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The Number of the Beast cover art

The Number of the Beast

By: Robert A. Heinlein
Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne, Emily Durante, Malcolm Hillgartner, Sean Runnette, Richard Powers, Tom Weiner
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Summary

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. 

Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) was the dominant science-fiction writer of the modern era, a writer whose influence on the field was immense. He won science fiction's Hugo Award for best novel four times.

©1980 Robert A. Heinlein (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“One of the grand masters of science fiction.” (Wall Street Journal)

“The most influential science fiction writer of all time!” (Locus)

“[A story] about two men and two women in a time-machine safari through this and other universes. But describing The Number of the Beast thus is like saying  Moby-Dick is about a one-legged guy trying to catch a fish.” (National Review)

What listeners say about The Number of the Beast

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Unbelievably bad!

Being a science fiction fan, I thought I had better check out some Heinlein as the author seems to be highly regarded and often mentioned in the same breath as the the great Asimov. For the first couple of hours I thought I must have made a mistake and downloaded the wrong book!

Quite simply this is book is unbelievably bad. The plot, on paper, sounds promising, travel to different dimensions/parallel universes in a home made time machine while being pursued by aliens - all classic sci-fi stuff. However the plot is virtually irrelevant because 90% of the book (not an exaggeration) consists of banal bickering and discussions about trivia between the main characters. The characters (and the author) seem only to have the vaguest passing interest in the plot.

For example the characters arrive on an apparently inhabited Mars in a parallel universe. What's the first thing they do? Explore? Express wonder at their location? No, they have an incredibly long and tedious discussion about sleeping arrangements, how best to program the ships computer, bicker endlessly about the chain of command and even arrangements for going to the toilet!

I won't even mention the dodgy science and the frankly embarrassing (for a sci-fi author) lack of understanding of the capabilities of computers (it's as if this book was written in 1930 not 1980!). The female characters are completely unbelievable and seem to have been created to fulfil the authors adolescent fantasies. Speaking of which the whole book reads like it was written by a 14 year old boy, except a 14 year old boy would have put more action in it!

I can't image how frustrating it must be to read because after half an hour I wanted to slap all the main characters. After 2 hours I could cheerfully have throttled the lot of them and the author to prevent him inflicting any more of this on anyone.

I understand that this book was apparently written while the author was recovering from a serious illness and that his brain may have been starved of oxygen. That might explain a lot because I can see no other way that a supposedly celebrated author could spew out this tripe.

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5 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Very well done

Would you consider the audio edition of The Number of the Beast to be better than the print version?

Much Better

If you’ve listened to books by Robert A. Heinlein before, how does this one compare?

A bit too technical - I could have done without all the maths

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

doing this as separate narrators per person fitted the book exactly and it ran very smoothly. very well done.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

mainly irritation at all the wrangling about who was "Captain"

Any additional comments?

I have had this book in my to listen to pile for a fair while but was a bit nervous about playing it mainly because I did not want to be disappointed as I had re-read the book and found it very hard going. Not to worry ~ I thoroughly enjoyed it (mostly) but all 4 could have done with a good slap at times.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

One of Heinlein's most difficult reads!

Fortunately this is not typical of Heinlein's work! It is an attempt to examine fiction as history, unfortunately the plot and characters decend into gibberish, with the thread of the book disapearing. I would avoid this book and look at Time Enough for Love, I will fear no Evil, A Stranger in a Strange Land, Friday or Starship Troopers which bettyer represent this very gifted Sci-Fi author. This is definately for Fans only!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
  • Mr
  • 06-08-13

I struggled with this one

What did you like best about The Number of the Beast? What did you like least?

This book has some really good use of language, discussions of theories and I loved how the story switched between characters. I found the narrators ok but not amazing. This is normally enough for me to love a story but I found the whole thing a struggle. It felt long, slow and the only reason I stuck with it until the end was out of some reverence to the author and the hope that it would get much better. The early parts of the book (earth and mars) were really good but anything after chapter 38 became a chore.

I really cannot put my finger on what might have been my least favorite parts I am guessing its just the book wasn’t a good fit for me. As a result of haven’t given the story as a whole a low score.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Number of the Beast?

The best part of the book would have to be the whole mars British vs Russian thing. I would this part of the book the most enthralling. The characters where great and the way the plot worked really kept me going.

What aspect of the narrators’s performance might you have changed?

the narrators were good and worked well together, some of the males performance seemed to be a bit lacking in enthusiasm from time to time and didn’t always fit the mood of the story.

Could you see The Number of the Beast being made into a movie or a TV series? Who would the stars be?

it could be done and if made faster i would find it entertaining

Any additional comments?

this book has made me down load john carter of earth and given me a list of other books to down load. all of which were mentioned in this book. i hope once i have listened to or read these that i will return to the number of the beast and find it more enjoyable.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Went on a bit !

Started well, but got a little drawn out, more a taste of fantasy than science fiction.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Utter nonsense, definitely not Heinlein’s best

I didn’t listen to the whole book, I gave up after about five hours. When your enemies have a time machine but don’t manage to catch you in time, how does this add up? Heinlein wrote this brilliant short story “by his bootstraps” about a time traveler which gave a consistent idea.
Besides of this it is the usual sexist setting of intelligent young naked women with more intelligent naked older men. I don’t recall any Heinlein story where past menopause women are worth playing an important role or even being mentioned. Of this you can read in a more interesting way in Time enough for love or Stranger in a strange land.
I also find none of the narrators does a very good job. Sounds more like text to speech to me.
In a nutshell: I found it disappointing, but I only read like 20% of it.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

wonderful Sci-Fi

Heinlein is always pushing the boundaries of what the social norms were. Maybe a bit too much with some of the pseudo science in places and definitely went off the boil at the end.
other than that a wonderful read and one of my personal favourites.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Typical Heinlein

An interesting idea, about a device that allows travel through multiple universes becomes somewhat self indulgent as the author takes the reader through his personal favourites.

The narration of different characters is handled by using different voice artists for each chapter which takes some getting used to, but this is also a stylistic effect from the book- each chapter is first person for a different character.

It’s a fun romp and took me back to reading it many years ago.

PS Americans should NOT be allowed to attempt British or Russian accents, especially “cockney” and “Received Pronunciation”. Luckily in this book it is presented as the character doing the impression of another person in the narrative, for the most part anyway, so it can be forgiven.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

long ...too long

Imagine a 5 hour story strung out to over 21 hours......its painfully slow, rambling and dull. There are many aspects of this book that are dated and you have to accept and forgive that, its fact that its too long by at least 15 hours that ruin it.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars
  • LC
  • 31-12-20

Variable - slow in places

I found this one quite hard to follow as it is vey much like a never ending “gossipy” conversation which I couldn’t always make sense of.
I also found it slow and lacking interest at times, although it did seem to get better later on in that regard.
Overall it was worth listening to though, although I much preferred some of the others by Heinlein.

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