The Number of the Beast

This is hands down my favorite Heinlein book. A machine that will let you visit any universe, any story ever written? How wild and wonderful. I can't even imagine the fun and adventure of being able to do just that. This is truly one of the most imaginative plots that I have read. Where do I sign up? Heinlein expected his readers to be well read and well educated. He wrote books that make the reader THINK and wonder. He posed what ifs. That makes a good author as well as a good read. Because of this book, I went back and reread all of the Oz books, I read all 11 John Carter books for the first time, I tried the Dorsai novels, and more. I also found and read Heinlein books that were previously missing from my collection. This book references all the above mentioned and more. And the more you read, the more references you understand, and the better and better the book gets. The science and math in this book do not bother me; Heinlein has said in many different novels that he expected a person to be well educated and well rounded enough to birth a baby, shoot a gun, milk a cow, build a needed tool or part, and figure an orbit vector. He was a generalist, and felt the human race had become too specialized. How many specialists would survive in frontier situation in this day and age? He felt we had lost our explorers edge. As to this book, the plot is marvelous and inventive, the pacing just right, the characters are people I want to know and be friends with, the settings are truly unique and wonderful. I know that this book is not for everyone, and not even all stallwart Heinleins fans agree with me. But, IMHO, this is as good as it gets.

This is one of Heinliens greatest books and thus de facto one of the best sci fi books ever written. BUT, if you haven't read a good amount of Heinlien, don't start with this one as you'll be missing out on a lot of nuances. He brings in characters from other books, and not just his own either.I recommend reading several early works and include at a minimum 'Stranger...', 'Time...', 'The Moon' and a couple of the shorter novellas.Heinlien plays with time, multi universes, history, politics and religion and of course does it with "real" heros, characters that love and live, fight and play and in general have adventures that stimulate the mind of the reader.Like almost all of his books, it's a better read the second time around because there is just so much there, but even if read just for the adventure without thinking about all the between the lines stuff this book is just plain fun.

I really enjoyed this book. I thought the science aspect of it was thought provoking, and the characters were typical Heinlein protagonists - i.e. People who are a little too good to be true, but people I'd aspire to be. The bit at the end with Lazarus Long, tying it into the rest of the Future History was a welcome touch. One of the first Heinleins I read, and still part of my yearly re-reads.

I've been a Heinlein fan since I was young(er), and it was this book that lead me to so many other great works of his. I always come back to this one, tho...And his inclusion of Oz was wonderful too!