Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of those novels that are near perfect in every way, hitting its high points and whole purpose effortlessly, and yet gets perfectly creepy that probably says more about my own hang ups than the real purpose of this novel.

It's kinda like SK's IT in that regard.

And yet, aside from that ONE LITTLE DETAIL, or rather, ending plot device, I love the whole book. Perhaps despite it.

What do you give a man who has been alive for thousands of years, is THE bona fide oldest man in the universe? When you have THAT much time, what is worth continuing for?

Love. Of course.

As a SF, it's a wonderful riff on a Thousand and One Nights. A tribute to respect and family and devotion and sex. It's a real harem novel. And a philosophical treatise on par with Thus Spake Zarathustra. And a delicious homesteading novel. And a truly interesting time-travel novel. And it's even a great little riff on J. D. Salinger's crazy brilliant family dynamics.

It's also a great war novel.

And it's also a truly fantastic and detailed primer on genetics and the determination of traits and the specific dangers of inbreeding and longevity research.

But mostly it's about love. Happiness. Sadness. But really it's about learning what makes live worth living.

Heinlein wrote a true magnum opus here. Full stop.

And it's horrible to say that and have to preface it with... but damn it's so creepy there.... lol

Nuts.

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