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That one sounds like "I Will Fear No Evil", generally conceded to tie "Number of the Beast" as his worst novel.

Or Friday ... which is considered by many to be one of his finest.

The funny thing about Heinlein is tht most people love _either_ his early or his late works.

Me? I reckon that The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress is an excellent novel .. as is Number of the Beast (well, except for the last chapter of NOTB which had too many pop-culture references that I simply didn't get).

And that Stranger in a Strange Land is a masterwork .. but that so is Tunnel in the Sky.

Sure, he wrote some stuff that I didn't like (I found Job to be too 'shrill' for my taste, and thought Johnny Rico in Troopers was a gormless twit who agreed with the last person he met) ... but RAH _always_ made me think.

I wish the same could be said for most other writers.

His politics is somewhat different to Heinlein, but I like Kim Stanley Robinson's stuff for the same reason, and think that authors like Gregory Benford show potential.

Unfortunately most writers fall into the Michael Crichton / Jonathon Kellerman / Steven King mould, and write formulaic pap :-(

Oh well.

Even bad literature is better than no literature :-)

Sadim