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Maureen Johnson, the somewhat irregular mother of Lazarus Long, wakes up in bed with a man and a cat. The cat is Pixel, well-known to fans of the New York Times best seller The Cat Who Walks through Walls. The man is a stranger to her, and besides that, he is dead.
The wickedest, most wonderful science fiction story ever created in our - or any - time. Anything can begin at a party in California - and everything does in this bold masterwork by a grand master of science fiction. When four supremely sensual and unspeakably cerebral humans - two male, two female - find themselves under attack from aliens who want their awesome quantum breakthrough, they take to the skies - and zoom into the cosmos on a rocket roller-coaster ride of adventure, danger, ecstasy, and peril.
Epic, entertaining, blasphemous, this is the most influential and controversial of Science Fiction novels. Stranger in a Strange Land caused uproar when it was first published as it savaged conventional religious, sexual, and social ideals. Many years in the future, Valentine Michael Smith's upbringing is exceptional. Orphan child to two astronauts killed in space, he is raised on Mars. Twenty-five years later he is "rescued" and brought back to Earth. The initial enthusiasm of the administration in Smith's safe return is soon dampened by the realisation that they cannot control him.
As startling and provocative as his famous Stranger in a Strange Land, here is Heinlein’s grand masterpiece about a man supremely talented, immensely old, and obscenely wealthy who discovers that money can buy everything.
After the fall of the American Ayatollahs as foretold in Stranger in a Strange Land and chronicled in Revolt in 2100, the United States of America at last fulfills the promise inherent in its first Revolution: for the first time in human history there is a nation with Liberty and Justice for All. No one may seize or harm the person or property of another, or invade his privacy, or force him to do his bidding. Americans are fiercely proud of their re-won liberties and the blood it cost them; nothing could make them forswear those truths they hold self-evident. Nothing except the promise of immortality…
After firewalking in Polynesia, fundamentalist minister Alexander Hergensheimer never saw the world the same. Now called Alec Graham, he was in the middle of an affair with his stewardess, Margrethe, and natural disasters kept following them. First, there was an impossible iceberg that wrecked the ship in the tropics; then, after being rescued by a Royal Mexican plane, they were hit by a double earthquake. To Alex, the signs were clear that Armageddon and the Day of Judgment were near.
Maureen Johnson, the somewhat irregular mother of Lazarus Long, wakes up in bed with a man and a cat. The cat is Pixel, well-known to fans of the New York Times best seller The Cat Who Walks through Walls. The man is a stranger to her, and besides that, he is dead.
The wickedest, most wonderful science fiction story ever created in our - or any - time. Anything can begin at a party in California - and everything does in this bold masterwork by a grand master of science fiction. When four supremely sensual and unspeakably cerebral humans - two male, two female - find themselves under attack from aliens who want their awesome quantum breakthrough, they take to the skies - and zoom into the cosmos on a rocket roller-coaster ride of adventure, danger, ecstasy, and peril.
Epic, entertaining, blasphemous, this is the most influential and controversial of Science Fiction novels. Stranger in a Strange Land caused uproar when it was first published as it savaged conventional religious, sexual, and social ideals. Many years in the future, Valentine Michael Smith's upbringing is exceptional. Orphan child to two astronauts killed in space, he is raised on Mars. Twenty-five years later he is "rescued" and brought back to Earth. The initial enthusiasm of the administration in Smith's safe return is soon dampened by the realisation that they cannot control him.
As startling and provocative as his famous Stranger in a Strange Land, here is Heinlein’s grand masterpiece about a man supremely talented, immensely old, and obscenely wealthy who discovers that money can buy everything.
After the fall of the American Ayatollahs as foretold in Stranger in a Strange Land and chronicled in Revolt in 2100, the United States of America at last fulfills the promise inherent in its first Revolution: for the first time in human history there is a nation with Liberty and Justice for All. No one may seize or harm the person or property of another, or invade his privacy, or force him to do his bidding. Americans are fiercely proud of their re-won liberties and the blood it cost them; nothing could make them forswear those truths they hold self-evident. Nothing except the promise of immortality…
After firewalking in Polynesia, fundamentalist minister Alexander Hergensheimer never saw the world the same. Now called Alec Graham, he was in the middle of an affair with his stewardess, Margrethe, and natural disasters kept following them. First, there was an impossible iceberg that wrecked the ship in the tropics; then, after being rescued by a Royal Mexican plane, they were hit by a double earthquake. To Alex, the signs were clear that Armageddon and the Day of Judgment were near.
Travel to other planets is now a reality, and with overpopulation stretching the resources of Earth, the necessity of finding habitable worlds is growing ever more urgent. There’s a problem though—because the spaceships are slower than light, any communication between the exploring ships and Earth would take years.
Tom and Pat are identical twin teenagers. As twins they’ve always been close, so close that it seemed like they could read each other’s minds.
Hugh Farnham is a practical, self-made man, and when he sees the clouds of nuclear war gathering, he builds a bomb shelter under his house, hoping for peace and preparing for war. But when the apocalypse comes, something happens that he did not expect. A thermonuclear blast tears apart the fabric of time and hurls his shelter into a world with no sign of other human beings.
North Power Air is in trouble. Their aircraft are crashing at an alarming rate and no one can figure out the cause. Desperate for an answer, they turn to Waldo, a crippled misanthropic genius who lives in a home in orbit around Earth, where the absence of gravity means that his feeble muscle strength does not confine him helplessly in a wheelchair. But Waldo has little reason to want to help the rest of humanity - until he learns that the solution to Earth’s problems also holds the key to his own.
Today the moon - tomorrow the stars. The Man Who Sold the Moon: A landmark volume in Heinlein’s magnificent Future History series. D. D. Harriman is a billionaire with a dream: the dream of Space for All Mankind. The method? Anything that works. Maybe, in fact, Harriman goes too far. But he will give us the stars....
Max Jones, a practical, hard-working young man, found his escape in his beloved astronomy books. When reality comes crashing in and his troubled home life forces him out on the road, Max finds himself adrift in a downtrodden land - until an unexpected, ultimate adventure carries him away as a stowaway aboard an intergalactic spaceship.
July 12, 1939: Perry Nelson is driving along the palisades when another vehicle swerves into his lane, a tire blows out, and his car careens off the road and over a bluff. The last thing he sees before his head connects with the boulders below is a girl in a green bathing suit, prancing along the shore.
When Rod Walker decides to take the final test for “Deacon” Matson’s interplanetary survival course, he knows he will be facing life-or-death situations on an unsettled planet. What he doesn’t expect is that something will go wrong with the “Tunnel in the Sky” and he and his fellow students will not be able to return to Terra. Stranded on a hostile planet, Rod and his friends are faced wit the challenge of carving a civilization out of the wilderness.
This book contains 26 of the greatest science fiction stories ever written. They represent the considered verdict of the Science Fiction Writers of America, those who have shaped the genre and who know, more intimately than anyone else, what the criteria for excellence in the field should be. The authors chosen for the Science Fiction Hall Fame are the men and women who have shaped the body and heart of modern science fiction; their brilliantly imaginative creations continue to inspire and astound new generations of writers and fans.
After the fall of the American Ayatollahs (as foretold in Stranger in a Strange Land) there is a Second American Revolution; for the first time in human history there is a land with Liberty and Justice for All.
Robert A. Heinlein is widely and justly regarded as the greatest practitioner of the art of science fiction who has ever lived. Here are two of his greatest short novels: Gulf, in which the greatest super-spy of them all is revealed as the leader of a league of supermen and women who can’t quite decide what to do with the rest of us. And Lost Legacy, in which it is proved that we are all members of that league - or would be, if we but had eyes to see.
. C. “Scar” Gordon was on the French Riviera recovering from a tour of combat in Southeast Asia, but he hadn’t given up his habit of scanning the personals in the newspaper. One ad in particular leapt out at him: "Are you a coward? This is not for you. We badly need a brave man. He must be 23 to 25 years old, in perfect health, at least six feet tall, weigh about 190 pounds, fluent English with some French, proficient with all weapons, some knowledge of engineering and mathematics essential...."
Don Harvey is a citizen of the Interplanetary Federation - yet no single planet can claim him as its own. His mother was born on Venus and his father on Earth, and Don himself was born on a spaceship in trajectory between planets. When his parents abruptly summon him away from school on Earth to join them on Mars, he has no idea he's about to be plunged into deadly interplanetary intrigue. But the ship Don is traveling on is unexpectedly diverted to Venus, where the colony has launched a revolution against Earth's control.
When a stranger attempting to deliver a cryptic message is shot dead at his dinner table, Ames is thrown headfirst into danger, intrigue, and other dimensions where Lazarus Long still thrives, where Jubal Harshaw lives surrounded by beautiful women, and where a daring plot to rescue the sentient computer called Mike can change the direction of all human history.
There is a temptation to label this novel as 'Heinlein at is best', but 'best' may be the wrong word. It is very classic Heinlein, though: jingoistic, sexist, and politically incorrect in just about every way.
It is not for everybody. Certainly for fans of classic SF, certainly not for those with a broad and open mind.
The narrator sounding more than a little like a cross between Cary Grant and Captain Scarlet took a little getting used to, but worked really well.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful
...and I must admit I was not that impressed. I think in defence of Heinlein, I should have read a couple of his earlier books, including The Moon is A Harsh Mistress, and would recommend other people to do so if they have not already done so. This would have put what I was listening to into better context.
Irrespective of the placement of the book in a series, I found the style irritating, with the dialogue attempting to be too sassy and quick-witted for it's own good. The narrator, either through his own artistic choice or by the way the text was written, regularly lapses into a poor imitation of the classic 1950's US Private Detective series voice-over. Unfortunately, it starts to irritate.
The plot drifts about continually, with a painfully long description of a journey that the protagonists make, whilst only briefly returning to the main storyline - whatever that was.
I would recommend this book to frustrated teenage boys as tribute to the only consistent part of the plot - the continual references to beautiful, leggy and oft-naked genetically-improved women (totally plot-irrelevant) who greet you with long wet kisses and who seem prepared to do anything in bed, with anyone.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful
I love this book, and decided to try it as an audiobook. I have to say, I was somewhat disappointed from a production standpoint. When reading the book, the dialogue sounds witty and bantering, yet very literate - when read aloud, it often sounds stilted (In fairness, I have not heard another reader attempt this, so cannot say whether this is the writing not translating to spoken word or poor presentation on the part of the narrator). I was somewhat underwhelmed by the emotional range shown by the narrator. Additionally, anyone who has read Heinlein knows that he comments on the "tall corn, rusty Midwest" accents. Unfortunately, the narrator takes this to extreme, with most character's voices representing some variant of "hick accent". Having listened to Lloyd James' presentation of "Moon Is A Harsh Mistress", I wished he had been available for this one as well.
21 of 21 people found this review helpful
This is an abridged version. Having read the paperback version of The Cat Who Walks though Wall several times I can understand why people give this version such a bad review. This supposedly unabridged reading goes from one scene to another leaving out serval paragraphs that where in the original paperback version. Save your Audible credits and spend your money on the paperback, you will enjoy the book more in its unedited form.
34 of 40 people found this review helpful
I have always been a fan of Robert Heinlein. I especially loved Stranger in a Strange Land. However, now that I'm older, I think the dated style that Heinlein used is starting to grate on me. This one is done in the noir style of Raymond Chandler, et al. But his cutesy banter between men and women wasn't even realistic in the forties, let alone today. It appeared often enough that I got tired of rolling my eyes and searching for a way to skip past it in the audio-book (too bad they don't have a Skip Forward button!)
Also, the Everyman Yankee (AKA MacGyver) who can do the most random things that 99% of people can't do (and serendipitously progress the plot) has become less believable as I have grown more experienced. For example, how many readers can really pick a lock?
The story is pretty good, and the narration was quite good. But I guess I have just outgrown Heinlein. :(
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
Action, imagination, great ideas, great story telling, thrilling, full of twists. All you want is there. Heinlein excels in the The Cat Who Walks through Walls. More over the character interaction is not only interesting, it is flammable! The dramatic exchanges between the lead pair are so enjoyable. Author is not scared to include a few spicy twists, which are just rendering the novel more interesting. Don't listen to those religious purists who get red because of that, this novel is excellent. I have read this novel many times and always coming back. Full 5 stars well deserved.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
Is there anything you would change about this book?
The second half
Would you recommend The Cat Who Walks through Walls to your friends? Why or why not?
I wanted to blame the later Heinlein on the success of Stranger in a Strange Land, but looking back on the publishing dates he had later books I liked and earier books not so much. My guess is I like branches that lead somewhere and here he seemed to not only want to bring in many of his old characters, but pay homage to other writers.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
If you could sum up The Cat Who Walks through Walls in three words, what would they be?
strange, fun, exciting
Who was your favorite character and why?
I honestly loved all the characters with the exception of one, who is a famous character from the "not so series" so ill say who i didn't like instead. Lassie long the annoying.....
What does Tom Weiner bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
eh
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
prepare for the sequel
Any additional comments?
Although it strongly relies on other stories to finish its tale. This was a very fun odd book.I enjoyed it very much
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
I've come across Robert Heinlein only recently, in the last 5 years... my favorites Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land, Friday. This story takes a lot from these a more, but uses Heinlein's more current understanding of how weird real world science is, quantum mechanics,etc... and he simply adds it to his palet to paint a tale that will require reading (listening) to it again, at least once or twice. But I really enjoyed the skill of the narrator, who obviously knows and loves the characters he narrates. I'd encourage anyone who liked the Moon, to take this ride too. Heinlein is spinning a yarn from the natural particles of time and space that we really need to grapple with, and like real, he doesn't tie the yarn into a tidy knot, but for me at least a very satisfying end where I can imagine my own next things to play out.
Enjoy!
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
As others stated, the narrator is all wrong for this. Bandits? Murder? Time travel? Sexy times with many people at the same time? The narrator makes everything seem so dull. He seems to enjoy hearing himself hanging onto the last syllable of every sentence, which became annoying and distracting for me. Also, nothing really happens for the many chapters in the middle where Heinlein entertains his fantasies with lots of partners, much spanking, and... inbreeding? Seriously, the story came to a grinding halt and shifted gears to something else, only to become interesting again halfway through the second to last chapter where it picked up again. Then in the last chapter it just ends out of nowhere. I did not enjoy this reading. I was such a fan of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers. Maybe if that narrator, Lloyd James had read it would have been better.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful
I know many who would disagree but I found this story filled with uninteresting nonsense and the ending was particularly unsatisfying. A shame too, it certanly had promise.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Weiner is a little weak on the female voices, but his baritone for Richard is spot on, so I didn't mind it much. His Russian accents tend to sound too much the same, and they were attached to characters that I never envisioned as Russian. His French accent was a little off-putting as well (Rev. Schultz). However, I enjoyed his narration much more than Lloyd James' interpretations of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "Time Enough for Love." Highly recommended.
4 of 6 people found this review helpful