For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs

This is Heinlein's earliest work (although unpublished until recently). It's interesting in that this was written around the start of WWII, so his alternate history reads very odd at times. So, the whole of WWII is different and man hasn't landed on the moon. You can see the seeds of later works in this one, most notably Nehemiah Scudder from [b:Revolt in 2100|1116661|Revolt in 2100|Robert A. Heinlein|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1266721800s/1116661.jpg|2835460] (although the dates are different from that book). He's basically the same character in both books (and as mentioned in other books of his as well).

This book doesn't really have much of a plot at all. A guy from 1939 ends up in the far future and has to deal with the changes in show more the society. That's about it. Some of the customs are interesting (and I wouldn't mind if they were true now), like the concept of public and private spheres. By custom, no one intrudes on another's private sphere. An implication of this is that public figures' private lives are just that, private. It can be very preachy at times, like in his discussion of economics and how our economic system doesn't work (and it attempts to prove that it doesn't). This kind of thing is somewhat interesting but can be tedious.

All told, I wouldn't recommend it to any but Heinlein fans. show less

This novel was not published until after Heinlein's death, but was written by him in 1938 or 1939, and consequently has been called Heinlein's first novel. When reading the novel it quickly becomes apparent why no publisher wanted to release it when Heinlein originally tried to sell it: the book simply isn't that good. It would also have been unsalable in the 1930s with its open attitude towards sex, and almost offhanded acceptance of lesbianism. The story, such as it is, follows Perry who is catapulted from a fatal accident in 1936 forward 150 years to the U.S.A. of the future. The reader is then treated to a badly written utopian fantasy that only makes sense if you assume that the entire book is merely Perry's dying brain spinning an show more elaborate delusion in the last seconds of his life.

The novel shows glimpses of ideas that Heinlein would flesh out and make interesting in other books. One can see the first elements of his future history here, including Neimiah Scudder, the development of Coventry as a place to store disaffected exiles, the use of psychology to treat criminals rather than using a penal system, and so on. Many of Heinlein's ideas are here in embryonic form as well: the idea that government should leave people's social relations solely up to them, an advocacy for an open "free-love" type arrangement between the sexes, and so on.

But the novel is saddled with characters so wooden that you get splinters reading about them. The novel is so didactic that much of it is nothing more than characters giving long lectures on the "correct" ways of doing things. The economic system presented in the novel is ludicrous in the extreme (and is clearly one that only an engineer could love) that has so many things wrong with it that it would be difficult to list them all (some of the most glaring are that the system presented is a recipe for hyperinflation, demonstrates an abject lack of knowledge concerning how banks work, and clearly has no grasp of the time value of money). The social system presented (in the same heavy handed moralizing manner as the economic system) is just as silly, requiring characters to behave in inhuman ways to make it work. The novel is almost as annoying as Bellamy's Looking Backward or Star Trek: The Next Generation, littered with repeated statements about how the humans of the future are so superior to those who lived in the past (the extended lecture supposedly demonstrating why Congress is so much better run in 2086 is simultaneously absurd and offensive).

One element that is clear is that the young Heinlein had an almost child-like faith in the ability of government to cure all ills. Political campaigns are regulated by the government, which makes politicians better. The government takes over banks, which makes them better. The government runs the economy on an engineering basis, which makes it better, and on and on.

The end result is a novel that is boring to read when it isn't making your head hurt with the incredibly silly ideas that are presented as being incredibly good ideas. The book is really only of interest to a Heinlein fan looking to see the development of Heinlein's thought process. For anyone else, this book is simply not worth the time it takes to read it.

This review has also been posted to my blog Dreaming About Other Worlds. show less

According to the introduction, this is a never before published novel/story collection. A young man from 1939 has a car accident and then wakes up in 2086, inhabiting another man's body. Apparently the previous owner had voluntarily 'abandoned' the body and the spirit of Perry had wandered around until it found the vacant body. The man from 1939 then spends the rest of the book getting educated on the customs and past history of 2086. This book is part prediction, part Heinlein telling us how he thinks 'customs' should evolve. If you are familiar with his work, these customs aren't a surprise - he strongly believes in different marriage rules, different economic structures and a different form of democracy. He was also apparently a show more fervent isolationist, which is not surprising for someone writing in 1938, but amazingly shortsighted for someone as far thinking as Heinlein. Overall, I found this interesting but disappointing, more of a curiosity than a worthwhile novel. show less

Yup, the 5 stars is for the politics, not the story, so stop your whining. If you're new to Heinlein, this is not the place to start. Read everything else, then see the "DNA seeds" of it all here. I don't know any other book I've read this year that has compelled me to discuss it with everyone I know, willing or not. Outrageous, brilliant, and, yes, one long lecture. God I wish more lectures were like this one. Two words: War Amendment.

I was a bit chagrined when I found that my local library only had two Robert A. Heinlein books on the adult shelves. I was happy, though, that one was this one. This is Heinlein's first novel, never before released. It was rejected a couple of times and he moved on to other projects. The book is a bit rough, and overly preachy. He did, in fact, write it to present his ideas on politics, finance, and society in general.
I enjoyed it, however. It was fun to see the seeds of his later "future history" novels. It was stated that perhaps this was why he didn't pursue publishing it further, since he had pretty much developed everything in it in further works.
It makes sense. It was still and enjoyable read for me.
Of course, now it's a bit of show more a let down to know that I don't have any more Heinlein novels to look forward to, alas. show less

This is Heinlein's first novel, never published while he was alive. As Spider Robinson says in the introduction, instead of calling it RAH's first novel, it might be more accurate to say "It is all of them, dormant."

In 1939, Perry Nelson is in a car accident from which he awakens in 2086. He spends the rest of the book learning how the world has changed and growing accustomed to living in this new Utopia.

The cover blurb which ends with "Yet it is precisely his knowledge of a bygone era that will serve Perry best, as he unexpectedly leads his peers towards a new horizon that they had never imagined..." gives the false impression that something actually happens in this book. It doesn't, really. As the introduction makes quite clear, it is show more more of a lecture disguised as fiction than anything else.

I didn't expect to keep this book after reading it once, yet surprisingly I am. I don't normally like authors to lecture me, but I have repeatedly found Heinlein to be the exception, whether or not I think he's making sense. show less

Heinlein ordered the manuscripts of this book burned. Turns out, he was right... He just didn't get all the copies.

Not to say there's nothing worth discussing about it. (I will be doing a proper review as part of my Virginia Edition series.) [a:William H. Patterson, Jr.|28589|William H. Patterson Jr.|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1350060046p2/28589.jpg] is right that it includes kernels of what was to come in Heinlein's later work. But who wants kernels? I want the fully popped corn, salted and buttered, with a handful of M&Ms thrown in for kicks and giggles...