HPR4760: Robert A. Heinlein: Later Works

Robert A. Heinlein's later works reflect the impact of his declining health and personal struggles. Following a significant health crisis in 1970, which included an attack of peritonitis, Heinlein's writing became marked by themes of mortality and introspection. His novel "I Will Fear No Evil" features a billionaire who undergoes a brain transplant, but the narrative suffers from a lack of refinement due to Heinlein's health issues during its creation.

Heinlein's subsequent works, such as "Time Enough for Love" and "The Number of the Beast," explore complex themes through characters that often serve as reflections of the author himself. "Time Enough for Love" introduces Lazarus Long, who embodies Heinlein's own contemplation of life and storytelling. Meanwhile, "The Number of the Beast" delves into the concept of multiverses, showcasing Heinlein's imaginative prowess despite his physical limitations.

Later novels like "Friday" and "Job: A Comedy of Justice" continue to exhibit Heinlein's characteristic blend of science fiction and social commentary, often highlighting a chaotic world. His final works, including "To Sail Beyond the Sunset," revisit familiar characters and themes, culminating in a legacy that intertwines personal narrative with broader speculative ideas. Heinlein's passing in 1988 marked the end of an era, but his influence persists through posthumous publications and adaptations of his unfinished works.

This show has been flagged as Clean by the host.

Beginning in 1970 Heinlein started to have health issues whihc affected his writing. One novel was a bit of a mess because he was physically unable to fix and polish, and in otghers you can discern that he is revisiting his past as he comes to terms with his own mortality.

Heinlein’s Later Works

1970 marked a turning point in some ways in Heinlein’s writing. First, health issues intruded, and not unexpectedly, intimations of his own mortality became more prominent. This is just my personal opinion, but I think his works became a little more uneven in this last stage of his career.

I Will Fear No Evil (1970)

in 1970 Heinlein had the first of his major health issues with an attack of peritonitis. He did manage to publish one novel but it is a bit of a mess. I Will Fear No Evil tells the story of Johann Sebastian Bach Smith, a billionaire whose body is failing, so he decides on transplanting his brain into another body. He offers $1 million for the donation of a brain dead body. Then his secretary is killed, and her body is used. When Bach wakes up after the surgery he discovers that the secretary is still there and he can talk to her. Or maybe it is all a hallucination on his part. Sex becomes a major part of the story, as would become a theme in Heinlein’s later works. The now female person takes the name Joan, and then decides to have child using sperm frozen by the billionaire. They then decide to marry the lawyer, then he dies, and his personality seems to join the other two. This is certainly consistent to the hallucination hypothesis, but who knows. Heinlein had only done one rough draft when the peritonitis hit, and that laid him up for two years. So this novel at the very least did not receive the polishing he usually gave to his novels. You can safely skip it, in my opinion.

Time Enough For Love (1973)

This is a collection of shorter pieces with linking narration. It concerns the life of Lazarus Long, who we first encountered in Methuselah’s Children. He now becomes a kind of alter ego for Heinlein himself. Lazarus has lived thousands of years, and is tired of it. But he has an audience for his stories, so he will keep on as long they are listening. You can see the parallels, and maybe Heinlein, after a long illness, wondered how much longer he could tell stories. Part of the book is inclusion of extracts “From the Notebooks of Lazarus Long”, which consist of sayings and aphorisms. At the end, he travels back in time and has sex with his mother, before shipping off to France to fight in World War I. If you are a fan, you will want to read this. This book was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards, but did not win. It did win a Prometheus award.

Heinlein has a rare blood type, and had needed multiple transfusions to combat the peritonitis. As a result in the mid-1970s he got involved in organizing blood drives within the SF community. This reduced his writing. Then in 1977 he had a series of transient ischemic attacks, which were traced to a blocked carotid artery. This set him up to be one of the very early recipients of a carotid bypass operation.

The Number of the Beast (1980)

This novel has 4 protagonists, and different chapters are narrated from each of their perspectives. The four are Zebediah John Carter, Dejah Thoris Burroughs Carter, her father the mathematician Jacob Burroughs, and Hilda Corners. And if you think there is a lot of Edgar Rice Burroughs clues in those names, you are correct. In this novel Heinlein creates his “World As Myth” idea, which basically states that fictional worlds also exist in the Multiverse. If you take the idea of infinite universes seriously, it follows that in infinite universes there must be one for every world written about in stories. In this novel they have a craft that can navigate between universes, and end up visiting Barsoom, Oz, the Lensman universe, etc. before finally joining up with Lazarus Long. This