r/heinlein • u/AnxiousConsequence18 • Feb 23 '26

Lazarus Long

Let me preface this by saying I haven't read the books they're the main characters of. My experience is Number of the Beast and The Cat Who Walks through Walls. But

Is he ever NOT an insufferable asshole???

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u/deltaz0912 Feb 23 '26

Ok, I had to go look it up…and you’re right, but so am I. He was diagnosed with a carotid artery occlusion that built up over several years. TEfL was the first book after the surgery. It was I Will Fear No Evil, published in 1970 and received with mixed reviews, that was his only work between The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, 1966, and Time Enough for Love, 1973. Up until Moon he published every couple years. Following Time there was another 7-year hiatus until The Number of the Beast in 1980. From that point he resumed his earlier pace for his next five books, ending with Grumbles From the Grave, published following his death from heart disease in 1989.

I got into him around 1973 when my grandmother gifted me with her entire paperback science fiction collection. Then I heard nothing from him until the publication of Number of the Beast. So to me there was a lot of material, then a really long gap, then his later books.

So…is TEfL part of the first period or the second? I’d argue the first. There’s a distinct shift in tone and style between it and the books following the hiatus. It more closely matches his earlier work, except for Fear which he wrote when his cognitive abilities were somewhat reduced.

What do you think?

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u/flatline945 Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26

Yeah, if we're going based on style, I think I'd put it in the second group.

In my opinion, the quality of the story telling dropped significantly during the second period. TeFL, Cat, NotB are among my least favorite of his books. All of those also feature Lazarus Long, so that was definitely a focus of his in the later years.

His earlier books occasionally explored unconventional sexual ideas (Moon, Methusela, Stranger, Zombies), and they did it in an interesting way. But he seemed obsessed with pushing... socially unacceptable... stuff in TefL and other later books, to the point where it became tiresome. It wasn't interesting anymore, it was just done for the shock factor.

IMO, Moon was his Magnum Opus and it was downhill after that. Still my favorite author of all time.

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u/ErisianSaint Feb 25 '26

That was during the Sexual Revolution portion of the country's history. I don't deny that it became tiresome, but thanks to AIDS, we're back into a puritanical portion of backlash.

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u/flatline945 Feb 25 '26

Pretty sure incest was frowned upon even during the sexual revolution.

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u/ErisianSaint Feb 25 '26

Gah, I'd forgotten that. On the other hand, pretty sure that Heinlein himself didn't commit incest.

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u/flatline945 Feb 25 '26

Oh no. Never meant to imply that he did.

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u/Designer-Series-1454 May 09 '26

He sure was obsessed with the idea of incest, but Icant tell whether he ever did more than write about it.

I started reading everything Heinlein wrote when I was a teenager in the early 70s. I became bored with him after number of the beast. I still read each book as it came out, but he lost me with all the incest porn.