To Sail Beyond the Sunset cover art

To Sail Beyond the Sunset

The Life and Loves of Maureen Johnson (Being the Memoirs of a Somewhat Irregular Lady)

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To Sail Beyond the Sunset

By: Robert A. Heinlein
Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
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About this listen

Maureen Johnson, the somewhat irregular mother of Lazarus Long, wakes up in bed with a man and a cat. The cat is Pixel, well-known to fans of the New York Times best seller The Cat Who Walks through Walls. The man is a stranger to her, and besides that, he is dead.

So begins Robert A. Heinlein’s To Sail Beyond the Sunset. Filled with the master’s most beloved characters, this compelling work broadens and enriches his epic vision of time and space, life and death, love and desire. It is also an autobiographical masterpiece—and a wondrous return to the alternate universes that all Heinlein fans have come to know and love.

©1987 Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein, trustees (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Science Fiction

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Critic reviews

“Thoughtprovoking…Considerable wit and energy!” ( Newsday)
All stars
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This was my second time listening to the book and I read it at least twice before. Still a brilliant story!

Enjoyable listening!

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An exciting romp, with quirky attitudes to challenge our social norms.
The vivid exploration of incest can be troubling at times.
Expertly read though with good characterisations.

Challenging contents covering taboos

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Makes sure you read this book after having first read all the other Heinlein books, if you are intending to read them, at it will then be more meaningful because it refers to characters and events from those books.
I found this one to be a little slow at starting but then quite enjoyable in the context of having already read most of the other Heinlein books.

Read this one last

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world as myth, confusion and far too much cavalry coming and saving the day. way too many time/story strings to tie up. worst Heinlein book ever.

yuck

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Heinlein does know how to create a good story, but this one regretably has a lot of weaknesses. In actual fact some of his views (stated through the protagonist) to me were in many ways more interesting than the story itself. I think Heinlein's main excuse for writing the story is that it is an old goat's wish for meeting an amoral and horny lady. In actual fact the description isn't very believable. Will a woman really go into the most minute details regarding her sex life to strangers? I find that difficult to believe, especially when she does her best to hide her sexual feelings from society.

Another thing is that Heinlein seems to believe that if you catch a VD, you can just pop down to your physisist and be healed, just like that. If that's the case, why then may as many as 1/3 of the adult population in the world have herpes? And that in the West. As far as I know, it is one of the VDs that still is not curable, so "free sex" may not be that free after all, contrary to what Heinlein seem to believe.

So the main reason to read this would either be for Heinlein's views on general right to vote, education system, religion and other topic. Some you may agree with and others you may heartedly disagree with, but at least I found them interesting. And of course to get the conclusion of his Future series.

Regarding the performance, Bernadette Dunne did a valiant effort, but I didn't feel she was totally successful to imitate the voice of the male characters. She just didn't seem to get her voice low enough without straining it. But having to read descriptions that I'm sure she would crinch from, is admirable.

Maybe the weakest of Robert Heinlein's novels

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The story isn't up to much: it's partly a rehash of an episode in a previous book (Time Enough for Love), from the viewpoint of a different character, partly reminiscence about how good the old days were, and bringing in characters from other books. Maureen become tedious after a while, as does her sexual attraction to anything that moves (including her father, who seems extremely unattractive but Maureen yearns for him anyway).

Heinlein would have done better to have left this unwritten, not because the sex is shocking (Maureen has sex with a lot of men, including one of her sons), but because it's so boring and the subplot about her being in a different timeline accused of murder isn't particularly good either.

The book is slow, very slow, despite the promising beginning and the narrator, Bernadette Dunne, doesn't make any attempt to pick up the pace. She might be reading a shopping-list for all the feeling she puts into her narration andher attempts at male voices are painful.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel

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