Book Review: The Pursuit of the Pankera by Robert A. Heinlein
https://johnthelibrarian.com/2020/03/01/book-review-the-pursuit-of-the-pankera-by-robert-a-heinlein/
This review was first published by Booklist on 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This previously unpublished manuscript by Grand Master Heinlein will be in demand by his many fans and readers interested in the history of the genre.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.
I’ve been waiting for the next H. Beam Piper “Lord Kalvin” story.
I’ve been a fan since childhood-I’m going to B&N online and ordering my copy now...
I like Heinlein.
I have it already. A few months ago I bought a bunch of Heinlein novels and that was among them. I haven’t read it yet.
I read this a month or so ago... Or thereabouts.... I liked it. Been a Heinlein fan all my life. Came out in March, I believe. Fun look back at earlier works by other authors’ famous series like, Burrough’s Barsoom and Doc Smith’s Lensmen series. It’s his parallel universe concept here... Where everything ever thought of actually exists somewhere in a parallel universe..... Great romp!
A Man should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Robert Heinlein
I haven’t read The Number of the Beast, but I found this review in the wiki article:
“ Heinlein buff David Potter explained on alt.fan.heinlein, in a posting reprinted on the Heinlein Society, that the entire book is actually “one of the greatest textbooks on narrative fiction ever produced, with a truly magnificent set of examples of how not to do it right there in the foreground, and constant explanations of how to do it right, with literary references to people and books that did do it right, in the background.” He noted that “every single time there’s a boring lecture or tedious character interaction going on in the foreground, there’s an example of how to do it right in the background.”[4]
Fun fact: I am, by marriage, a great-nephew of RHH.
My wife’s mother’s maiden name is Heinlein, and RHH was her great uncle, or something.
Hi.
I could be wrong, but didn’t Heinlein write a book with the plot that the Chicoms released a deadly disease in the U.S. and subdued America until this one scientist in CO developed a force field?
I wish I could remember the title.
5.56mm
Gee whiz, we already have the “Orwellian of Things”, do we really need to hear about all things “Heinleinnian” too?
Just easy remembered highlights include; dumbed-down education, work ethic, self-reliance, joy of engineering, practical problem solving by changing a variable at a time and how being prepared makes the difference between good and bad luck. Show me a contemporary YA that matches that!
AND ..., for a 1958 youth novel, this quote seems awfully contemporary! "I wonder how harmless such people are? To what extent civilization is retarded by the laughing jackasses, the empty minded belittlers."
“The book, The Pursuit of the Pankera, is based on Heinlein’s manuscript from his series, The Number of the Beast.”
Based on?
Did he write it or not?
I read one, it was “Have Spacesuit, Will Travel”.
My favorite of the juvies was “Red Planet”. It was one of the first SF books I read and helped hook me. His best was “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”. He was definitely socialist and a mocker of Christianity, though, and got really weird in his later years (”Time Enough for Love” is a great book, but the part where Woodie goes back in time and boinks his mom is a stomach turner.)