The other day I read a book called "Lullaby" in which (among other interesting developments) a rich lady uses her fortune to buy a publishing company so she can destroy all copies of a book containing a poem that when read to someone kills them. If such a book existed and I had a choice to either destroy all copies of it and save countless lives, or all copies of the relatively harmless Robert A Heinlein's Number of the Beast; well I would probably have to flip a coin.
Honestly when I picked up this book I was expecting something really special, all the Heinlein books I had read so far had been really good. More specifically I had read the mind bending Stranger in a Strange Land, the exceptionally well written, creative and fleshed out The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and the short but sweet slightly fascist sci-fi action classic Starship Troopers. All of these books are science fiction classics and I cannot recommend them enough.
However I think I would rather recommend a battery acid colonic than recommend reading Number of the Beast, it is such a piece of worthless tripe that it nearly destroyed all the respect that I had accumulated for Heinlein. What is so wrong with this book? You may ask. I'm about to tell you what, but there is so much to hate that I am really having a hard time finding a starting point.
I guess I should start at the beginning. At first the writing style seemed fast paced and pulpy but it was interesting, however that interest runs out when you realize that despite the tone of the novel starting out quick the thing is 500+ pages long and the plot does not in any way keep up with the pace set by the writing style. Of course some plot points go by quickly, within the first two pages 2 of the main characters Zebadiah (ugh) and Deety decide to get married, of course this is absurd and completely unbelievable because they are complete strangers and have just met. I was willing to suspend my disbelief for a bit, thinking that this being Heinlein sexual mores in his sci-fi worlds are generally a little bit wonky. This didn't turn out to be the case, it really turns out that he just decided that he needed to have a married couple as the protagonists so why not just have two complete strangers meet and decide to tie the knot within the first 2 pages of the book. Of course the whirl wind romance in the first 2 pages of the book could have probably been spaced out and made a little bit more believable if Heinlein had removed the 50% of the book that is made up by the characters doing math out loud, and programming their ships' computer.
So complete absurdity and unbelievability aside he goes on to introduce us to the other 2 main characters, Deety's father Dr. Jake Burroughs, who is annoyingly referred to as "Pop" through most of the book, and Debutant and all-around rich bitch Hilda. Who also inexplicably decide to get married right after the first couple chapters, however at least they have some back story to kind of support this.
Now I have gotten to the meat and potatoes of what is completely wrong with this stinking turd of a book. Some complete incredulously unbelievable plot stuff aside the plot is at least interesting: Dr. Burroughs has created a crazy space/time machine that can take you into any one of six to the sixth to the sixth power number of parallel universes, aliens want to destroy the technology, the four protagonists spend the majority of the book running from said aliens and exploring. This would be bearable and perhaps even enjoyable to read if Heinlein had not made all four of his main characters into "Mary Sues"
According to the "Mary Sue" wikipedia page:
A Mary Sue (sometimes just Sue), in fanfiction, is a fictional character with overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for the author or reader. Perhaps the single underlying feature of all characters described as "Mary Sues" is that they are too ostentatious for the audience's taste, or that the author seems to favor the character too highly. The author may seem to push how exceptional and wonderful the "Mary Sue" character is on his or her audience, sometimes leading the audience to dislike or even resent the character fairly quickly; such a character could be described as an "author's pet".
Although the traits of a "Mary Sue" are not necessarily gender-specific, the term itself is used exclusively for females. The term must be modified to refer to male characters; they are often dubbed "Gary Stu", "Larry Stu", "Marty Stu", or similar names. While the label "Mary Sue" itself originates from a parody of this type of character, most characters labeled "Mary Sues" by readers are not intended by authors as such.
While the above definition is generally applied to fanfiction, I think it best describes the characters in this book. They are all geniuses, Zeb and the Dr. Burroughs both are fencing masters and incredibly wealthy while being math geniuses, Deety is a martial arts master and incredibly wealthy, a math genius and of course super hot to boot. While Hilda is a little bit less of a genius but still a genius, a little bit less wealthy than the rest of them but still sickeningly wealthy and super hot to boot. Pretty much all 4 characters are near-perfect copies of each other, and all 4 characters talk in the same way and have the same political ideologies which perfectly coincide with Heinlein's idealistic libertarian viewpoints (WHAT A SHOCK). Ugh, its pissing me off even writing about it. The only likable character in the book is 'Gay Deceiver' the space ship, and the only reason it is believable is because it is a computer guided rocket-car thing that is supposed to be two dimensional and have no personality.
The dialogue from each of the characters is usually spent spouting out random math equations used for their flight calculations and needless techno jargon. However when they are interacting with each other it usually wavers from sickeningly sweet lovey-dovey bullshit, to righteous indignation. Also there are speeches featuring ridiculous empty headed machismo from the males, overly feminine empty headed prattle from both females, and the occasional reference to the Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom novels.
That brings me to another problem, 3 of the main characters are named in Homage to E.R.B. and his Barsoom Novels, The characters literally spend page upon page talking about how great said novels are. After the first few times I had to read about how totally freaking awesome John Carter of Mars and all his crazy-ass adventures are I decided Heinlein would have been better off just writing a fanfic. Either that or just go give the guy a literal reach-around as opposed to a literary one.
Ugh I am going to just wrap this up with a few man bullet points because I could literally type on how much I hated this piece of shit all day.
- The characters spend page upon page reciting math equations out loud, maybe to make it seem more like "hard" science fiction.
- The characters spend page upon page programming the computer on board Gay Deciever, maybe to make it seem more like "hard" science fiction
- The story is either moving at a lighting quick pace or a hideously slow crawl bogged down in the above mentioned math recitation and computer programming
- THE DIALOGUE MAKES ME WANT TO PUKE
- Libertarian fantasy bullshit: For example a multi-page explanation on how Deety and "Pop" cheat the government out of their taxes and then somehow secretly insert money into programs that are socially responsible like fire departments etc. Or stupid story about how Zeb got a doctorate just to make a statement on how doctorates are completely worthless compared to being just naturally awesome
- Poorly crafted story elements. i.e. their spaceship is small but somehow they can fit enough supplies into it to last them months just by really trying hard at packing. Also any random item that they need whatsoever just happens to be packed in some back crate in the ship and not mentioned until they need it.
Now do yourself a favor, if you see a copy of this book, immediately go buy a copy of The Forever War and read it instead. Do not under any circumstances touch this radioactive piece of syphilitic monkey crap.
Posts
