elijahmagallon

I read this book many times as a younger man and loved it. Am re-reading it for the first time in 20 years and am ot enjoying it anywhere near as much as before. The humour doesn't appeal to me anymore and there doesn't seem to be much of a plot.

Any thoughts?

Nick Danger

Is that the one where Lazarus Long tells a bunch of stories where he's the hero? Homesteading the prairie, fighting in WWI, freeing two slaves, going back in time and wooing his mother as an adult, returning to the present and getting seduced by his great(x3)granddaughter, and so forth?

I haven't looked at it since I was a teenager. I liked it then, but recognized that it wasn't really a coherent novel. Given how my tastes were back then, I would probably find it kind of leering now.

Josh-da-man

Yeah, I think that's the one.

I think that's the novel where Heinlein started entering his "dirty old man" period.

I've never been hugely impressed with Heinlein. I always found his characters thin and the books overly long and meandering.

elijahmagallon

Yes that's the one. It definitely has some good moments but overall isn't great. And yes I think that him being a 'dirty old man' is a fair description at this point.

Nick Danger

I borrowed the book from the library. I read about half of it before I got bored and put it down. Lots of talk about sex, but at least Heinlein isn't creepy about it the way Piers Anthony is. I've re-read several other Heinlein books in the last few years, and this it the first one that bored me.

It's also the last-published Heinlein book I've read. I've skipped the 'dirty old man' phase of his career.

bippitty

Yes, he had sex with his mother. But I don't think he had sex with his granddaughter. As I recall, they made two clones of him. Twin girls. Once they'd grown up, they seduced him.

Jon2

What a bunch of mundanes.