A different sort of Heinlein book . After reading many of the reviews here, I note that opinion seems divided on whether it's truly a good Heinlein book or not. Most still consider it a pretty fair Heinlein yarn, and yet all the reviews I read missed one of the main points of the novel--which is the main reason why it's so interesting--whether it's a great Heinlein novel or not.    Many have already commented on the various themes of the book, most of which will already be familiar to Heinlein fans. The one that was new was the bigotry against the main character, an artificial and genetically enhanced human. It seems most readers found this reaction unlikely, although this theme pervades the entire work. One reviewer asserts that it's even the primary idea of the whole book.     Another important theme is the revolt against authority which many Heinlein readers will certainly know from his other books such as The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Double Star, Citizen of the Galaxy, Stranger in a Strange Land, Sixth Column, Revolt in 2100, and others.    The theme of the competent man also takes center stage in this book, another famous and familiar Heinlein theme, although in this book it's a competent, genetically enhanced female.    However, all these interpretations, although true, miss one very important point. In Heinlein's novels, the world is often a very unstable and even dangerous place--but there is always hope, and optimism that conditions will be better in the future. Often the main characters in Heinlein's books are intimately involved in this struggle to overthrow oppressive governments--and usually succeeding, thereby creating a better life for themselves.    So no matter how precarious and dark life in the present might be, Heinlein always had hope for the future and seemed confident that humans would throw off the yoke of oppression, establish a better society, and basically good would win out over evil. But in this novel, he appears to have at least partly, perhaps substantially, abandoned that hope in favor of a much darker, more dismal, and depressing future for humanity, at least on earth. Better prospects can be found off-planet on several newly colonized worlds.    The evidence for this isn't hard to find, but is scattered throughout the book in various narratives, and in conversations between Friday and her boss, Dr. Baldwin. By the way, Kettle Belly Baldwin has not appeared, to my knowledge, in another Heinlein book since Gulf, published in 1949. However, all of the other characters are new. So one of the charms of the book is that one gets to meet a lot of new characters, making this book different from almost all of Heinlein's later output, and an old but memorable character is brought back to life in a new context.    But getting back to my point, Heinlein makes it clear the earth is economically and politically deteriorating, with most of the world now completely Balkanized into hundreds of small, petty states, each with its own unpleasant idiosyncrasies. Heinlein says most of these small states are faceless ciphers, with a few larger, powerful states remaining.     The U.S. is no different, being divided into several smaller sovereign states, along with Canada. But these smaller states are often co-belligerants or are at war with each other. It's said that peace rarely lasts more than a month. In one coup that occurs in the Chicago Imperium by militant Republicans, Democrats are rounded up and executed--including their children down to the age of 14.    Another alarming idea is that the large international corporations, such as IBM or the Shipstone Corp., are also participants and instigators of these wars, and sometimes wipe out entire cities, such as Acapulco. These corporations are hard to fight, since they have no single geographical location, and in the book, the internationals seem to be winning over the real or geographically "localized" countries. These super corporations are completely ruthless and immoral and killing for hire and mass murder by them are common.    Heinlein holds out little hope the situation will ever improve--he sees elected officials as venal and corrupt parasites feeding at the public trough and mouthing fatuous platitudes for consumption by an impotent and perhaps naive public--a much darker and more cynical interpretation of politics than that portrayed in Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, or Double Star, in which, if I remember correctly, one character remarks that politics is the only game a mature man can take any pleasure in.    Even con artists and grifters Heinlein sees as more noble--at least they're hardworking independents who aren't on the dole and are trying to earn an "honest" living. :-)  Government and personal corruption are also ubiquitous. The police are not to be trusted in the book, and disposing of them if possible is considered a good idea--as long as one can get away with it, of course. For a client who is powerful and wealthy enough, even physicians can be made to arrange for a certain patient to "die" on the operating table. In fact, almost no one in any position of authority--except Friday's boss, Baldwin, seems to be trustworthy.    In conversations with her boss, Dr. Baldwin, he tells Friday she needs to get off planet because of what's happening on earth and asks her how one can tell if a society is truly sick--that being when normal conventions of politeness and manners have deteriorated into rudeness--which the people now take as a sign of strength. In the book, the good people always seem to be on the run and are persecuted--while the evil flourish unhindered. An epidemic of cholera or bubonic plague that could kill millions is predicted, possibly because of a conspiracy. But Baldwin sees this as a social good since cities are so overpopulated and dysfunctional already that thinning out the population--however it is achieved--is a worthwhile goal.    So overall, it seems a darker and more pessimistic future than anything Heinlein had ever imagined up to this time. But one of Heinlein's strengths is his ability to create believable alternate realities--which again comes through here--however dark and depressing it might be. Whether it's one of his greatest books or not, I think it counts as an unusual and worthwhile Heinlein book because of that
Output: POS