The Counterfeit Heinlein

Rating:
Summary: The Last of the Wine
Review: This is the final novel of one of the great ones, Laurence M. Janifer. It was his misfortune to outlive his rep to some extent. To give you an idea how far back Larry went, he once helped his roommate Don knock a first novel called THE MERCENARY into publishable shape. Don Westlake, that was.

This book is the capstone of Larry's Knave series, about a far-future galactic adventurer whose job title sums him up: Survivor. The last installment is a delightful detective story, in which the Maguffin is a fragment of ancient manuscript alleged to be an excerpt from Robert A. Heinlein's legendary, never-discovered short story "Stone Pillow." (The one that introduces Nehemiah Scudder. Robert included it in his Future History chart, but claimed he never wrote it because he despised Scudder too much.) Larry's two-page Heinlein imitation is VERY well done, and I speak as someone who has just been hired by the Heinlein Trust to complete a Heinlein novel from his outline.

You'll like the whole Knave series. They're thinking-man's detective-adventure fiction in the far future, about as much fun as it gets. Larry sent me a MSS copy by e-mail of this book shortly before his death. I'm very glad, for it gave me an opportunity to tell him how much I admired it, and him. He was one of the very first Old Pros to go out of his way to be kind to me, when I entered the business in the early 70s. I miss him and recommend his final tribute to our mutual Master unreservedly.

--Spider Robinson