Time Enough for Love

Rating:
Summary: A Classic of Science Fiction!
Review: ...This is a classic! The novel deals with one of Heinlein'sbest loved characters, Lazarus Long. Long is the oldest living memberof the human race. This novel deals with the stories and wisdom of Lazarus Long's very long life. It's a great read. If you want to read some pithy comments on life read The Notebooks of Lazarus Long which are in the novel (or you can get them separately).

Rating:
Summary: Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Misspelled
Review: The title of my review is a quote from Harlan Ellison, but I think that it applies extremely well to this piece of trash. I gave it one star because that is the least that the system allows.

The Greeks had three words which are translated as "love" in English. The first is "philia" -- a rather abstract kind of love. The second is "agape" -- an unselfish love. The best illustration of agape is from the New Testament ("No greater love has any man, but that he lay down his life for his friend.") The third is "eros" -- sexual love.

Heinlein essentially ignores philia, spends exactly two paragraphs on agape (which he dismisses) and over 400 pages on eros. EVERY significant female character wants to have intercourse with Lazarus Long, and all except one of them do.

I am also not particularly enamoured of Libertarianism, which is trumpeted throughout the book. Using the terminology of horse breeders, I would describe Time Enough For Love as being by Hugh Hefner out of Ayn Rand.

Rating:
Summary: Heinlein at his best! A must for anyone who likes to THINK!
Review: "Time enough..." was my "entry" book to Heinlein, and my "turn on switch" to Sci-Fi. Before it, all I had read was Isaac Asimow (and still love the good doctor...), and my interest for the matter was quite superficial. But when I started this one, and could never put it down, I discovered Sci-Fi could be much more than good story-telling! Heinlein has a way of making his stories double-meaning: you can read them as nice Sci-Fi tales, or you can think better, and find new ways to see Life, Mankind, and even God! Here is an excellent example of this: it goes from morals to adventure, from sex to family, from war to peace, and it never stops making full sense! You can disagree with Heinlein's ideas, but I strongly recommend that you don't miss knowing them!

Rating:
Summary: I wish the world could be like this..
Review: This is definitely one of the best books I ever read. (That applies to most of Heinlein books, from my point of view). I have heard all kind of comments about his universe and people - from accusing him of fascistic ideas to being unpolitical about women and etc ad nauseam. Well, I am a woman and admit I would absolutely love to be like most of Heinlein's heroines and to be treated the same way. I suppose, one needs to know the difference between true respect and admiration (that's Heinlein position) and formal political correctness. As for fascism, nothing could be farther from that than Heinlein's arrogant individualism. Honestly, I am a bit sorry for those who do not understand and enjoy this novel - and other Heinlein books as well. They miss a lot!

Rating:
Summary: among worst books I have read
Review: I am a Sci. Fi. fan, but I don't like Heinlein very much. Idon't have any prejudice about sex, but if I buy sci. fi. book Iexpect it to contain something else beside sex. And I think that those who say that this book is about love don't know what love is. This is a not even a book about sex, its a book about egocentrism.

Rating:
Summary: Don't seek revenge, just out-live the bastards
Review: On the surface, 'Time Enough for Love' is the story of one man's life, including his loves, hardships, employment, family and friends. But this is no ordinary man, he is over two thousand years old and has helped to father most of the human race. He has faced death a hundred times and caused it almost as often. He is Woodrow Wilson Smith otherwise known as Lazarus Long or simply The Senior.

This is one of Heinlein's longest works and is reputed to have been published unedited. For me the novel has an autobiographic feel to it. Almost as if Heinlein had to dredge the depths of himself to fill it. There are so many anecdotes, tales, characters, wisdoms and ideas in this book that you are in danger of choking. Or maybe it's just the speed with which I usually read it that sets me to gasping.

The story starts on Lazarus' death bed. Or at least that is what it seems. One of his long distant descendants is deliberately forcing him to remain alive in order to record the Senior's life wisdom. And what a life it has been. Born in the early years of the twentieth century, our hero takes us on a fast paced ride on the leading edge of man's expansion into the universe. Sometimes a man of importance, sometimes a slave, he is always entertaining and usually educational. In the end we are taken so far into his tale that it leads us back into the past. Lazarus takes a ground breaking trip into his own origins and meets his Parents again for the first time in two millennia.

It would be impossible to do this book justice in any form of synopsis. However, you don't really need one because if you are at all human, then you will have time enough for love.

Rating:
Summary: I wasn't scandalized, I just hated it
Review: I completely agree with the reviewer who commented with "man, oh man, oh man". Heinlein's book is presumptuous, it gave me this kind of feel: "if you don't live your life this way, you're a poor fool". He should have been a preacher? Yes, but a dull one.

Rating:
Summary: Heinlein's most ejoyable read.
Review: I found this book to be Heinlein's most enjoyable read for me. Though it wasn't the highest in terms of quality it was the highest in my opinion in terms of enjoyability. STARSHIP TROOPERS and STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND dealt more with serious topics. I enjoyed seeing the different adventures that Lazarus Long had. I especially liked the tale of the adopted daughter. This book mainly dealt with the human condtion of love and its many forms. It is a very light read but also very enjoyable if you allow yourself to plunge through the first 20 to 30 pages whihc may seem a little boring to some people.

Rating:
Summary: One of Heinlein's better ~ not best ~ books.
Review: Story of Lazarus Long, the mutant member of the Howard Families, the longest-lived man ever, the opener of the universe to mankind. Really about three or four plots in one novel (Heinlein was never loath to add a few thousand words to his tales); the outer plot is ~ nearly ~ just a convention to give shape to a series of short stories. Several of those short stories could easily have stood on their own ~ The Man Who Was Too Lazy To Fail, The Story Of 'Dorable Dora, for example ~ in fact, might have been better that way. The characters are both likeable and obnoxious; the views of Long are very closely those of Heinlein, as far as can be told, and are, as Heinlein's, not especially attractive to me. Nevertheless, he's an amusing rascal inhabiting a fun book.

Rating:
Summary: The best misunderstood novel I have read
Review: This was a fine novel about the life of a grouchy, lecherous old man named Lazarus Long (at least, that's the name he is going by in the year 4272). Lazarus has lived for over two thousand years and has quite literally done everything possible for a human being to do. Because of this, he is tired of living. He sees nothing left to live for and wants to die. While he is dying, his descendants find him and rejuvenate him. Despite Lazarus's anger, he listens to the deal they offer him. They want Lazarus to tell the tale of his long life, to record into the memory banks of the sultry computer Minerva the wisdom and lessons he has learned over the centuries. After he is finished, if he wants to die, then they will not question him. In return, they offer to come up an adventure that he has never experienced. Impossible, he thinks, so he agrees. In the process, his ancestors have tricked him. In telling the story of his life, Lazarus realizes that he loves life and wishes to go on living, even if he has already done it all. And his ancestors make good on their word: they do find something for him to do that he has never done.

People have said this novel is a story about incest and sex and nothing more than Heinlein's secret desire to screw his mother. This is a story about love, both of life and of others. Yes, there are a lack of sexual taboos that we tend to embrace in this culture (including myself, I must admit, at least to a certain extent). Readers must remember what kind of sexual taboos we had a hundred years ago (God help a woman who's ankles were showing). Imagine what those same taboos will be 2,000 years from now. And no, Heinlein is not a sexist. People who say that have never tried to understand Heinlein. Every woman in this novel is a genius, and a far better human being than most men I know (myself included). Heck, in some ways I aspire to be like some of Heinlein's female protagonists (that's in some ways mind you :). I fail to see how writing women characters who enjoy sex and want to have babies is sexist. Who wouldn't want someone to love and have a good family? By the way, the latter requires sex and babies, I shouldn't have to tell you (though love and sex are a great combination too :).

I strongly urge you to read this novel. Not for the sex or the politics (which is in there, so I hope your not squeamish about ideas that differ from your own, perrish the thought!), and not because it written by one of the founders of science fiction (Heinlein is in the same generation as Asimov and Clarke). Read it because it is a story about life and love. A quote from the novel can some it up the best: "Although long life maybe a burden, mostly it is a blessing. It gives time enough to think, time enough to learn, time enough not to hurry, time enough for love."