[MarkL]

I felt kind of let down towards the end the first couple of times I read it. I felt like Heinlein was just giving up on a great plot line and making a joke of it all.

Same here at first, however I really liked putting Harlan (Ellison, I assume) in charge of the critics! That was a stroke of genius!

Mark

[Pablo64]

Yeah, I suspect that there are several little inside jokes, or homages scattered throughout the book that the general public was maybe not necessarily supposed to be in on, but that friends (or critics) might pick up on.