Friday, October 02, 2015

Review: I Will Fear No Evil

I Will Fear No Evil I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Heinlein and I have a bit of a troubled past. I get that he's supposed to be one of the old guard masters of SF, but I've rarely been able to see it myself. Even when he writes a good first half of a book they just all seem to run off the rails at the end. Well, at least he doesn't have that problem here; this one runs off the rails at the beginning and then just wallows around revelling in the resulting train wreck until I gave up.

Interesting premise: the mind of an old man transplanted into the body of a young woman.
Interesting world: Heinlein explains changes in social mores, and paints an America falling apart at the seams.
The Plot: Sex.

That's it. The entire plot of this book appears to be the main character thinking about sex, arranging sex, and talking about sex. With maybe two exceptions, every single character in the book - male or female - spends their every waking moment trying to have sex with every human being they meet. The sex isn't there for any particular reason, or to tell any particular story; it's apparently an end to itself. I'm not a prude, and the sex isn't graphic in any case. There is absolutely nothing wrong with sex and a healthy sexual appetite. But it's _boring_ to read about, when it's not going anywhere, and it's all that happens!

There a few tender and well-written moments - Johann meeting with the man who was married to his body before he inherited it, for one - and they kept me reading, hoping for some sort of story to emerge, until about the 3/4 mark. But I'm done now. This is just soft porn. There is no story here; the lady in her bathrobe has answered the door to the pizza guy with a sultry wink, the bad 70's Bow-Chicka-Bow-Bow music has started up, and that's apparently all we get for excuses. I'm outta here.

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