Epic, Sci-fi romance

books:


	• Time Enough for Love Robert A. Heinlein Ace, 1987 - 608 pages average customer review:based on 140 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

genius

Back in the infamous 60's Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein was part of the moment for my friends and I......he introduced us to some of our first metaphysical concepts . Time enough for Love is a classic too. I love the philosophy of Lazarus the main character. I find myself in agreement all the time. This book seems equally profound and perfect for me at this point in time. I find myself underlining quotes and emailing them to friends.I love this book.

Epic, Sci-fi romance

Yes, this book has some issues, and could defintley have been whittled down some, HOWEVER, and this is a big however, there are moments in this book where fabulous and creative scifi is seamlessly blended with epic romance on a scale and to a depth that few writer ever achieve, and for Heinlein fans, a level he never achieves again. One thing I would have to say - this is all Heinlein - so yes, if you don't like this, you won't like his other work.

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gr8 fun!!

The book is gr8 fun, of a guy in year 4 thousand and sth, trying to give a description of our world today, sarcastic, hilarious, but also kiind of tragic. Wil surely read more of this author, for example "Stranger in a Strange Land".

Super Reader

Lazarus Long is one of the Howards, a group of people that have extremely long life, basically due to genetics and being mutants, etc.

Lazarus Long is well into this third millenium, and is looking back on his life to that some of the information and insights he has can be used. Long himself is most definitely a dodgy bloke, and a 'villain' in the pommie sense.

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Mixed Feelings

Time Enough for Love is one of the most famous books from one of the "Big Three" in Science Fiction: Robert Heinlein (the others being Clarke and Asimov). To know my context: many of my favorite books are in science fiction (even though most sf is really bad) because of their vision of the future in all sciences: technological, philosophical, political, etc and at the same time the reflection of our own current day society in hindsight of that possible future world. I already read quite some books from the Big Three, so I did not hesitate to pick this one up.

The book structure is that we get to know Lazarus Long, aka Woodrow Wilson Smith, aka some other aliases. Lazarus was born around 1912 (a few years later than Heinlein himself). Lazarus' family was member of a foundation that tried to breed humans with a longer lifespan. Apparently it worked because we meet Lazarus when he is some thousands of years old (because of his genes in combination with rejuvenation techniques), being the oldest human alive. In the meantime spaceflight has been invented and because of being one of the first pioneers in inhabiting other planets and because of constant 'reproduction' most people in the universe are descendant from Lazarus in some way or another.

Lazarus is asked to share his wisdom he got through his unique experiences by one of his descendants who rules one of the most important planet nowadays: Secundus. Lazarus does this by telling some of the tales of his life. The book contains four of these tales, which all are self-contained in their own right.

The Good:
Heinlein explores many of his interesting ideas. He has ideas on politics (e.g. democracy doesn't work), lifestyles (e.g. being a workaholic brings nothing), war (futile, not good for your life expectancy), biology (e.g. rejuvenation), time travel (no paradox), A.I. (living entities, pretty spectacular given the book's date), marriage (is a contract for raising children: it doesn't need to be permanent, it doesn't need to include exactly two people) but most dominantly given the title of the book: love.

Predominant is actually forbidden love: incest. Heinlein's observation is that incest is currently a taboo because of the biological consequences: unhealthy children. But what if biologists are able to determine as a certainty that an incestial relationships will result in a healthy baby? Would it then still be wrong? Heinlein's conclusion is no. Given the date of the book, this was probably a very provocative idea. Personally I do not find it provocative and I agree with him, why not?

A big plus that should be mentioned are the notebooks, a collection of one-liners, bundled as intermission between some chapters of the book. They are great, witty and insightful.

The Bad:
I have no real moral objection against incest given that if babies are produces they are healthy (which generally is not the case). However, almost every sub-story goes into a big deal of trouble of finding different kind of incestial relationships. About half way through the book I really got sick and tired of it and wished he would change subject, but I already felt he wouldn't. Note that it is not all about sex, also other kinds of love, but it still is the same to me.

Another major problem are the females. They don't behave as the females I know. They all want to have "kinky" sex all day long the second they are no longer a minor (no explicit sex until a little at the very end however). They all choose mates based on genetic patterns. They all think long life is the one characteristic that outweighs all others. They all want to have babies constantly. And they all want Lazarus, especially a baby by him. He is described as being unattractive. He is grumpy, usually not immediately willing and they usually know him for just a few days without him doing something extraordinary. Sometimes even without knowing who or what he is and the females might being married, have eight children, etc (i.e. his mother). Sometimes the female is even just a 'female computer'. Still immediately they love him and want his baby. Totally unbelievable.

Also, if you look for hard science fiction then you should stay away from this one. There are not a lot of really scientific ideas (no focus on it anyway). Space travel is actually just a given, similar as in many space operas. Well known problems like time-dilution simply seem not to exist. A big portion of the story plays in a 1900-setting anyway. Too bad (if that was what you were looking for).

Conclusion
There are quite some great, sometimes provocative, ideas in the book. However one of them, the least interesting in my eyes, is very dominant. While you really have to search to find the others. This gives me some mixed feelings about this work. I love Heinlein's great ideas, I love the dialogue that make things come to life. Though, I wish he would have made it a little more exciting and mixed story and dialogue and mix the ideas to narrate about. Instead of focusing on the family-relations all of the time as he did now.

So, is it worth reading? Yes. Is it among his (or SF's) best? No.

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