The Bookaholic

Ah, Robert Heinlein.  Sometimes, I just have to reread some of his stuff.  It could be because I’m slightly masochistic.

Take one sanctimonious evangelical preacher, one typical Heinlein female (very smart, very beautiful, willing to defer to her man’s wishes) a bunch of world-hopping and a bushel of Heinlein’s trademark preaching (in this case, mostly about religion and social mores), and you get Job: A Comedy of Justice.  That makes it sound like I hate the book, doesn’t it?  I don’t.  But after 40 years of reading his in-your-face morality, I do think it’s terribly over-the-top.

But that’s Heinlein for you.  We of the gentler sex need to be protected and cared for.

Um, yeah.  I don’t buy it either.

Still, the whole concept of the story seriously amuses me, which is why I to bother to read it every few years.  Yahweh and Lucifer are brothers, and playing this little game… except Yahweh sets all the rules and cheats on top of it.  Poor Alex gets stuck in the middle.

So if you can get past Heinlein’s 1950s “progressive” morality, it’s quite a good story.

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I snuck a fiction book into my bag. I was cleaning off the table, registering books at Bookcrossing, and realized Variable Star by Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson was at the bottom of a pile. Oh my! I had not read this book.

Interesting how the book came about. Apparently, the outline had been languishing in the back of a closet or something and when Mrs. H passed away somebody came across it and decided it was a story that should be written. Kewl. I’ll say it certainly is written in the style of Heinlein. Robinson has his tone nailed, including the morality of a guy stuck in the 50s trying ever so hard to be hip to the sexual revolution. Fortunately for this feminist, Robinson is much more subtle about it than the Grand Master was, so I’m rather enjoying the book.

I’ll finish it up today or tomorrow, register it, then send it off into the wild.

I need to find some rockin’ places to release books. If anyone has any suggestions, I’m all ears.

Amazon Associate link:
Variable Star

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