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Time Enough for Love (1973)

by Robert A. Heinlein

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: World As Myth (1), Lazarus Long (2)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
5,528651,844 (3.88)116
Time Enough for Love is the capstone and crowning achievement of Heinleins famous Future History series.
  1. 70
    To Sail Beyond the Sunset by Robert A. Heinlein (sfcat)
    sfcat: These two books are my all time favorites. Both are fictional biographies from Heinlein's Lazarus Long series and will make readers laugh gasp and cry. Fascinating stories of a slightly alternate universe. No question, if a nuclear attack was imminent, I'd sit down and re-read the chapter of Dora's Story.… (more)
  2. 10
    Dancing with Eternity by John Patrick Lowrie (viking2917)
    viking2917: One of the earliest and best explorations of immortality and it's impact on humans
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English (63)  Spanish (1)  All languages (64)
Showing 1-5 of 63 (next | show all)
Not my favourite Heinlein novel. The sex was a little overwhelming. ( )
  DavidRFWarner | Nov 7, 2023 |
A friend gave me this huge brick of a Heinlein, and I spent a month ploughing through it, and what do I think? My braindump follows...

- I made no effort to work out if it was a book in a series, or whether there was backstory I needed to know, I just dived in. A few minutes with the internet suggests this is not the first book Heinlein wrote in his loose Future History/World as Myth/Lazarus Long series, and if I had been making some effort to start at the beginning the lightly pencilled in ideas of the Senior and the Howard families might have been a bit more explained! But you can muddle through from where I started, or at least I did.

- Heinlein. Oh Heinlein. Is it refreshingly freeing to see a sex positive and open society where polyamorous families can all love one another and bring up children together? Or is it all weirdly tarnished by the way he dials it all up to 11 and attacks the incest taboo head on? By the end of the book our hero has seduced both the child he raised from a baby, and his actual literal mother at the age she was when he was originally about 6. In fact, the main motivator for the entire time travel plot is 'my mum is hot and has nice breasts, I want to bang her'. It is all quite uncomfortable. Also, basically every woman he meets falls for him, and not only that, shows her affection by desperately wanting him to impregnant him, even if they are genetic clones of each other. Awkward.

- It is broadly 6 stories all loosely tied together, in a book with dense print running at 600 pages. Sadly I cannot count it as 6 books for 'how many books did I read this year'. It was interesting to read a proper Long Book, but I did find it dragged in places, and the book felt like it rambled, the end of the book was a long way from the beginning. I guess there is a circular theme, young Lazarus is trying to be in the army as cynically and self interestedly as possible, whereas by the end he is enlisted and really fighting to make his family proud.

- It might be selling itself as science fiction, but nowadays it feels like an elegy to a very dated American dream. Freeing slaves, but in a Great White Saviour way! Pioneering in the outback! Of all of time and space, travelling back to just before WWI in America.

- Some bits are infuriating. The bit where he won't let Dora do some trivial manual labour because she is pregnant, and he would never put a pregnant woman at risk, but he will take her hundreds of miles away from the next human being and make her give birth with no-one else around for help but him... And let's not even talk about the relationship with the Mules, who have basic rudimentary language!

Still, it is an epic romp, looking at the themes of 'what is there still to do if you've lived forever', even if the conclusions are mostly just 'sleep with everyone. Sleep with yourself. Sleep with your mother.' ( )
  atreic | Oct 27, 2022 |
It took a month to muddle through all the way to page 60. It just didn’t get me hooked. Inane dialogues, pretty boring. I’m a big Heinlein fan and this was a disappointment. ( )
  marzagao | Jun 1, 2021 |
It’s been almost a year since I reviewed the first volume of the Virgina Edition, I Will Fear No Evil. I didn’t intend for there to be such a long hiatus, but things got in the way. Also, there is the absurdity of having two of Heinlein’s longest novels at the front end of the series, which makes no sense so far as I can tell.

I liked the story of Time Enough For Love very much. It is the story of Lazarus Long, the oldest human in the galaxy. Introduced in Heinlein’s Future History tales, Long has lived some 23 centuries at the beginning of the novel. Being born in 1916 on Earth as Woodrow Wilson Smith, Long emigrated into space as humanity’s home planet became a Malthusian nightmare, and over the course of his life he took on many names and careers. Now, old and disillusioned, Lazarus is ready to die, having seen and experienced everything he cares to see and experience.

In addition to being the oldest human to ever live, Long is known as the Senior – i.e., the progenitor of nearly all of the various Howard Families, a society of people who have selectively bred (or, more accurately, inbred) over the centuries to reinforce genetic longevity. Due to his nature as a sort of Mitochondrial Adam, Long allows himself to be convinced by the current head of the Howard Families – Chairman Pro Tem Ira Weatheral – to remain alive long enough to tell stories that will, hopefully, impart some wisdom to his descendants.

William H. Patterson, Jr., (Heinlein's official biographer) calls the format of Time Enough For Love a “virtuoso turn” for Heinlein, noting comparisons between the novel’s opening and a portion of [b:Caleb Catlum’s America|1516006|Caleb Catlum's America|Vincent McHugh|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|1507729], as well as a section of blank verse “tucked away” in prose form at the beginning of one chapter (part one of "The Tale of the Adopted Daughter"), a la [a:James Branch Cabell|92665|James Branch Cabell|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1207156655p2/92665.jpg]. These allusions coupled with the interweaving of an introduction, frame story, backstory, correspondence, two preludes, two interludes, and four codas (the last of which each have musical headings), show that Time Enough For Love is not merely structurally complex – it may be the most complex of any of Heinlein’s works.

That complexity fits well the book's status a Menippean satire, as described by [a:Northrop Frye|58765|Northrop Frye|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1229101452p2/58765.jpg] in [b:Anatomy of Criticism|318116|Anatomy of Criticism Four Essays|Northrop Frye|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1349129234s/318116.jpg|1050194]. Nearly all of the characters in Time Enough For Love speak intellectually about their positions, although some of them might deny that’s what they are doing, and there are huge swaths of Socractic dialogue in which Lazarus (mainly) lays out his wisdom and knowledge to help others understand, as best as he can make them, where he is coming from. This “exhaustive erudition” that Lazarus provides, through parley and parable, is in a very real sense the core purpose of the book. The book is also replete with the idea of “evil and folly as diseases of the intellect,” showing not only how badly wrong-thinking individuals can screw things up for everyone else, but also how right-thinking individuals can outwit (or at least outrun) such screw-ups and pass their wit and wisdom on to others.

For a more in-depth analysis of this book, please see my full review at CurtisWeyant.com. ( )
  octoberdad | Dec 16, 2020 |
I have a love-hate relationship with Heinlein. Some of his stuff is great. Some of it, like Farnham's Freehold, which I reviewed here, I simply hate. However, I like enough of his work that I seek more. This was a book that took me a long time to get through, but when I got done, it was well worth it. I read it back in 2002. From my journal back then:

>>I found it to be a book that makes you think. I thought the opening was a bit slow, but once the narrative was set up, it got interesting.... I found that reading the book in segments, a part here and a part there, worked better for me.One of my favorite parts was the Notebooks of Lazarus Long, a section of maxims full of common sense. I also enjoyed the tale of Dora very much, a moving tale of how Lazarus fell in love with an ephemeral woman and their life together til death did them part.
I also recall the ending for having a nice twist (I am not saying, go read it instead). This is a book about a rascal, a picaro to borrow the Spanish word, which is so much better than just saying "rascal," if nothing else. It integrates different genres. In some ways reminded me of works like One Thousand Nights and a Night and Don Quijote (not the Man of La Mancha's idealism, but the novel's integration of different genres and elements). This has become one of my favorite books. ( )
  bloodravenlib | Aug 17, 2020 |
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» Add other authors (6 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Robert A. Heinleinprimary authorall editionscalculated
Giancola, DonatoCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
James, LloydNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lundgren, CarlCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Pennington, BruceCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Stawicki, MattCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Sweet, Darrell K.Cover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Warhola, JamesCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion-i.e., none to speak of. --L.L.
Dedication
For Bill and Lucy
First words
As the door of the suite dilated, the man seated staring glumly out the window looked around.
Quotations
People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt.
A motion to adjourn is always in order.
History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion—i.e., none to speak of.
Early rising may not be a vice ... but it is certainly no virtue. The old saw about the early bird just goes to show that the worm should have stayed in bed.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Time Enough for Love is the capstone and crowning achievement of Heinleins famous Future History series.

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Book description
The Lives of the Senior Member of the Howard Families (Woodrow Wilson Smith; Ernest Gibbons; Captain Aaron Sheffield; Lazarus Long; "Happy" Daze; His Serenity Seraphin the Younger, Supreme High Priest of the One God in All His Aspects and Arbiter Below and Above; Proscribe Prisoner No. 83M2742; Mr.Justice Lenox; Corporal Ted Bronson; Dr. Lafe Hubert; and others), Oldest Member of the Human Race.
This Account is based principally on the Senior's Own Words as recorded at many times and places and especially at the Howeard REjuvenation clinic and at the Executive Palace in New Rome on Seconudus in Year 2053 After the Great Diaspora (Gregorian Year 4272 of Old Home Terra) - and supplemented by letters and by eyewitness accounts, the whole then arranged, collated, condensed, and (where possible) reconciled with official records and contemporary histories, as directed by Howard Foundation Trustees and executed by the Howard Archivist Emeritus.
the result is of unique historical importance despite the Archivist's decision to leave in blatant falsehoods, self-serving allegations, and many amoral anecdotes not suitable for young persons.
---------------
Capstone of the Future History, climaxing the adventures of the Methuselahs.
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