I Will Fear No Evil

by Robert A. Heinlein

Paperback, 1971-11

Status

Available

Call number

PS3515 .E288

Publication

Berkley Medallion (New York, 1971). Berkley Medallion edition, 24th printing. 512 pages. $2.25.

Description

The brilliantly shocking story of the ultimate transplant from New York Times bestselling author Robert A. Heinlein. As startling and provocative as his famous Stranger in a Strange Land, here is Heinlein's awesome masterpiece about a man supremely talented, immensely old and obscenely wealthy who discovers that money can buy everything. Even a new life in the body of a beautiful young woman.

User reviews

LibraryThing member fastfinge
Yes, I do intend to get on with a review of this book. First, however, I feel the need to take a couple other people to task. I'll start with the statement
by another reviewer: "worst. heinlein. ever." This is a misconception on the part of many. This isn't bad Heinlein, it's bad editors. At the
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time of writing,
Robert Heinlein was quite sick. Thus, most of the work of proofing and editing his work, as well as most of the business and accounting, had to be handled
by his wife. While I'm sure she was an excelent person, she wasn't the master, and had no idea how and when to cut. Also, now that Heinlein was a huge
money maker, publishers were afraid to stand up and do the cutting themselves, especially after their many mistakes in the past.
The second thing I feel the need to say is: worst. summery. ever. Did the person writing the summery of this book read the end of the book? If they had,
they would have realized that (SPOILER COMING) the main character *can't* buy everything with his money. he *dies*! In fact, through nearly the entire
book, it is clearly shown how little money does, and how little it matters to the main character.
Last but not least, Heinlein did not somehow "become" a dirty old man. It just took until 1970 or so before his editors were willing to put up with all
the sex. For proof, see _for us, the living_, the first (until now unpublished) book Heinlein ever wrote.
Right, now...about the book itself. Honestly? Unless you're already a huge Heinlein fan, don't bother. It has a point (sort of), but it's nearly drowned
in the huge swath of writing. The plot is slow, the characters aren't as well done as they could be, and this is one of the worst Heinlein books. It should
be included on the same blacklist as _to sail beyond the sunset_ and _for us, the living_.
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LibraryThing member bibrarybookslut
Before we get into things, let’s deal with the most common complaint regarding the book. Yes, it is sexist, anachronistic, and often patently offensive in it’s portrayal of BOTH genders. It’s also a book that was first published in 1970, and is the work of a man who began writing science
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fiction as early as 1939. Critiquing Heinlein for not being properly progressive regarding gender equality 40 years ago is like lambasting Mark Twain for not being politically correct regarding race 135 years ago. Anyway, the book introduces us to Johann, an elderly, crippled, bitter old man who also happens to be exceedingly rich. He knows his body is dying, but his brain is just fine. So, he comes up with the idea of transferring his brain to a new body upon his death. He doesn’t actually expect it to work, but figures it’s better to waste his money on a sliver of hope than to let his children squabble over it.Not only does he not expect it to work, but he certainly does not expect to wake up in the body of a woman – specifically, that of Eunice, his beautiful young secretary. Fortunately for Johann, something of Eunice has survived to share her body with him. It’s never made clear whether this is her spirit, her memory, or just his imagination, but it serves to jumpstart the plot past the awkwardness you’d expect of a man who is suddenly a woman.Once the legal/ethical/philosophical issues are dispensed with, much of the book deals with Johann’s (now Joan Eunice’s) sexual exploits. Again, yes, they’re sexist and sometimes crude, but also thoroughly entertaining. Ultimately, what I took away from the book was an appreciation for the dilemma of sex vs gender vs sexual orientation - what does it means for a man’s mind to desire other women (while in a woman’s body), or for a woman’s body to continue desiring men (while guided by a man’s mind).As I said, it’s an interesting book, and one that makes you think. It’s not the greatest story every written, but certainly a great concept.
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LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C
This book has a great premise. A rich old man decides to take a chance on a risky whole body transplant. When he wakes up, he finds he's been transferred into the body of his young beautiful, and female secretary. And this is the sort of thing you have to love science fiction for, the kind of
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premise where you can explore issues of sexuality and gender. Unfortunately, I'm not convinced Heinlein was the writer to tackle it--that he was able to get into the mind of a woman. And as other reviewers have pointed out, this book badly needed a good editor. It's bloated and slow-paced. But... but... I don't hate it. I don't hate any Heinlein book, so maybe that's why I'm so forgiving. It certainly wouldn't be anywhere near the top of my favorites. This is more in the vein of Stranger in a Strange Land Heinlein than The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Heinlein and I can't say I'm among those who enjoy or find plausible how he handled women characters or sexuality. But he could be funny, and even here is eminently readable.
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LibraryThing member Harmless_Dilettante
This is an unreadably bad book. It will probably be one of the few available to damned souls in Hell's lending library.
LibraryThing member westendgirl
In a word: yuck. This book took too long to go absolutely nowhere.
LibraryThing member EmScape
What would it be like to live another life in the body of the opposite gender?
This could have been done so much better.
LibraryThing member quilted_kat
Explores themes of gender, sexuality, and mortallity. I liked this better than some of Heinlein's other works that tackle similar themes (especially Stranger in a Strange Land). I Will Fear No Evil seemed to be a more wholly complete novel. It's not without flaws; probably could have done with a
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better editor. But overall an intriguing book.
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LibraryThing member nateberly
An interesting book. Not the greatest read though. It did have a lot of common Heinlein themes, but it was kind of a slow read, and I think it could have been better if it was cut down a little and/or included more character growth. It seemed a little cold.
LibraryThing member mrgrimm
Couldn't get past page 214. I just had enough and quit. That is rare for me.
LibraryThing member wenestvedt
Not his best, by a long shot.
LibraryThing member jimrible
This was the second Heinlein book I read after Stranger. Not sure if it changed my views about sex but it sure did make me think about them.
LibraryThing member Traveller1
A game changer, read it when a youngster in HS. I was fascinated by it then. Decades since I last read. Looking back what impresses me is how versatile a writer Heinlein was. From boys own adventures to this.
The story is in the style of "Stranger". A resurrected old, white man, in the body of a
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beautiful young woman, in a "crazy years" dystopic future, explores his contemporary world, critically examining societies assumptions, beliefs, and mores. After a year the protagonist dies, again, organ rejection. Fascinating, complex and detailed, poignant.
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LibraryThing member Karin7
I read this when I was probably too young for some of the content in it, and have no idea how I'd rate it today. It made in impact in part because of some of that content, and I still remember a suprising number of scenes all these years later.
LibraryThing member Jammies
The idea behind this book was splendid and ground-breaking. When I started it, I felt sure that it could be an exploration of the differences between men and women, and how those differences are built and reinforced by both biology and environment. However, Mr. Heinlein found it easier to give the
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main character a deus ex machina and spent the second half of the book having said main character hop into bed with anyone who looked even remotely interesting.
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LibraryThing member barbgarcia1987
I liked it.
LibraryThing member greeniezona
The last of the huge stack of Heinlein books lent to me by my friend Wayne ages and ages ago. Now I can send them back and clear some space on my borrowed books shelf for the stacks of books my sister sent in her last package. (But more are sure to arrive any day now, which means I will be behind
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again.)

What can I say about Heinlein that I haven't already said? Other than that I'm starting to max out on him. There's only so much immortal life/free-sex commune/space colonization sci fi you can read before it all starts to sound a little bit repetitive.

This book starts out with an interesting premise, which is what would happen if you could transplant a male brain into a female body? Which of course, ends up being a 512 page tome on the difference between men and women, specifically men and women who prefer to have sex six times a day. For which sex is sex better? Which sex is more rational? Some of his answers are interesting, some provoked a lot of eye-rolling on my part. But what else would I expect from Heinlein?
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LibraryThing member librisissimo
Heinlein was my number-one favorite author in the past, so I got for completeness, but couldn't bring myself to read it - just not that interested in Heinlein's sexual fantasies.
LibraryThing member brianinbuffalo
As a teen, Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" was one of my all-time favorite high school reads. As an adult, I have to agree with some acerbic critics that "I Will Fear No Evil" is borderline dreadful. I say "borderline" because the premise is certainly intriguing. But I read one ancient
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review where the author himself is quoted as saying that the "novel is about 30,000 words too long." Sadly, Heinlein was under-estimating. I would place the number somewhere around 50,000 words. The dialogue goes on forever in so many spots. Character development is one thing, but Heinlein is simply undisciplined in this tome. I'm not sure I would go quite as far as the creative reviewer who suggested that this book would be available to "damned souls in Hell's lending library," because I do think the plot provided a few intriguing twists and some "food for thought." But I had to force myself to finish it -- and "force" is not an understatement.
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LibraryThing member james.d.gifford
I "read" this again as an audiobook, and the performer was excellent. But what to say? Part of the book hasn't aged well, which is apt for the story – the forward thinking permissiveness of the sexual revolution comes across here as increased sexual availability of women in an ever more expanding
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patriarchy. Gender norms are reinforced despite the obvious playfullness meant by the "sex change" of the plot, and for 1970 is might be called progressive, but in a way that's troubling. The very things that probably made this a lot of fun when it was published (and even when I first read it in early 1990s) now seem to fall flat. I can't help but think this inspired Carl Reiner's film "All of Me," and that the same gender comedy that drives the film falls flat on today's audience.

The obviously "twig" for inspiring the story is Tiresias, and we get to see the protagonist as both the father and mother to "hir" child, and there are satires on contemporary society we're meant to take tongue in cheek, though these perhaps have aged the least well. I also can't help but feel fishy reading Heinlein's female protagonists with their casual sexism and light treatment of physical abuse. It's certainly well intentioned, but it's definitely uncomfortable today.

As a plot, I grew tired of the ripostes between the "twin" protagonists, and as is too often the case in later Heinlein, the continuous "winning" of the protagonist who outsmarts everyone at every turn. When there's no struggle and not work to exceed oneself, there's also no "bildung" for the bildungsroman, so no growth. Everyone just emerges fully formed, no one is shocked, and they always already knew what they were about to discover. So there they are in the opening, smuggly aware of superiority, and there they are at the end just the same. Not even the outward travels manifest and invisible transformation.

Apart from that, it's hard to think of another work from 1970 that did what this one did, and I listened to the performance the whole way through. I've been going through Heinlein's works on audiobook, and I read across much of him in the 80s and 90s, but so far the juvenile books seem the easiest for me as a reader, and I'm still not sure why – they're not uncomfortably sexual nor violent, but they feel like they're pressing on a political stance, the ends of which I can't conscience today and have difficulty rethinking in their historical context, yet at the same time I can't pin them down.

The performer was excellent with American accents and committed fully to the multi-vocal nature of the narrative.
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LibraryThing member nmele
This Heinlein novel is just creepy. The basic plot device, a wealthy old man has his brain transplanted into a healthy young body after that person dies of trauma to the brain, deserves better treatment than Heinlein gives it. The body donor is a young woman, said old man's personal secretary for
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some years, so Heinlein could have written an interesting exploration of several issues, i.e., brain transplants and the ramifications of putting a male person in a female body. Had he done so, he might now be remembered and perhaps revered as an early advocate of transgender people, or a penetrating, prophetic social commentator. Instead, this book is all about sex but with very limited consideration of how a man transported into a woman's body might feel about the situation.

To add insult to injury, Heinlein's concept of female sexuality is simplistic and does not track with my experience (I admit my knowledge of this is limited to my wife and what she tells me). His dialogue--often internal dialogue (Did I mention that the dead woman lives on in the male brain in her erstwhile body?)--sounds unreal to me as well. It feels like a manifesto for Heinlein's views on sexual ethics. His interest in the occult is expressed by the return of the dead secretary and then near the end by another mysterious transfer of personality but this, too, is treated superficially. Not recommended.
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LibraryThing member szarka
I'd like to explain away this book as a product of senility, but it was written in 1970. Would you believe drugs, maybe? At least there's spanking.
LibraryThing member jenbooks
I haven't read this book in quite a few years. I remember liking this book a lot more when I was younger.

Awards

Locus Award (Nominee — Novel — 1971)
Seiun Award (Nominee — 1978)

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1970

Physical description

512 p.; 7 inches

ISBN

0425034259 / 9780425034255
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