Rating: 
Summary: Deeply Human- Heinlein at his best
Review: If you are only going to read one Robert Heinlein book read this one. If you're only going to read one sci-fi book, read this one.This book has a very moving story and characters so interesting and human it made me cry. The story focuses on Farnham's family. Living on a farm, they survive the 1960s nuclear holocaust trapped in a bomb shelter, only to awaken in an earth reborn anew, then to be abducted and taken to a planet of the apes like civilization. The saga of the family's survival through one disaster after another provides a very moving drama of family and curage. I cannot recomend this book enough. Heinlein's writing really flows beatifully. It's easy to see why he's so popular. It's easy reading with hard emotions.
Rating: 
Summary: bad Heinlein
Review: This represents a sort of transitional novel for Heinlein - between his early excellent career writing good juvenile science fiction and superior adult science fiction such as "Starship Troopers" to his later career writing unreadable tripe. The rot started with the vastly overrated "Stranger in a Strange Land" and continued with this odd and distasteful novel. It maintains enough of the good Heinlein to earn a three star rating - an interesting well realized plot which moves along at a lightning pace. But all of the "good" characters especially Hugh Farnham seem to be all the same person, obviously Heinlein himself, and the bad characters are all straw figures. The Heinlein characters do some obviously silly things which have no basis in reality. If you turn over the rocks of anyone's personality and peer into their psyche and you're going to see some pretty distasteful stuff, but you don't necessarily want to read it. Heinlein regrouped to write the stunning classic "The Moon is A Harsh Mistress" a few years later, but that was the end of the end. This slightly earlier novel is the middle of the end.
Rating:
Summary: A cowardly new world
Review: Heinlein successfully portrays a world destroyed by nuclear war...except for the culturally worthless and politically inept continent of Africa. His disdain is evident, and it reveals a horrific story that could most certainly come true in our time. Those of you who doubt the fragility of peace in the world today are absolutely blind. One madman in the wrong place at the wrong time ... could lead to worldwide nuclear war. This well written and concise book documents what could well be our future as Americans: slaves to the african horde that rises up after a nuclear war destroys the western world.
Rating:
Summary: MORE PROPHETIC THAN I THOUGHT POSSIBLE
Review: WHEN I READ THIS BOOK MANY YEARS AGO, I THOUGH IT WAS 2ND RATE HEINLEIN.
AFTER THE EVENTS OF SEPTEMBER 11TH, I FOUND THIS BOOK TO BE DECADES AHEAD OF ITSELF.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY WE SHOULD BE SCARED, READ THIS.
Rating:
Summary: Another Excellent Heinlen Work...
Review: This was the first Heinlen book I ever read, and I found it fascinating. An excellent concept, good colorful description, all-around great book.
Rating: 
Summary: Be prepared for a shock
Review: War is inevitable so a family and friend move into a fallout shelter for the duration. Due to some quirk they come out in another time after the war has finished off civilization, as we knew it. Now prepare for a different civilization.
This book is a classic example of Late Heinlein as opposed to his early works i.e. "Past Through Tomorrow Future History Stories." However as in any discipline the early product is usually more structured and well inside the curve of accepted norms. You can only carry that so far. Then any artist that is to stand out must experiment and take chances beyond the norm. That is what made "Stranger in a Strange Land" ... so great. What do you do after that? Die? No you ether stagnate or further define your point. I can not tell you which this book does. However it is definitely worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Good read
Review: After a bomb warning screaming from the Farnham household television, the family, along with their servant and a friend of their daughter's, rush down into their bomb shelter. They wait in fear at the world they will find upon emerging, but when they finally open the shelter, are amazed at the beautiful untouched world around them. After some adventuring, they find that they are in the same place as when they began, but the land remains untouched by human developement. They are seemingly alone in the newly beautiful world and become adapt to being self sufficient. Together, they plan to start a new civilization, until one day they are discovered. Taken and enslaved in the 'new world' where people of colour become the ruling class and the anglo's the slaves, they find that they somehow had been catapulted into the future. This new world is a place where people are born into certain classes, their futures being determined by birth. Much like the world we live in today, the people accept their places willingly and never question their status. Hugh Farnham, however, see's the injustices of this new world and devises a plan of escape. Although I'm not a huge science fiction fan, I really did enjoy 'Farnham's Freehold'. Heinlein weaves a clever little story with this book, and throws in a few neat twists at the end. Covering the issues of race, governing politics, and those of gender, he comes up with a really creative tale that is accessible to a wide audience. It's really worth a read.
Rating: 
Summary: All the pieces are there, it just doesn't come together
Review: Normally I don't like rating a book based on "I liked it" or "I didn't like it," but in this case I made an exception. All the pieces of a good book are there, but they don't come together. It's the story of a man and his family (plus a couple more along for the ride) who are vaulted into the future by a nuclear blast. In this future, dark skin = superiority (i.e. black africans, dark Indians, etc.) and light skin automatically makes you a member of the servant/slave class. Back in the mid-60's, this would have been an uncomfortable (and/or controversial) setup. This aspect kept my interest, but when you strip away the controversy value, there's little left to recommend this book. Hugh, the main character (and patriach of the family) seems to alternate between extreme (at the time) liberalism and right-wing militarism, as required by the plot. The other characters are barely developed at all. The science is never explained (although, that's not the point of the book, so it's probably better that way). Overall, I'd have to say I'm dissappointed. Certainly, this is a better book than many of his juvenile novels, but it's far inferior to his other adult works, in my opinion, and hence the 2-star rating.
Rating:
Summary: It's What Introduced Me to Heinlein
Review: I picked this book up in the store because it looked interesting... then didn't put it down again until I'd read the whole thing three times. Heinlein became one of my favorite science fiction authors as a result. A futuristic "What is the world coming to?" type novel that can be likened to "1984", "The Handmaid's Tale" or "Brave New World", Heinlein puts his own spin on things, and it's decidedly more human than some of the afore-mentioned books (although I love them all dearly). Intelligent and sometimes downright astounding, the character relationships are much more clearly drawn and developed than in your standard run-of-the-mill pulp sci-fi that gets pumped out by the publishing machine. If you read one Heinlein, this should be it, although I am not knocking "Stranger In A Strange Land". While I have not found any of RAH's other works to live up to the standard he set for me with this one, I would still highly recommend trying any of his works.
Rating:
Summary: Farnham's Freehold on Farakhan¿s Farm
Review: What would happen if, in 1962, Robert Heinlein passed by Malcolm X on a sidewalk in New York, and bought a Muhammad Speaks newspaper from him? And read it? Heinlein, always able to weave a contemporary theme with fantasy, conceived a future world where there is a race caste reversal. Of course, it isn't really a reversal as much as a race substitution, blacks in whiteface, and whites in blackface. Heinlein's premise is that it is human nature, not cultural indoctrination, that results in oppression. Heinlein, like most popular science fiction writers, disdains democracy, and believes that the most ruthless and neurotic tribe always rules. This book was little more than entertaining because Heinlein failed to take the next step and explore whether the oppressed are inevitably doomed to use their oppressors as a template for exercising power. That said, FF was a bold step for the early '60's, as bold as buying a Muhammad Speaks newspaper from Malcolm X.
| 
