Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #106772 in Books
• Published on: 1990-09-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 512 pages

Customer Reviews

(yawn) - in my books, this book is a sleeper
I'm a pretty big Heinlein fan, I like Friday, JOB: A comedy of justice (one of my favourites) - i'm a huge fan of Citizen of the Galaxy, Glory Road, Doublestar, Farnham's Freehold and a score of others. Yes, his female characters are often incredibly boring and 2 dimentional and they often start out strong and then turn all "I'll do whatever you say"-ish as soon as they get a guy - but this book - man - why on earth this was sold in the science fiction section of the bookshop is beyond me. Yes, the premise is science fictionish - a brain transplant, but then the rest is just the main character exploring his new life as a drop-dead georgeous female.
I got so bored that I had to quit just before 1/2 way and left it for a while thinking: "I'll give it a break and come back to it later, then i'm sure I'll like it" - nope.. no chance.. At the point where Joan Eunice starts trying to proove his/her identity in court I could only really stomach about a half a page a day - it just goes on and on and on and on and on.

And yes, like one of the other reviews says, I also found Stranger in a Strange Land boring - but at least I made it to the end of that one - I tried, I really tried to read this, but no chance.

Starship Troopers threatened to bore me to tears in a few places, as it went on and on about political theory, but at least you could skim those pages and get on with the book - not this one - Looking for good Science Fiction by the master himself? Try one of the others listed above, this one will dissapoint.

The Body's Memories
Heinlein never lacked for ideas. Many were original with him, such as the multi-generational star-ship. Sometimes he took someone else's idea and added his own fillip to it - which is what he does here.

Johann Sebastian Bach Smith is very old, very rich, very stubborn - and caught in the medical straight-jacket of extensive life support. So he conceives of having his brain transplanted - whether the operation is successful or not, he'll at least escape the straight-jacket. So far, an idea done many times before. Now Heinlein adds his own touch, as the 'donor' body turns out to be that of his young, extremely beautiful secretary, Eunice Branca, who was mugged and murdered. When Johann wakes up after the operation, he finds Eunice there in his head, ready to help him adjust to the new world of being very much a female. Is Eunice real, a product of 'body experience'? Or just a figment of Johann's imagination? Heinlein lays clues to this important question throughout the book, but you'll have to read it and make up your own mind.

Given the scenario above, this seems to be a perfect setup for Heinlein's traditional storming of the taboo bastions adhering to sex and gender stereotypes in American society. And there is no shortage of comments, situations, and happenings about just these items. Unfortunately, there is entirely too much of this material, occupying almost all of the middle section of this book, and after the first few sexual situations that Joan (the Johann/Eunice hybrid) faces, becomes extremely repetitious. Joan is not very believable as a woman (female characters were never Heinlein's strong point), nor do her actions really jive with what a 95 year old man would do. The internal conversations between Johann and Eunice are interesting and well done, though here again it becomes somewhat repetitious in the later stages of the book.

When Heinlein leaves Joan's intimate life for a broader look at his envisioned world, it gets much better. The book is set in what he described in other books as "The Crazy Years": illiteracy is common, people need to live in armored fortresses, drive in the equivalent of tanks, court decisions are just as crazy as the one's you read about in today's newspaper, homosexuality is actively encouraged as a way to limit population growth, some areas of cities have been completely abandoned by the police as impossible to enforce. Heinlein's description of ordinary living amongst the youth of the times, his depiction of Eunice's husband Joe as a real artist, his satirical snapshots of the headlines of the day are all excellent, and his headlines are far too close to today's reality to be easily dismissed as 'impossible'.

Heinlein became extremely ill just as this book was going to final edit, and his wife ended up making some of the decisions about the final form of this book. I think that if Heinlein had been well, a large portion of the middle section of this book would have been cut, and some tightening up done on the rest of it. As it is, it is far from his best, even making allowances. But the idea and situation are intriguing (who hasn't fantasized at least once about what it would be like to be the other sex?), in places Heinlein's power to engross and change your world-view are in full flower, his believable world-building skills much in evidence, his messages important and relevant to today's living. Heinlein on a down day was still better than ninety-nine percent of the other material on the racks.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

I loved it
I loved this book and have only just realised that I no longer have a copy (thanks to moving, etc.). I came onto Amazon to order another. After Time Enough for Love, it ties with Stranger for my favourite. However, Farnham's Freehold was the first Heinlein I read and that is definitely worth a look also. Read them all: he's thought provoking, innovative (for the time) and his characters are well-formed. And did I mention he's thought-provoking?