Rating: 
Summary: Heaven needs plumbing
Review: One of my alltime favourites. Funny (who would have thought the angels are angry about having to organise plumbing in heaven?), thoughtful, showing no respect for religious dogmas or prejudices, it's a must for any fan of the alternate worlds sub-genre. Probably the best of Heinlein's later novels, a real classic.
Rating:
Summary: I couldn't stop reading...
Review: It was 2AM and I just couldn't get to sleep, so I walked over to my book shelves and picked up Job, which has been sitting there unread for quite a while. After reading intently for a couple hours I finally got to sleep. The next day I went to work for a couple hours as well as going out with friends on two seperate occasions, all the while reading Job when I had a spare moment. By 1AM the very next morning I had read all 400 or so pages. So if you haven't guessed already I highly recommend this book. Of course I had a very different outlook on religion when I read this, so I don't know if I'd feel any differently about it now, I guess I'll have to give it another read.
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Summary: Fun with satire
Review: I've been kind of hard on Heinlein on the last few books of his that I read but that ends here. Farnham's Freehold might have had a better slate of ideas and Friday might have had a better main character but this book has them both beat hands down. Heinlein manages to keep doing what he was doing in those other books, which was make comments about society and aspects of it as a whole . . . but here he remembers to have a sense of humor and drops the somewhat snide tone that colored the other two books (ie the "all the enlightened people will see that I make sense and agree with me" feeling). Our hero, Alex/Alec is a devout and orthodox preacher who goes firewalking while on vacation and from there starts bouncing randomly from world to world. By the second world he's picked up a girl and is starting to detect a pattern . . . it must be the devil's fault because he's preparing for the upcoming end of the world. The story starts out as standard science fiction and Heinlein whips out worlds in a few pages that lesser writers would have spent entire series detailing . . . about two thirds through it becomes something utterly unexpected and just as good. What remains constant is the aforementioned sense of humor, Alex has some interesting views because of his faith that make him seem a bit narrow minded but all in all he's a likable character who really wants to help people (or "save" them by bringing them to a "state of grace" so they'll go to Heaven) . . . he's a typical Heinlein protagonist in that he's always resourceful and resolute, even when it doesn't seem that way. His gal, Margarete isn't as clearly drawn, she has her good moments but she spends too much time in the "my darling love" mode, but then that's something to be expected from Heinlein's portrayal of women by now . . . still the free love stuff isn't beaten to death like in other novels, he merely makes his point and moves on. The satire on religion is probably the core of the book and he raises several good points without being needlessly offensive, anyone with half a brain will find something worthwhile here to mull over. Simply put, probably one of his top three books after Stranger in a Strange Land (still got that soft spot for Moon is a Harsh Mistress, sorry) and definitely renewed my faith in the man, he had plenty of other stuff to say in the latter part of his career and could still do it with an ease that blew everyone else out of the water.
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Summary: Abra Kadabra, Heinlein is master of the slight of hand
Review: Heinlein is a very, very good SF writer. One of the greatest.Who knew (I certainly didn't) that he wrote a religious satire that did everything exactly right? Alexander, the protagonist, gets tossed around a bunch of worlds, all of which, we learn, are close to our own world but none ever truly fit the bill. Maybe it was to keep the religious quips down (Very hard, given the hilarious material you find in the Stranger in a Strange Land concept), but, nevertheless, at the end when you find yourself questioning reality and your faith, the fact that none of the worlds are exactly like your own soothes you. Perhaps Heinlein intended it like that also to not make everyone paranoid, as Alex feels after his third or fourth world shift. Your faith will get tested, but just remember, it IS just a story, a fiction story crafted in the mind of a great. So...step up and be dazzled while laughing from the sights, for you WILL be the stranger in a strange land.
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Summary: Job: a joy to read
Review: Sartre claimed that hell was other people. There was a play, the title of which I don't recall, that described hell as being a bureaucratic run around. Both, in my opinion, apply well to Heinlein's remarkable book, Job: A comedy of Justice. I won't belabor an overview, read the other reviews to get that. I will, however, point out that 'Job' seems to me to be a book with remarkably astute economic and social analyses. On the one hand, you see what sorts of things really do have economic value: i.e. those things that are easily tradable. Heinlein manages to destroy the myth that money, itself, has any inherent value. That money is simply a tool, nothing more. Alex's (or Alec's) bouncing around through different universe's or world's manages to get that message across. Pointing out an old economic adage, Heinlein reinforces the fact that the purpose of work is actually the stuff you get in return for it, not the pieces of paper with President so and so's face on it. On the social side, Heinlein encapsulates the anti-puritan views so akin to H.L. Mencken's. Not only does (pastor) Alexander Hergensheimer's religious leanings become somewhat silly throughout his ventures, his dogmatic and genuine belief in them make him irredeemably comic. Tragically so. It would, I should point out, be easier to laugh if you didn't feel so much for the character. This is what is so masterful about this book: you simply cannot dismiss the character as being utterly out of touch and absurd. He's a likeable chap with genuinely good intentions. Good intentions, it turns out, are not enough to justify intruding into people's personal lives. This is a wonderful book. My first, definitely not last, forray into the world of science fiction. I recommend it highly.
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Summary: A Wild Satire
Review: This book pleasantly surprised me. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't the deliciously wild satire I got. The book started out as a fairly typical (though thoroughly enjoyable) Heinlein "stranger in a strange land" story. But then, about half-way through, the book took on a completely unexpected twist, I for one had no idea the book was going the direction it took. The book was very good and it kept me glued to my seat. Outside of The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, which most consider Heinlein's peak, I'd call this the very best of RAH's post-Stranger fiction. The novel, being a satire at heart, has some seemingly very deep themes in it, it focuses heavily on religious aspects and is somewhat irrevant. The many underlying themes have their meanings that I think we can each take in our own personal way, though what Heinlein's actual intended message was is anyone's guess. Read it and judge for yourself.
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Summary: Heinlein Book Condemned by Moral Majority
Review: At the end of Expanded Universe, Robert Heinlein promised that he would keep whistling at pretty girls and kicking sacred cows. Job: A Comedy of Justice fulfills that promise on a grand scale, as it whisks us along on a fast-paced, wickedly irreverent tale. It tells the story of Reverend Alexander Hergensheimer, an engineering school dropout who became a fundamentalist minister instead. But rather than spending Sundays in the pulpit, Hergensheimer pushes paper for "the greater glory of God," as head of C.U.D.-Churches United for Decency. It's a Christian special interest group that lobbies the leaders of his country on such social issues as whether to use "the Alaska option for the Negro problem," or to eliminate all research in astronomy. Hergensheimer hails from a godfearing world, and he aims to make it even more fearful. But now he's on vacation, on a cruise through the South Pacific, and utterly relaxed-until he takes a bet that he can walk through a fire pit [rotected by his faith. Terrified, but praying fiercely, Hergensheimer walks over a bed of hot coals only to faint away at the very end of it. When he awakes, the world has changed around him. Back aboard ship, Hergensheimer is shocked to discover a drastically changed set of mores, including paganism, foul, heretical language and even nudity. Hergensheimer's country, the theocratic North American Union, no longer exists, nor does the technology he grew up with. Worst of all, only he seems to have noticed the great world change-everyone else is slapping him on the back and calling him by a different name. What follows is a study in human virtue and human folly, as some unseen force plays cat and mouse with Hergensheimer, and as Hergensheimer falls in love and gives in to the deadliest of sins. World change follows world change, and his torturer finally leads Hergensheimer to Heaven, to Hell, and to the ultimate audience with the God of Gods, Mr. Koshchei. Heinlein wrote Job in the grand tradition of American satire, taking cues from James Branch Cabell (Jurgen: a Comedy of Justice) and Mark Twain ("Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven"). Critics almost uniformly praise Job, and the book earned itself a sound condemnation from Falwell's Moral Majority, whose activities are so lovingly parodied by Hergensheimer's C.U.D. Along with the well wrought satire, in Job Heinlein delivers skillful studies of human nature and portrayals of various walks of life. Highly recommended. ---Beth Ager of Wegrokit.com
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Summary: Religion with a Heinlein twist
Review: It is yet another fabulous Heinlein masterpiece of a likable character, who finds ultimate love and lives an interesting live. I have read over a dozen of Heinlein books and this one stands out. It does not play in outer space, it stays on Earth, although not the Earth we know. Heinlein cleverly points out some interesting things about our values and technologies through the eyes of Alec, who comes to us from a different version of Earth. I had some difficulties with the religious load of the book, but those were all worth it when Heinlein comes back with his well known TANSTAAFL: "How can justice possible be served by loading your sins on another? ... Somebody should tell all of Yahweh's followers, Jews and Christians, that there is no such thing as a free lunch". An exciting read from front to back.
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Summary: God I 'needed' that!
Review: Heinlein's _Job: A Comedy of Justice_ is a good example of why some people prefer S-F, meaning possibly 'speculative fiction' versus Sci-Fi for the genre. There is damn little science in this book, unless you count dishwashing among the sciences (those who enjoyed the book might excuse the pun, if you don't see the pun, read the book). Job starts out as an unremarkable preacher, in an future USA which is theocratic. As a man, however, Job is not quite unremarkable, he has a bit too much integrity, and a lot more resilience, though Heinlein might have credited the average person of his acquaintance with as much. Job takes a South Pacific cruise, which is pleasant, until he tries firewalking, on sort of a dare. He doesn't get burned then, but he does shortly afterward. As the saying goes, "Then everything started happening." He winds up in a slightly alternate universe where he had been a gangster. This might be a textbook example of the dictum "To give your readers a good time, give you character a bad time." Eventually the only skill transferrable to his new environment is dishwashing. Job, like his Biblical namesake, eventually is rewarded--he finds out that Heaven and Hell are real, although not quite what he or you or I learned in Sunday school. "Job" is among the very best of Heinlein's post-Stranger in a Strange Land fiction, and does not merit the criticism of preaching to the converted that slightly taints much of his later fiction.
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Summary: Perhaps, one of Heinlein's greatest works
Review: Though flagging behind "Stranger in a Strange Land" in mass appeal, perhaps to due upsetting religious sensibilities, "Job: A Comedy of Justice" has to be my personal favorite work by Heinlein. The protagonist, Alec Graham, is flung from reality to reality taking every available opportunity to make things worse, and doing so. A modern Job, his existence is being tested by God. Through love and suffering he eventually reaches a highly bureaucratic heaven to try and get redress for his grievances. ONLY Heinlein could have made this book with delicacy, humorous while making you question yourself and everything else. In my opinion, this book cannot be read once. You must read it and let it work on your subconscious for a few years. Upon re-reading it, the brilliance of writing and the eloquence of Heinlein's phrasing will astound you. This book can affect your life, even if the only message that comes to you from it is... "Take it Easy"
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