive 14 y.o.

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Mar 05, 2011 Chad rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi-fantasy

What a weird book. And by 'weird', I don't mean that tangible sci-fi brilliance that gets under your skin and opens your mind to all the incredible possibilities of human endeavors. I mean, it's weird that Heinlein would think it a coherent idea to write this book at all, and even weirder still that a publisher would fund its release. Its content is a convoluted mishmash of Heinlein's worst excesses, including endless chummy banter that probably makes up 60-70% of the page count, characters from...more What a weird book. And by 'weird', I don't mean that tangible sci-fi brilliance that gets under your skin and opens your mind to all the incredible possibilities of human endeavors. I mean, it's weird that Heinlein would think it a coherent idea to write this book at all, and even weirder still that a publisher would fund its release. Its content is a convoluted mishmash of Heinlein's worst excesses, including endless chummy banter that probably makes up 60-70% of the page count, characters from other Heinlein novels showing up in droves with little to no explanation, and a pervy obsession with free love and women wanting to have as many babies as humanly possible.

The plot is completely nonexistent, making little use of its inciting incident in which our quartet of heroes are attacked by mysterious aliens and must flee to alternate universes using the 'continua machine' invented by the senior, mad scientist, member of the gang. Lest you think anything will come of the universe-jumping, nothing ever does, aside from thinly related side-adventures that serve to educate the reader (and the characters) on how the continua device works. Perhaps such a story-telling tactic is necessary, but when it takes up 250 pages of a 500 page novel, it starts to feel a bit excessive.

After their adventures carry them to realms as diverse as a communist controlled Mars, an Earth without the letter 'J', and Oz, it feels like the novel might begin to move into an actual plot. The heroes' rocket meets, in deep space, a ship commanded by Heinlein's ubiquitous Methuselah, Lazarus Long, who offers up a mission that seems to finally give the novel some direction. But the mission is dispensed with in a few paragraphs, and it becomes evident that Lazararus and his gang have only shown up so the creepy sex-obsessions can be kicked up a few notches, and Long's sprawling, multi-novel arc can plod forward.

Because what "The Number of the Beast" is, essentially, is a 300 page introduction to four new characters in the Heinlein-verse, and a 200 page prologue explaining how in the hell Lazarus Long can show up in "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls" which Heinlein would write five years later.

So why would I give such a mess of a book four stars?

Well, as chaotic and sloppy as the whole affair is, it also happens to be fun. And its the kind of fun I can have since I've read the previous entries in the Lazarus Long series. The first Heinlein novel I ever read, actually, was "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls", which is similar in that its cast also gets crashed by Lazarus and all his family with no explanation. I remember, at the time, being utterly confused and wondering if some key chapters had been left out of the book. In time, I learned that I had been reading what was one thread in a much larger tapestry. Reading "The Number of the Beast" does not in any way work as an isolated experience. But I'm not reading it in isolation. For me, its filling in the blanks of a story I started reading almost 15 years ago (and started on the wrong chapter, by the way).

Plus, the characters themselves are likeable, even if they are cartoonish in their clever, sensual, geniusness.

If you're into Heinlein and haven't done so yet, I recommend you go read "Methuselah's Children", and follow the breadcrumbs through the various Lazarus Long stories, until you come upon this novel. With the proper background, its very likely you could enjoy "The Number of the Beast" should you make it that far.

Otherwise, it might be wiser to look elsewhere for a good sci-fi read.

(less)

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Jan 15, 2012 Katie King rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hard to answer why this book is still worth reading/listening to. I like it better than Stranger, which never did much for me I confess, and which Heinlein makes fun of in this book. I guess I am a sucker for the meta-fictional elements and the sheer fun of it. As with much other Heinlein the politics are so mixed up and so unlike my own and yet cause me to swallow how rather formulaic my own can be, that I never know how to use that part. As a feminist I feel confronted by my own utilitarianism...more

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Apr 24, 2012 Gabriel C. rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: among-others, 2012

So something very terrible has happened. After I finished Time Enough for Love, I tried to start reading this book and I got about 30 pages in before every fiber of my being rebelled. I had been, I thought, incurably Heinlein-poisoned. I stopped reading. I felt a tremendous relief. I realized I didn't have to read another page of Heinlein ever. But then, I don't know, my body metabolized it. I'VE DEVELOPED A TOLERANCE! I picked it up yesterday and read a few pages and they didn't bother me. Then...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Allyson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My best friend (at the time) gave me this book in tenth grade and said, "Here, read this." It was the first Heinlein novel I read; I had never heard of the author before. It was a great story and I was hooked from the first words, although I remember being a bit confused toward the end when some of Heinlein's characters from other books appeared. Since two of the main characters were named for characters in the Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars novels, reading this book led me to investigate those as we...more

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Apr 09, 2012 Stephanie rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found this unreadable years ago. I want to give it another try, despite the bad reviews. I was heart-broken by this book when I found the explanation for its deviating so badly from the quality that I had come to expect of my beloved author.

He published it right before being diagnosed with a brain tumor. The brain tumor explained a LOT about this book. I did not expect him to recover. Fortunately, however, he did make a good recovery, and returned to masterful writing.

For those of you who migh...more

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Mar 23, 2011 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

WARNING: Do not read this book until you have read Heinlein’s Time Enough For Love, Revolt in 2100, Methuselah’s Children, Stranger in a Strange Land, Glory Road, Podkayne of Mars,and The Rolling Stones. You should also have at least a familiarity with The Land of Oz, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars series, and Wonderland. Fans of Science Fiction from the 1940’s to 1980’s will be most capapble of enjoying the work in its entirety.

During the last years of his life, it seems Heinlein had a desire to ga...more

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Mar 05, 2012 Larry rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was looking forward to reading this and it started off quite pleasantly, I was enjoying the story, such as it was, but then it got dull, quickly, that is about a third of the way in, and its a 500+ page book.

Basically a scientist invents a dimension jumping machine cum time machine, based around an old Ford car, and he comes up with a theory of the number of universes based on the number 6 raised to the power of 6, 6 times - 6 6 6. A group is assembled, a kind of family group, off on their jol...more

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