Robert A. Heinlein
Mass Market Paperback | Pages: 589 pages Rating: 3.97 | 30712 Users | 815 Reviews
Point Regarding Books Time Enough for Love (The World As Myth #1)
| Title | : | Time Enough for Love (The World As Myth #1) |
| Author | : | Robert A. Heinlein |
| Book Format | : | Mass Market Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 589 pages |
| Published | : | August 15th 1988 by Ace (first published June 19th 1973) |
| Categories | : | Science Fiction. Fiction. Science Fiction Fantasy |
Ilustration As Books Time Enough for Love (The World As Myth #1)
Was Robert A. Heinlein a dirty old man?Yes.
But he was also a visionary who saw the trends of Western Civilization and expounded out into a foreseeable future, not just in terms of science fiction but also in regard to cultures, morals, sociology and ideology. Time Enough for Love demonstrates the fundamental attractiveness of science fiction, the eternal hope that things will get better.
Dystopian fantasies aside, science fiction deals with the future, and that there are people in the future still carrying on everyday lives. At its heart, science fiction is about hope, hope that we’ll see a few more years ahead. Time Enough for Love goes one step further and introduces us to Lazarus Long (though he was in prior Heinlein novels) as the oldest living human, over 2,000 years old. Thus, Heinlein allows us to imagine an almost eternal existence, and without the need to live at night and drink blood.
I like reading Heinlein because I like Heinlein, chauvinistic and militaristic as he may be; he is also a libertarian humanist who loves life and tells a good story.
He’s not misogynistic, he clearly loves women and sees them as capable and wonderful people. Heinlein’s voice, whether Lazarus Long, or Jubal Hershaw, is that of Heinlein himself, his experience is cast upon science fiction of the future.
The best thing about Heinlein is that he is a good writer, a great writer of science fiction.
And that is demonstrated both in the positive and negative in TEFL. When he is telling a story, it is very good, but in the “in between sections” it drags poorly. The best section is the story about Lazarus and his marriage to short lived Dora and their pioneer life. If RAH made the “Tale of the Adopted Daughter” a full length novel, cutting out about 300 pages, this would have been a very good story. Ultimately, it’s just too long, Heinlein is too ambitious and throws too much in and it collapses under it’s own weight.
List Books To Time Enough for Love (The World As Myth #1)
| Original Title: | Time Enough for Love |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | The World As Myth #1, Lazarus Long |
| Characters: | Lazarus Long, Maureen Johnson |
| Literary Awards: | Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel (1974), Nebula Award Nominee for Best Novel (1973), Locus Award Nominee for Best Novel (1974) |
Rating Regarding Books Time Enough for Love (The World As Myth #1)
Ratings: 3.97 From 30712 Users | 815 ReviewsCriticism Regarding Books Time Enough for Love (The World As Myth #1)
I wanted a paperback to read on the plane recently, and this one was right on top of a stack of books, so I reread it. I've reread a few Heinlein books recently, and I realize as I have with so many other books that I read when I was young, (believe it or not, I think I might have been 10 the first time I read this, I was certainly no more than 12) how much they shaped my sense of myself. For instance, every Heinlein book has pages and pages devoted to math, and not glossed over math, real math.
(Read the other reviews for plot summaries. No point in rehashing.)Heinlein has profoundly influenced my thinking and life since I was but in my early teens, so I guess this review isn't exactly impartial. Still, there are books of his that bored me, among them Stranger in Strange Land. In other words, I know the man's limitations.With all this said, I still think that TEFL qualifies as a curmudgeonly masterpiece, and it banged my head against a wall again and again and said "Get a life, man!
All right, another rating biased by the age at which I read this book. I read Time Enough for Love in what was then the Soviet Union over the course of a white night. I'm not kidding. At any rate, Time Enough for Love is a decent enough story and entertaining. Par for the course with Heinlein, though, is negotiating his complicated relationship to gender and his often overblown moralising. This is not to say that these issues are wholly negative; Heinlein's relationship to gender and morality is
The calculation of literary kink: 2 stars for coming up with an interesting premise (2000 year old man reminiscing about life and his times among the stars) MINUS 1.5 stars for ignoring said premise and instead focusing on taunting every sexual more known to current cultural standards, culminating in time-travel visits to meet Mom and thus begin what I can only describe as pornographic Back To The Future fan-fiction.Plus half-a-star to have the willpower/stubberness/tone-deafness to continue on
This is one of his pivotal books. Until the 60s, he was quite constrained by what he could write by contracts (e.g., Scribner Juveniles) & editors. After his big hit with Stranger in a Strange Land & several others, his popularity grew & the reins slipped off. In 1970, he had a close brush with death, was desperate to publish what he wanted without restraint, & did so. The result was I Will Fear No Evil, his descent into wordiness & weird sex. This book followed a few years
I have a love-hate relationship with Heinlein. Some of his stuff is great. Some of it, like Farnham's Freehold, which I reviewed here, I simply hate. However, I like enough of his work that I seek more. This was a book that took me a long time to get through, but when I got done, it was well worth it. I read it back in 2002. From my journal back then: >>I found it to be a book that makes you think. I thought the opening was a bit slow, but once the narrative was set up, it got
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