Doctor Hugo Pinero invents a device for measuring the length of life and predicting the date and time of death. This leads to the protests of insurance companies and the potential collapse of the industry, not to mention many personal concerns, and the dilemma of a humanity confronted with knowledge that they perhaps should not have.

The good: Pinero’s devise is unlike anything I’ve seen in any other SF story. It is a fascinating riff on a theme usually reserved for psychics and mediums.

The bad: Unfortunately, the story has rather flat characters. Most of them become symbols of a particular viewpoint instead of fully integrated personalities with interests outside the story line.

The interesting: The society reflects Heinlein’s own Kansas City of his younger days. It hearkens back to a reality that, truthfully, most of us would be just as happy without, an alternative to the golden-age view of the early 1900s.

"Life-line" is Heinlein’s first published story. This and the next two stories in the Future History are firmly set in the sociology of the 1940s. The heavy-handed, goon-squad politics countered by simplistic hucksteristic charm are from a less complicated era. The courtroom antics are reminiscent of tales from the Scopes Monkey Trial. The ruling is obviously that of a judge not beleaguered by unreasonable precedents. He is a stock RAH character, the cantankerous Mark Twainesque voice of wry, stubborn wisdom. Heinlein expresses his free-trade ideals with the moral triumph of his protagonist. It would be interesting to know what kind of protectionist legal decisions had been made that RAH is railing against. The importance of his viewpoint is underscored by the fact that Pinero is the only real character in the story. The other characters are almost silhouettes, props.

Pinero’s conflict with his relatives and his compassion on the young couple who go to him for a reading put his character in the third dimension. He is not a simple opportunist or a cold scientist. He is a man in charge of his own will and aware of the down side of his invention. His ultimate calm paints an interesting picture for Heinlein. Lazarus Long certainly doesn’t have this attitude… not when he’s in a good mood.

"Life-line" bears none of the polish of Heinlein’s later work. It lacks the complex characterization that makes for excellent story telling. However, it does bear the marks of RAH’s later tropes, a tantalizing inhale before a significant breath.

"Life-line" is available free on-line from the publisher as part of Heinlein’s eclectic collection Expanded Universe. Baen Books has graciously also restored the story to its original collection The Man Who Sold The Moon, from which it had been removed for reasons that seem to escape analysts. It seems likely that it was removed to make the book shorter and cheaper to publish, but it is back (though not in RAH’s recommended order), and Baen can be given much credit for that.

Thanks to Tim for this providing this article. You can read more of Tim’s stuff on his blog: The Darling Virtual Mind.

Non-Spoiler Summary In A Nutshell:

Holly Jones is a teen-aged spaceship engineer. She and her partner, Jeff, are designing a starship which will use a mass-conversion power plant, but until she can do that full time she works as an inside guide for tourists visiting the Moon. When a strikingly beautiful tourist of hers requests to go outside she turns her over to Jeff. Whoops! That proves to be a mistake because Jeff is… well, a man. As Jeff and the Earth woman spend more and more time together Holly becomes increasingly concerned about the future of their partnership – that is until something happens that brings Holly and her closer together.

“Hi, Penalty Weight. Free to take a client?”

“Well, I was supposed to guide a family party, but they’re late.”

“Cancel them. Miss Brentwood . . . step into pickup, please. This is Mr. Hardesty.”

Jeff’s eyes widened and I felt uneasy. But it did not occur to me that Jeff could be attracted by a groundhog . . . even though it is conceded that men are robot slaves of their body chemistry in such matters. I knew she was exceptionally decorative, but it was unthinkable that Jeff could be captivated by any groundhog, no matter how well designed. They don’t speak our language!

My Two Cents:

• The good:

• Telling this story from the point of view of a girl was a stroke of genius – especially given that it was written in 1957! I found Holly to be an extremely interesting character, and totally enjoyed her story.
• Bats’ Cave. This is one of those settings in science fiction that make you ache to really experience it! Ah… I guess I’ll just have to dream about it.
• I quite liked that “The Menace from Earth” was set on the Moon. I have read a lot of similar stories that were set on Mars, but I enjoyed having the Moon take center stage in this one.

• The bad:

• Hmm… not that this is a bad point, but I often wonder how well male authors do when portraying female characters – especially strong lead characters. Perhaps some of the women will roll their eyes when reading this story, but I am not sure. I would love to hear any comments about this!

Fact Sheet:
• Page Count: 15
• Word Count: 9,630

Where you can find “The Menace from Earth”:

• This novelette first appeared in the October 1957 issue of New Worlds.
• “The Menace from Earth” is included in the excellent story collection The World Turned Upside Down.
• You can read a free online version of this story at the webscription.net preview for The World Turned Upside Down.

Some Interesting Links:

• If you are interested in learning more about Robert Heinlein be sure to check out this page of frequently asked questions about the famous science fiction author.
• Special thanks to Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings for pointing out this story to me!

Craving More Stories?
If you enjoyed this story then you might also like A Rose for Ecclesiastes, about a gifted linguist who is the first human allowed to read sacred Martian texts, by Roger Zelazny.

Non-Spoiler Summary In A Nutshell:

“All You Zombies-” follows the wild and convoluting exploits of a temporal agent sent to recruit a young man known as “The Unmarried Mother” – a writer for confession magazines. Posing as a bartender the agent coaxes the unsuspecting writer into revealing his own turbulent history. Being a little bit tipsy, The Unmarried Mother is tricked by the agent and taken into the past to set in motion a complicated and time-line-polluting series of events that eventually lead to his own birth. Wow! If it all sounds a little bit confusing that’s because it is! Nevertheless, this is one story that very clearly (and quite humorously) demonstrates why time travel will never be possible!

I was polishing a brandy snifter when the Unmarried Mother came in. I noted the time—10:17 P.M. zone five, or eastern time, November 7th, 1970. Temporal agents always notice time and date; we must.

The Unmarried Mother was a man twenty–five years old, no taller than I am, childish features and a touchy temper. I didn’t like his looks—I never had—but he was a lad I was here to recruit, he was my boy. I gave him my best barkeep’s smile.

Maybe I’m too critical. He wasn’t swish; his nickname came from what he always said when some nosy type asked him his line: “I’m an unmarried mother.” If he felt less than murderous he would add: “at four cents a word. I write confession stories.”

My Two Cents:

• The good:

• Wow – this is the mother of all paradoxical time traveling stories! If you enjoy those kinds of stories then you will get a major kick out of this one.
• There is some great subtle humor in “All You Zombies-”. From the acronyms to the shocking realization of who The Unmarried Mother really is – you can’t help but laugh out loud at the hilarity of it all!

• The bad:

• Given the very nature and subject matter of this story (which I can’t reveal without giving away the surprise) there are consequently some mature / adult themes. This is probably not something you want your young kids reading.

Fact Sheet:
• Page Count: 9
• Word Count: 4,652
• “All You Zombies-” garnered the following awards:

• This story placed 30th in the 1971 Astounding / Analog All-Time Poll for best short fiction.
• It was nominated for the 1980 Balrog award.
• It placed 5th in the 1999 Locus All-Time Poll for best short story.

Where you can find “All You Zombies-”:

• This short story first appeared in the March 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
• “All You Zombies-” is included in the fantastic collection of Heinlein stories entitled The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein.
• You can read an HTML version of this story on Matt Fedder’s web page.

Some Interesting Links:

• If all the time jumping in “All You Zombies-” leaves you scratching your head a bit, then maybe this visual time line of events will help you out.
• The inclusion of the famous novelty song “I’m My Own Grandpa” was great! If you haven’t heard of this very funny song you can learn more about it on Wikipedia.

Craving More Stories?
If you enjoyed this story then you might also like Scherzo with Tyrannosaur, about the director of a dinosaur research center who holds a time-line-polluting fund raiser, by Michael Swanwick.

by Robert A. Heinlein

• Word count: 7589
• Page count: 20

—And He Built a Crooked House is a science fiction short story from one of the big names among classic science fiction authors: Robert Heinlein. First published in 1941, this story explores the idea of using mathematics and the fourth dimension to build a new type of house.

—And He Built a Crooked House follows the exploits of a mathematically inclined architect who builds a house in the shape of an unfolded tesseract. The house is ultra-modern and on the cutting edge of technology, and things go smoothly until he and his clients enter the house and find it very different than they expected.

I don’t think of a house as an upholstered cave; I think of it as a machine for living, a vital process, a live dynamic thing, changing with the mood of the dweller—not a dead, static, oversized coffin. Why should we be held down by the frozen concepts of our ancestors? Any fool with a little smattering of descriptive geometry can design a house in the ordinary way. Is the static geometry of Euclid the only mathematics? Are we to completely disregard the Picard-Vessiot theory? How about modular system?—to say nothing of the rich suggestions of stereochemistry. Isn’t there a place in architecture for transformation, for homomorphology, for actional structures?

—And He Built a Crooked House was first published in 1941 in Astounding Science Fiction, and has been reprinted in the 1959 collection The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag.

You can read —And He Built a Crooked House online for free at the old Scifiction.

If you are interested in learning more about the author, Robert Heinlein, check out this cool page of little known facts, or read the Wikipedia article about him.