[net.sf-lovers] The secret of The Number of the Beast

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)