My first favorite writer was Robert A. Heinlein. His early novels and stories shaped my childhood and influenced my entire life. It's not possible to love books more than I love Farmer in the Sky, Starman Jones, Have Space Suit-Will Travel, Space Cadet, The Door Into Summer, or The Puppet Masters. His short stories are magnificent too. Try reading The Long Watch, Requiem, The Green Hills of Earth, or the Bradbury-esque The Man Who Traveled in Elephants and not be moved.

But something happened upon the phenomenal success of Stranger in a Strange Land. That novel became a cult classic. One of THE books, along with Siddhartha, Breakfast of Champions, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, that were damned near required reading at college campuses.

Stranger had some heady ideas. It's a tad overripe to be among my favorites, but it has a lot of remarkable elements in it. The books changed after that. Some retained the old magic, at least in part, like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Farnham's Freehold. Others became disgustingly coy. I Will Fear No Evil and Time Enough For Love, for example. Again, these books contain amazing passages and ideas, but they are buried in embarrassingly awkward sex scenes.

As a kid I loved them. As an adult, not so much.

For a while in my teens, Time Enough For Love was my favorite book, but it was a long ten years before another Heinlein novels surfaced. I knew it was coming, and the title was incredibly exciting: The Number of the Beast. I should have sensed something fishy when it was published as a trade paperback and not a hardcover. Robert A. Heinlein was the biggest science fiction writer in the world, and he was also one of the most marketable writers in publishing.

Trembling with anticipation, I bought The Number of the Beast, and I couldn't wait to read it. I started the novel, and...

I hated it. Loathed, despised, was incensed by The Number of the Beast. I was younger then, and I had more patience. I suffered through every last word of the book.To this day I consider it to be Heinlein's very worst novel.

But now a new version of The Number of the Beast has been unearthed. Supposedly it is truer to the Heinlein of old than what was published. Publicists say that the first third is similar to Number, but the rest is completely different.

To me, any change in The Number of the Beast will be an improvement. I know some diehard Heinlein fans may take exception to that and other statements I've made here, but it's how I feel.

Phoenix Pick, an imprint of ARC Manor publishing, is going to put this new incantation of The Number of the Beast out. Reportedly called SIX SIX SIX, it is currently being edited by one of the best in the business, Pat Lobrutto. I can't think of a better choice for the job.

I will purchase SIX SIX SIX, and I will approach it with every intention of enjoying the novel. Maybe I will rediscover some of the feelings I had when I first soared through all of Heinlein's books when I was young.


Written by Mark Sieber

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