I’ve finally gotten over my aversion to Heinlin’s tendancy to over-describe the physical virtures of his female characters and decided to give his later books another try.
I started with “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” (loved it) and went back to my local Walden’s (not the bookstore of choice, just closer than the local used-book store) and bought from their puny selection “Time Enough for Love.” Now I am about to finish “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.”
In what book does Lazarus first appear? What is the best order to read the Lazarus Long books in order to follow the time line and characters more easily? Does anyone else find the overt sexuality a little offputting? Believe me I’m no prude, but it seems to distract from and have nothing to do with the best parts of the books, namely the science and theory. My husband says for me to keep in mind this is romance novels for geeks.
Anyway, some guidance in the Lazarus Long universes would be greatly appreciated.
Lazarus first showed up as one of the major characters in “Methuselah’s Children”. He came back as the major character in “Time Enough For Love”, and then as a supporting character in “The Number of the Beast”, “The Cat Who Walked Through Walls”, and finally in “To Sail Beyond the Sunset”.
None of these books can be counted among Heinlein’s best, although Time Enough for Love and The Number of the Beast are quite readible. “Friday”, “Job”, “The Cat Who Walked Through Walls” and “To Sail Beyond the Sunset” are all lesser works (although Friday and Sunset have their moments). The sexual aspect, which many find off-putting, is much more strongly emphasized in the later books.
Frankly, Lazarus is not my favorite character, and you would do well to read some earlier Heinlein. His juviniles are justly famous, and his “grown-up” (as opposed to “adult”) works of the period (including “Double Star”, “Puppet Masters”, and “Door Into Summer” are very well thought of.
I’m not a huge fan of “Stranger in a Strange Land”, but if it works for you, go for it.
I’ve read many of his juvenile books, my favorite being “Sixth Column.” You listed some I haven’t read. I’ll keep an eye out for those. My husband is of the same mind as you, BrotherCadfael (another great series of books, also). If it was written after the mid-sixties, he’s not even interested.
“Stranger In A Strange Land” was not my cup of tea for the afore-mentioned reasons.
I have “To Sail Beyond the Sunset” and have tried to read it numerous times. But I just couldn’t get past the extraneous stuff.
Too bad Heinlin’s gone. He would have made a great spokesperson for Viagra!
I suppose the answer depends on what you mean by “First appear”. As already stated, the earliest mention of him by publication date is Methuselah’s Children; a novella I’ve seen as a standalone book, and also included in the “Past through Tomorrow” anthology. If you mean first in fictional chronology, his birth is in Sail beyond the Sunset.
If you’re looking for more Heinlein suggestions, I recommend checking out some of his short story collections. Give RAH the space, and he’ll talk your ear off, but if he’s limited to story length, you get a pretty good read. If nothing else, try to find “The man who traveled in Elephants”.
It has been said that “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” was Heinlein’s last unequivically good book. With anything later, you have to sort of pick the good stuff our of the surrounding matrix. There IS good stuff there, it’s just sometimes hard to find.
Recently, a previously unpublished Heinlein novel, written in 1939, was published. It’s an interesting artifact. Apparently, when Heinlein started writing, he was more interested in laying out a social vision (a la H.G. Wells) rather than storytelling. Spider Robinson speculates that, while the book didn’t sell, Heinlein discovered that he liked storytelling and started turning out good “market copy”.
“For Us the Living” shows that, even in 1939, Heinlein had very firmly embraced General Semantics, Social Credit economics (both oddball, not to say crackpot, theories), and his own, rather unique, sexual mores. He and his second wife, Leslyn, apparently practiced what he preached, but Virginia Heinlein (his third and last wife) wasn’t into it, so his last half-century or so was spent in a more conventional mode. It wasn’t until the 1960s that society loosened up enough for him to start putting his sexual theories into his novels, and even by the standards of the day (or today, for that matter) they were considered extreme.
Very little is known about Heinlein’s first wife. I occasionally wonder if she was the model for Grace Farnham and a number of the other less likeable female characters.
A strong second to “The Man Who Traveled in Elephants”. I have never finished that story without tearing up. Heinlein supposedly told Spider Robinson that that was exactly what he had been trying to achieve.
If by “readable”, you mean that it’s possible to decode the ink marks on the page into phonemes and words, then I agree wholeheartedly with you. But if you mean that it’s enjoyable to do so, then I beg to differ. There are only three good things about that book, and two of them are attached to the front of DT’s chest.
When Heinlein goes bad, it’s usually by virtue of too much sex and politics. Which is why his juvenile books are so great: Sex in them is never more than a kiss on the cheek, and the political soapboxing is greatly toned down. His adult books are much more hit-and-miss: I’ll recommend The Moon is a Harsh Mistress to anyone, but most of the others depend on your tolerances for Heinlein preaching.
Well, you’ve touched a nerve. I’ve read, with only a minute number of exceptions, everything Heinlein had published.
Most people devide his work into 3 catagories… the Juveniles, the “Adult books” that they like, and the “Adult books” that they don’t like.
Personally, I like everything he’s written.
If the moral tone (what is a moral tone? Middle G?) of some of his later works doesn’t suit you, dig up the Juveniles.
And, like Tapioca, people either love Stranger, or hate Stranger.
In “Time Enough For Love” Lazarus mentions going to Dr. Pinero, the lead in Heinleins first published work. He isn’t mentioned in the story, but if one is willing to allow for it, that might be his earliest appearance. Hehehehe…
But yes, his first appearance in print is in “Meth. Children”.
(1) The opening chapter (at the party) is pretty good, especially if you have ever spent any time around academic mathematicians.
(2) Zeb’s description of getting his worthless doctorate is hilarious.
Skip the entire trip to Mars.
(3) Several of the trips into various fictional universes are worthwhile (skip Oz).
Skip all the chapter’s set in Lazarus Long’s ship.
(4) The final pan-universal conference, with visitors from damn near every book RAH wrote, is kind of interesting (especially if you have ever attended a major convention).
And, yes, Deety’s two outstanding points are quite good. Or at least the two points belonging to the woman who modeled for the artwork.
Not, actually, as ironic as it sounds. Certainly I picked up a great deal of basic behavior from his descriptions of his male protagonists behavior in the juveniles. Self-reliance, trustworthiness, the ability to not bemoan fate and begin to deal with problems as soon as possible. I would have loved to have been Kip Russell from ‘Have Space Suit Will Travel’ or Max Jones from "Starman Jones. Sadly, I think I ended up more like Podkayne’s younger (and evil-smart) brother Clark.
Trickily enough it’s possible (but extremely unlikely) that Lazarus Long’s first appearance in print was in ‘The Man Who Sold the Moon’. The moonships first pilot, Leslie LeCroix mentions his back up pilot as ‘Bill’. Then in ‘To Sail Beyond the Sunset’ it’s mentioned that back up pilot is Lazarus Long (in his Woodrow Wilson Smith indentity).
OK, I know it’s crap that Heinlein ret-conned. But it’s fun to pick up.
Wasn’t there also a suggestion that Lazarus showed up as a bartender in “The Green Hills of Earth”?
Heinlein’s characters in his juveniles were actually fairly strong role models for me. I grew up without a Dad, and I credit finding Heinlein’s books with giving me a moral compass and giving me a desire to be educated and learn engineering. His stories also kept me company on an awful lot of lonely nights.
Possibly. What we know is that, from “Green Hills of Earth”, that Rhysling spent some time in whorehouses on Mars after his accident but before starting his roaming, and from Time Enough For Love, that Lazarus, under the name of Happy Daze, ran a whorehouse on Mars and briefly hosted a blind singer called Noisy who later achieved success. It’s almost certain that Noisy was Rhysling, but Happy Daze’s may or may not have been the particular whorehouse referenced in “Green Hills of Earth”. If we take the sources at face value, then I’d say that it’s likely, but then, I also wouldn’t put it past Lazarus to embellish things. It may well be that Happy Daze never hosted Rhysling at all, but just made up the story on the spot to make his point.
Jonathan, the male characters in the juvies, as a general rule, live by the Scout Law, and are therefore trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. Not a bad way to live one’s life, regardless of whence one picks up the idea.
