The Pursuit of the Pankera

May 18, 2020
This posthumous reconstruction of fragments from SFWA Grand Master Heinlein (1907–1988) comes together to form an alternate version of his 1980 novel, The Number of the Beast, that is of academic interest but minimal entertainment value. The first third of the plot remains the same, as an alien attack on San Francisco leads four characters to flee in a vehicle awkwardly named The Gay Deceiver, which has the ability to travel to parallel universes, but diverges as their pulpy adventures take them through different planes of existence than in the original, including a sojourn in the Land of Oz. It’s a fascinating window into Heinlein’s creative process, but suffers from a meandering structure and often offensively dated prose. Most egregious are the characterizations of the female characters; one woman’s nipples are described as “pretty pink spigots are barometers of her morale,” and indeed the state of her nipples is how her mood is determined by the men around her throughout. This is for Heinlein scholars and diehard fans only.

March 1, 2020
This previously unpublished manuscript by Grand Master Heinlein will be in demand by his many fans and readers interested in the history of the genre. It's based on the same premise and features the same characters as his The Number of the Beast (1980). Indeed, the first third of the book is identical. But the novel then veers into an entirely different story, appropriately, since the books are based on travel through alternate worlds. As in Beast, our intrepid explorers travel to various fictional universes: Burroughs' Barsoom, Baum's Land of Oz, Smith's Lensman universe, confronting the idea that all fictional universes exist somewhere in the multiverse. Beast is recognized as the first work of Heinlein's late style, but The Pursuit of the Pankera is mostly in his middle style and occasionally hearkens back to his earliest pulp action writings. Together, the two novels offer fascinating insight into an inflection point in the evolution of one of science fiction's greatest writers. Pankera can also be read on its own, though it will be of greatest interest to Heinlein fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)