Rating: 
Summary: Amazing Book!
Review: I first read this book when I was still in Junior High, bought it by High School, and Still read it every few months! I have read every heinlein book my library has many times, and, when they got a New one (Number of the Beast) I was eagerly through the first two-hundred pages in a few hours! This book, more than many of the others links together the plots of all his other novels. I give it a 10 rating, because the scale doesn't go higher
Rating: 
Summary: Not the Heinlein's finest.
Review: I must agree with rschering's remarks. If I wanted to read
a soft porn novel, I'd go to a book store on Times Square.
Rating:
Summary: Time takes its toll on even the greatest.
Review: I was a Heinlein fan all throughout my formative years and into adulthood. Thought provoking books like "Stranger in a
Strange Land" and rousing good yarns like "Glory Road" made growing up in the 60's bearable. With such a great
track record, I eagerly awaited the release of "Number of the Beast" when it was originally published. At first, I
was enthralled. Up to page 100 or so, the book was riveting,
a real page turner reminiscent of "Glory Road". Unfortunately, the book totally changed at then. It was almost like another author had taken over. The book rambled
for the next 600 pages on a totally different track and never resolved the original plot. I suspected that Heinlein was feeling the first stages of senility. It was a real disappointment; particularly given his former greatness. Later works (e.g., Friday) were better, but the greatness of
the early works never returned.
Rating:
Summary: On of the best sci-fi books in the history of the art.
Review: Fabulous plot idea. Uses multiple viewpoints to portray the interaction of the characters. Marvelous concept of every story being true in some dimension of the universe
and the heros can go to these worlds. A visit to the land of Oz is wonderful and full of amazement. Meeting all
of the old Heinlein characters is also a treat.
Rating: 
Summary: Unworthy successor to his earlier works
Review: Ok, I'm not a Heinlein expert, but I couldn't take this book. I thought Stranger in a Strange Land was excellent. Time Enough for Love was very good but was starting to get annoying. But Number of the Beast was intolerable. The main characters are supposed to be geniuses but they act like not-terribly-bright self-indulgent spoiled children. (Example: They whine and whine because they they don't like to stay anywhere that doesn't have a bidet. Give me a break.) Slight spolier: At some point they have the brilliant insight that 666, the well-known "number of the beast", is really 6 to the 6th to the 6th, i.e. 6^6^6 (but of course it was written with nested superscripts rather than ^). Well, as any bright kid who's made it through 8th grade math can tell you, exponentiation groups right to left, i.e. a^b^c = a^(b^c). Why? Because the left-to-right grouping (a^b)^c is just a^(b*c), so you'd never write it as a nested exponentiation. But Heinlein's geniuses apparently never made it through the eighth grade, and decided that 6^6^6 must be (6^6)^6. Weak. The true value of that expression, i.e. 6^(6^6), is *incredibly* larger (it's a 36,306-digit number, compared to a mere 29 digits for (6^6)^6 (which is just 6^(6*6))). At this point I just couldn't take it anymore and stopped reading. Whether or not they eventually figured out their mistake I don't know. I lost the remainder of whatever sympathy I might still have held for them, put the book down, and never opened it again.
Rating:
Summary: STAY AWAY OR BE DISAPPOINTED
Review: i really wanted to like this book really. sure i was aware of the criticism but hey, who would not glorify the return of lazarus long adventures. but the book is just bad, so bad i had to force myself to finish it.
RAH wrote this one to amuse himself and did not take this book, its plot or the protagonists very seriously. this is obvious from the first chapter. the protagonists keep on with aimless and annoying conversations. i read time enough for love before, and thought this book formed, more or less, a sequence.
well it did not. lazarus appears only towards the very end of this book, and the protagonists go on a mission rescuing maureen, his mom. even this part which was supposed to be good, was a great disappointment.
the last chapter l'envoi was the worst of all. RAH gathered all his protagonists ever created (and some others such as himself and his wife) for a convention. i understood nothing of this chapter, and i seriously doubt that anyone else did. probably RAH wrote it to amuse himself and nothing more.
i strongly recommend every RAH fan (such as myself) to stay away from this book even if u read a lot of his books before.
it is simply written badly and u will be left with bitterness asking your self: how could the master publish such a thing?
Rating:
Summary: Turned me off to Heinlein for good
Review: This was the fourth and last Heinlein book I've read. I am now thoroughly sick of Heinlein's self-assured I'm-smarter-than-you-are characters. Having four of these characters banter back and forth about how great they are just got really tiring. The book starts off with a plot which is moderately interesting, and then completely abandons it, just so we can meet more people who Heinlein seems to think know all the answers to life. Given how smart all these good guys are, there's no worthy antagonist, no suspense, and no intrigue.
This was the worst of the four Heinlein books that I've read(Job - 4stars; Stranger - 4stars; I Will Fear No Evil - 1 star),
and they all suffer similar problems involving pedantic, egotistic characters and interesting stories that fall apart half way through.
Thus, I will no longer bother to read Heinlein.
Rating: 
Summary: On finding new worlds of great Fiction
Review: This was a very enjoyable book and one which should be read by any Heinlein Fan. However, there are a few books you should read first. Stranger in a Strange Land, Time Enough for Love, Methusla's Children, and The Wizzard of Oz.The four protaganists of this book undertake to explore the many universes after they are nearly killed because of an invention of one of the protaganists who is a scientist. The first part of the book consists of the four members of the team meeting, almost being killed, getting married, building a time ship and undertaking to find out the various universes out there. The second part gets a bit tedious as these four adventurers argue and bicker and take turns voting each other Captain. Heinlein decided, for some reason, to make these four charachters variations on the witty, sarcastic, opinionated, genious sort which tend to be annoying in his stories, but can add a lot to the stories in moderation. Four charachters bantering about and arguing just got old, fourtunatly this section of the book isn't too long. The third part is in which they discover Lazurus Long, who to them is a fictional charachter and they undertake to form the beginings of an orgainisation which will be more fully explored in "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls"(you should read this book before reading that one). All in all a good story which enriches the fullenss of the Heinlein universe.
Rating:
Summary: Far from his best
Review: I first read this book when it came out in 1980 (I was a *huge* Heinlein fan at the time), and I remember being vaguely disappointed with it at the time. Now, having read it again 20 years later, I'm no more impressed with it. Part of Heinlein's charm to me has always been his ability to make his characters so likeable, regardless of where his plots took them. He's managed that early on with this book - but he soon gets bogged down with trying (and never really succeeding) to be clever. The convoluted 'storyline' soon takes over, but never goes anywhere satisfactory - or even particularly entertaining. It's just one literary reference/gag after another, none of them particularly clever or satisfying to this reader. Even the Heinlein in-jokes and references don't have the charm to pull this book out of the mire it's stuck in. Not his best, not by a mile.
Rating:
Summary: Numb from this Beast of a Book
Review: I am a fan of Robert Heinlein. Like many people, I started out with the juvie novels when I was young. Then I moved onto novels like Stranger in a Strange Land, etc. Number of the Beast was a complete letdown. It is almost sad to think that someone kept their job after this novel was published. Heinlein, like so many other writers, had already reached his zenith creatively (and judging by the prose in Number Of the Beast--mechanically as well) by the time he sat down to write this book. The characters are straight out of workshop fiction hell. Sure, some of it was meant to be tongue in cheek. But it came off as self-indulgent. Dr. N.O. Brain? Come on. Granted, Heinlein had it in for academia and folks with advanced degrees. Oddly enough, he pursued, for a time, advanced degrees in mathematics and physics, but never received any of the degrees he loathed so much...hmm? Heinlein's downfall may have been Stranger In A Strange Land. When that book became the bestselling sf novel of all time, editors saw no reason to cut any material away from the novels he turned in as he grew older. Sadly, those editors kept their jobs. As for Heinlein, his contribution to speculative fiction will not be forgotten. With any luck, Number Of the Beast won't be remembered at all.
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