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• Job: A Comedy of Justice
Robert A. Heinlein

Del Rey, 1985 - 448 pages

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   highly recommended  highly recommended






Heinlein Book Condemned by Moral Majority

At the end of Expanded Universe, Robert Heinlein promised that he would keep whistling at pretty girls and kicking sacred cows. Job: A Comedy of Justice fulfills that promise on a grand scale, as it whisks us along on a fast-paced, wickedly irreverent tale.

It tells the story of Reverend Alexander Hergensheimer, an engineering school dropout who became a fundamentalist minister instead. But rather than spending Sundays in the pulpit, Hergensheimer pushes paper for "the greater glory of God," as head of C.U.D.-Churches United for Decency. It's a Christian special interest group that lobbies the leaders of his country on such social issues as whether to use "the Alaska option for the Negro problem," or to eliminate all research in astronomy. Hergensheimer hails from a godfearing world, and he aims to make it even more fearful. But now he's on vacation, on a cruise through the South Pacific, and utterly relaxed-until he takes a bet that he can walk through a fire pit [rotected by his faith. Terrified, but praying fiercely, Hergensheimer walks over a bed of hot coals only to faint away at the very end of it. When he awakes, the world has changed around him.

Back aboard ship, Hergensheimer is shocked to discover a drastically changed set of mores, including paganism, foul, heretical language and even nudity. Hergensheimer's country, the theocratic North American Union, no longer exists, nor does the technology he grew up with. Worst of all, only he seems to have noticed the great world change-everyone else is slapping him on the back and calling him by a different name.

What follows is a study in human virtue and human folly, as some unseen force plays cat and mouse with Hergensheimer, and as Hergensheimer falls in love and gives in to the deadliest of sins. World change follows world change, and his torturer finally leads Hergensheimer to Heaven, to Hell, and to the ultimate audience with the God of Gods, Mr. Koshchei. Heinlein wrote Job in the grand tradition of American satire, taking cues from James Branch Cabell (Jurgen: a Comedy of Justice) and Mark Twain ("Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven"). Critics almost uniformly praise Job, and the book earned itself a sound condemnation from Falwell's Moral Majority, whose activities are so lovingly parodied by Hergensheimer's C.U.D.

Along with the well wrought satire, in Job Heinlein delivers skillful studies of human nature and portrayals of various walks of life. Highly recommended. ---Beth Ager of ...


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Religion with a Heinlein twist

It is yet another fabulous Heinlein masterpiece of a likable character, who finds ultimate love and lives an interesting live. I have read over a dozen of Heinlein books and this one stands out. It does not play in outer space, it stays on Earth, although not the Earth we know. Heinlein cleverly points out some interesting things about our values and technologies through the eyes of Alec, who comes to us from a different version of Earth. I had some difficulties with the religious load of the book, but those were all worth it when Heinlein comes back with his well known TANSTAAFL: "How can justice possible be served by loading your sins on another? ... Somebody should tell all of Yahweh's followers, Jews and Christians, that there is no such thing as a free lunch". An exciting read from front to back.


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Grab a chair at the Revival Tent....Test your faith in dogma

I also read this one in High School.... Didn't we all? Job IS a comedy of justice. I remember reading this one in rapture. The words flowed into my cranium, like soothing balm. I'll never forget the Tent Revival scene....it made all the real tent revivals I went to, as a child, worthwhile. Like all men who "ask too many questions," The Big Guy puts the smack-down on our man Job...leading to all kinds of weird adventures. Warning: Previous drug users may have falsh-backs, while reading this book, it's a real Trip. Of course, it is very well-written... it's Heinlein! This novel does not probe as deeply into the human condition as "Stranger in a Strange Land" (Heinlein), but it is a funny journey full of many twists and surprises, with an irreverence that most people could not handle at the time it was written. This book is a perfect gift for your favorite egghead or fantasy buff. Writing about the novel makes me want to read it again!


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God I 'needed' that!

Heinlein's _Job: A Comedy of Justice_ is a good example of why some people prefer S-F, meaning possibly 'speculative fiction' versus Sci-Fi for the genre. There is damn little science in this book, unless you count dishwashing among the sciences (those who enjoyed the book might excuse the pun, if you don't see the pun, read the book). Job starts out as an unremarkable preacher, in an future USA which is theocratic. As a man, however, Job is not quite unremarkable, he has a bit too much integrity, and a lot more resilience, though Heinlein might have credited the average person of his acquaintance with as much. Job takes a South Pacific cruise, which is pleasant, until he tries firewalking, on sort of a dare. He doesn't get burned then, but he does shortly afterward. As the saying goes, "Then everything started happening." He winds up in a slightly alternate universe where he had been a gangster. This might be a textbook example of the dictum "To give your readers a good time, give you character a bad time." Eventually the only skill transferrable to his new environment is dishwashing. Job, like his Biblical namesake, eventually is rewarded--he finds out that Heaven and Hell are real, although not quite what he or you or I learned in Sunday school. "Job" is among the very best of Heinlein's post-Stranger in a Strange Land fiction, and does not merit the criticism of preaching to the converted that slightly taints much of his later fiction.


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Heinlein Book Condemned by Moral Majority

At the end of Expanded Universe, Robert Heinlein promised that he would keep whistling at pretty girls and kicking sacred cows. Job: A Comedy of Justice fulfills that promise on a grand scale, as it whisks us along on a fast-paced, wickedly irreverent tale.

It tells the story of Reverend Alexander Hergensheimer, an engineering school dropout who became a fundamentalist minister instead. But rather than spending Sundays in the pulpit, Hergensheimer pushes paper for "the greater glory of God," as head of C.U.D.-Churches United for Decency. It's a Christian special interest group that lobbies the leaders of his country on such social issues as whether to use "the Alaska option for the Negro problem," or to eliminate all research in astronomy. Hergensheimer hails from a godfearing world, and he aims to make it even more fearful. But now he's on vacation, on a cruise through the South Pacific, and utterly relaxed-until he takes a bet that he can walk through a fire pit [rotected by his faith. Terrified, but praying fiercely, Hergensheimer walks over a bed of hot coals only to faint away at the very end of it. When he awakes, the world has changed around him.

Back aboard ship, Hergensheimer is shocked to discover a drastically changed set of mores, including paganism, foul, heretical language and even nudity. Hergensheimer's country, the theocratic North American Union, no longer exists, nor does the technology he grew up with. Worst of all, only he seems to have noticed the great world change-everyone else is slapping him on the back and calling him by a different name.

What follows is a study in human virtue and human folly, as some unseen force plays cat and mouse with Hergensheimer, and as Hergensheimer falls in love and gives in to the deadliest of sins. World change follows world change, and his torturer finally leads Hergensheimer to Heaven, to Hell, and to the ultimate audience with the God of Gods, Mr. Koshchei. Heinlein wrote Job in the grand tradition of American satire, taking cues from James Branch Cabell (Jurgen: a Comedy of Justice) and Mark Twain ("Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven"). Critics almost uniformly praise Job, and the book earned itself a sound condemnation from Falwell's Moral Majority, whose activities are so lovingly parodied by Hergensheimer's C.U.D.

Along with the well wrought satire, in Job Heinlein delivers skillful studies of human nature and portrayals of various walks of life. Highly recommended. ---Beth Ager of Wegrokit.com


 for more information click here


reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, page 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19



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