dcn@ixn5h.UUCP (05/24/83)
For those of you who don't subscribe to Analog, or missed Spider Robinson's review of The Number of the Beast, here are a couple of paragraphs from the May 1980 and November 9, 1981 issues. ... Adjectives I would apply to this book include breathtaking, ground-breaking, mind-expanding, provacative, dense, broad, daring, startling, exhuberant, informative, unconventional, opinionated, mystifying, gleeful, ornery, imaginative, grand, majestic, and deeply, genuinely moving. ...Here are some of the adjectives that the critics ... are going to affix to the book, as sure as God made little green parking tickets: opaque, self-indulgent, preposterous, rambling, turgid, unstructured, baffling, boring, infuriating, arrogant, pretentious and dull. So how do you know which set applies to you? ... Well it's like this: with TNotB, Robert Heinlein has convened a stupendous Grand Ball and Jamboree for all his good and true friends. If you do not count yourself among that number, this book is not addressed to you - in which case you should read it because it will annoy the living hell out of you.* A final surprise present for some of you. Robert Heinlein has given me permission to blow his cover here, and I can't resist using it for a closer. This is for anyone who has read TNotB and failed to identify the beast and understand what became of him. If you are still wondering who it is that sows the fictons with discord and strife, but fails to do any lasting harm, and escapes unscathed at the end ... try unsrcambling each of these aliases he uses. Here, I'll do a few for you. "Neil O'Heret Brain." Did the humor of a professor named N. O'H. Brain distract you from the fact that his name is an anagram for "Robert A. Heinlein"? How about ranger Bennie Hibol/Bob Heinlein? Did you read "The Villains Nine Rig Ruin" as "Lt. Virginia Heinlein USNR"? Every name the beast uses is an anagram for Robert or Virginia or one of his pen names. And so is revealed TNofB, as if the hint on pages 481-2 weren't enough. ... The beast will be back. As I write this, the beast is even now teaching himself to use his new word processor ... by cutting the completed draft of his new novel.* [Friday - ed] *copied without permission from Analog or Spider Robinson. If you're interested enough to read the rest, back issues can be purchased from Analog, or you can raid your local used bookstore. Spider got out of the book reviewing business (sob), but Analog is still a good buy. Dave Newkirk ihnp4!ixn5h!dcn (Arlan Andrews, please don't turn me in for illegal reproduction)