I just finished The Cat Who Walked Through Walls about ten minutes ago and it left me mightily confused.
This is the first Heinlein book I’ve ever read. I picked it up because it was free and free is always good. As I kept reading it, the plot got more and more convoluted until I was completely confused and the book ended. That’s about where it left me. 90% of the plot points were unresolved and there were no more pages to turn to.
I went searching through the archives here to see if it had been discussed before and it hasn’t. Lazarus Long has, however. He’s apparently a reaccuring character in Heinlein books, which I never would have picked up on just from this one. It made me wonder how many other character or plot points went completely over my head or Heinlein assumed I would have linked together but obviously couldn’t.
So is he somewhat like Randall Flagg of the Steven King worlds?
As for the book itself, I thought the first half of it was highly entertaining and I didn’t mind at all there there didn’t seem to be a cohesive plot, per se. I was along for the adventure and it sucked me in. But as soon as the time travel twist wrapped itself into the story arc, the novel slowly became a jumbled mess of confusing crap. It was as if Heinlein decided literally halfway through his story that he wanted to take it in a completely different direction but didn’t bother to go back to the first half to change any of that. If this novel had been about time travel from the begining that would have been fine. But it wasn’t and you could tell that.
Let me try to break down just a few of the things that went unresolved:
The killing at the begining. It’s hinted at the end that Richard’s wife is the one who did the killing, which is somewhat what I assumed. But for what purpose? What was her motivation?
They’re BOTH kicked out of their apartments shortly after being married. Why? Who was doing that? For what purpose?
The attack in on Luna as they travel between stations. Was that an attack on them or a coincidental one based upon other passengers who happened to be there? That was never answered.
What purpose did Bill play, the guy Richard and Gwen picked up and took with from Golden Rule to Luna? He started becoming more and more central to the plot when Heinlein effectively said “eh…fuck it, I can’t use Bill anymore. Let’s turn him bad again,” and poof, he was gone from the story.
Did Richard really get infected with all those viruses and did they really have to use a heat bomb to blow up half a hotel before they whisked him away to the future? I only ask this because it this didn’t happen, then someone is lying to Richard. That means we shouldn’t trust one (or more) of the characters. But, again, this wasn’t answered.
Why is a super secret time travel agency bringing along everyone and their moms to the future and inducting them into the corps? “Oh, you’re a legless Rabbi? Why, you’d be PERFECT as an agent. Let’s roll!”
What purpose did Adam Selene serve? Who was firing on the group at the end? Did they live? What? What? What the hell was going on? With ten pages left in the book they having conversations concerning whether Richard should join the time corp. Look Heinlein, if you hadn’t spent paragraph after paragraph finding new ways for Richard to tell Gwen/Hazel/whatever her name was how much he loved her you might have found the time to put this particular plot point in the MIDDLE of the book like it belonged.
Sorry for this long rant, but this entire book left me confused. It started out so great and, like I said, I don’t think ANYTHING got resolved by the end. I did get this book used. Maybe the last 200 pages were ripped out or something…