ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

JOB:

A COMEDY OF JUSTICE

Ballantine Books

(Random House Publishing Group) 

Sept., 1984

CONDITION:  VERY GOOD hardcover book with VERY GOOD jacket; some minor spattering on top of pages, probably a sign that the copy was remaindered.

One item mentioned in ISFDB:  the ISBN’s shown on the copyright page are wrong; the correct one is the one on the back of the dust jacket (with a zero added in front).  

Something was truly out to get him: GOD? SATAN? LOKI? 

Whoever - or whatever - obviously never intended to let Alex get back home to Kansas.

It all began with that firewalking gig in Polynesia. After negotiating the bed of hot coals with only a small blister, he suddenly found the world changed around him. Instead of being Alexander Hergensheimer, minister of a fundamentalist church, he was now suppose to be Alec Graham, carryingunderworld money and in the middle of an affair with the charming stewardess, Margrethe - the only good thing about the whole business.

Somewhere he felt, there had to be an answer to his question and to the questIon of why he was being persecuted. And, of course, there was.

But it was truly a Hell of an answer.

COMMENTARIES ON LINE:

This was my last favorite Heinlein novel, for many rereads. I've pretty much stopped rereading RAH -- but I might give this one another reread sometime. Enough years have passed, and it's a clever & unusual setup. Heinlein's homage to James Branch Cabell, one of his influences and favorite writers.

Heinlein's take on the biblical story of Job is a little less biblically based and a lot more fantastically oriented. That said, it is quite an interesting story, with a double share of twists and turns, and throughout it all you're rather unsure exactly where Heinlein is going.

Yet another of my perennial favourites. I regularly pick this one up and re-read it.

Each time I find something new to enjoy.

A satirical examination of religion in general, and Christianity in specific, through the eyes of a Christian political activist who gets pulled out and thrown into different realities and parallel universes.

Absolutely witty and hilarious.

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