To Sail Beyond the Sunset

The World As Myth #4

by Robert A. Heinlein

Bestselling author Robert A. Heinlein's autobiographical masterpiece--a wondrous return to the alternate universes that all Heinlein fans have come to know and love.

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 readers of the New York Times bestseller The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. The man is a stranger to her, and besides that, he is dead...

Filled with the master's most beloved characters, To Sail Beyond the Sunset broadens and enriches Heinlein's epic visions of time and space, life and death, love and desire...

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fantasy, Time Travel, Speculative Fiction, Audiobook

434 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 1, 1987

About the author

Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accuracy in his fiction, and was thus a pioneer of the subgenre of hard science fiction. His published works, both fiction and non-fiction, express admiration for competence and emphasize the value of critical thinking. His plots often posed provocative situations which challenged conventional social mores. His work continues to have an influence on the science-fiction genre, and on modern culture more generally.
Heinlein became one of the first American science-fiction writers to break into mainstream magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s. He was one of the best-selling science-fiction novelists for many decades, and he, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke are often considered the "Big Three" of English-language science fiction authors. Notable Heinlein works include Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers (which helped mold the space marine and mecha archetypes) and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. His work sometimes had controversial aspects, such as plural marriage in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, militarism in Starship Troopers and technologically competent women characters who were formidable, yet often stereotypically feminine—such as Friday.
Heinlein used his science fiction as a way to explore provocative social and political ideas and to speculate how progress in science and engineering might shape the future of politics, race, religion, and sex. Within the framework of his science-fiction stories, Heinlein repeatedly addressed certain social themes: the importance of individual liberty and self-reliance, the nature of sexual relationships, the obligation individuals owe to their societies, the influence of organized religion on culture and government, and the tendency of society to repress nonconformist thought. He also speculated on the influence of space travel on human cultural practices.
Heinlein was named the first Science Fiction Writers Grand Master in 1974. Four of his novels won Hugo Awards. In addition, fifty years after publication, seven of his works were awarded "Retro Hugos"—awards given retrospectively for works that were published before the Hugo Awards came into existence. In his fiction, Heinlein coined terms that have become part of the English language, including grok, waldo and speculative fiction, as well as popularizing existing terms like "TANSTAAFL", "pay it forward", and "space marine". He also anticipated mechanical computer-aided design with "Drafting Dan" and described a modern version of a waterbed in his novel Beyond This Horizon.
Also wrote under Pen names: Anson McDonald, Lyle Monroe, Caleb Saunders, John Riverside and Simon York.

Reviews

[JBradford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have no doubt that there are many people who, knowing that I reserve the 5-star rating for books that I think must be read, will start to read this book (or read it entirely) and conclude that I have become simply a dirty old man. A glance at the other Goodreads reviews of this book will tell you why; the vast majority of them seem to give it a rating of one or two stars with passionate complaints about the sex in the book, the “horniness” of the first-person narrator, the lack of action (!), etc. A very few give it five stars, suggesting it perhaps was Heinlein’s greatest book; put me in that latter category. I find myself absolutely amazed that I had no idea that this book existed until 24 years after its publication, and I only happened to notice it because one of the librarians displayed it on a shelf with its cover showing, depicting a voluptuous red-headed nude (with parts of her anatomy discreetly covered by her flowing red hair, standing in a very large clam shell (which has nothing to do with the story), accompanied by a cat sitting beside her (a cat sitting on his tail, by the way, despite the fact that he is repeatedly described as always having his tail pointing straight up).

Many moons ago (52 years ago, actually) I attended a conference for technical writers in St. Louis, where the keynote speaker was an admiral who berated us all for writing boring technical manuals and demanded to know why we could not write manuals as interesting as Heinlein’s novels. I happened to have a Heinlein pocketbook in my back pocket at the time, and it took all my self-control to prevent myself from leaping to my feet and yelling “Because he can write about sex, and we have to write about gizmos.” I now think that anecdote shows the silliness of my youth; Heinlein did not write about sex—he wrote novels in which one or more of the characters engaged in sex one or more times as part of the historical narration of the overall story, and that is just as true here as it was then. Yes, Maureen does have sex--with a teenage boy in her town, then with her cousin, then with some other boys and even a couple men, including her eventual husband, and later with friends … and eventually with her son and perhaps with a great-great-grandson or two--but the gross details of the acts, such as run rampant through all the trashy romances my eldest loves to read, are not given; it all happens between paragraphs, or even between lines. More to the point, it all happens over the course of a few thousand years, actually, and the real point of the story is to get from one end (early in the 19th century in Minnesota) to the other (God know when or where), involving time travel, multiple universes, extra-dimension cross connections, and the inevitable change of the human condition through all those years.

The other chief complaint against Heinlein seems to be that he engaged in social engineering by promoting ideas different from those held by the majority of men. But isn’t that true of all writers? I’ve must finished other reviews of books by Charlene Harris, Anne Perry, and Patricia Cornwell, and I have to believe that their characters were being portrayed in such a way as to reflect the authors’ ideas that we all should think differently about certain things. Harris shows that small-minded Christians cannot accept ways of life outside their own (such as vampires, werewolves, fairies, etc.); Perry is fascinated about the different and disparate ways of life of the rich and the poor, and Cornwell projects the hope that goodness and intelligence eventually must win out over the evildoers of the world. Heinlein himself maintained that all this prolific outpouring was not social engineering at all but just writing to entertain (and to sell).

This was Heinlein’s last book, published when he was dying at the age of 80. He had already established a practice of weaving his various different novels and stories together, and this one was simply a continuation and culmination of that same trend. It also requires a basic background understanding by the reader of various diverse concepts that had evolved in science fiction since he and John Campbell essentially created the genre back in the days of my childhood, as this novel ties a lot of them together. My parents would not have liked this book, and I have friends who would have no idea what it was talking about for most of its length.

I was amused that one of the debunking reviewers proclaimed that he stopped reading the book half way through because there wasn’t enough science-fiction (!) … while another protested that the sex scenes were described in clinical detail (!) … and another expressed strong objections about the unrealistic portrayal of women in Heinlein’s writings. There can be no doubt that most of Heinlein’s women (and particularly Maureen Johnson) were based on his second wife, Virginia, whom he truly loved throughout their long marriage. I was also amused to notice how many of the 1-star and 2-star reviews had misspelled words, incorrect homonyms, and totally irrelevant comments.

[Megan Baxter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find reading Heinlein to be such a strange experience. His books are always fun, even this strange "world as fiction" stuff he gets further and further into later in his career. They're enjoyable. I reread them ad nauseam.

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.

In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

[Robert J. Sullivan · Rating 2 out of 5]

"To Sail Beyond the Sunset The Life and Loves of Maureen Johnson (Being the Memoirs of a Somewhat Irregular Lady)"

Robert A. Heinlein was one of my first discoveries in science fiction once I moved beyond Tom Swift, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs, along with Isaac Asimov, Keith Laumer and others. I still like "Glory Road", "Starship Troopers", "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress", "Sixth Column", "Citizen of the Galaxy" and some of his short fiction. In one of his books (which one I've forgotten) he presented an alternate society how everything would work better under it. At the end of the book, he pointed out some of the problems with the society.

That was an eye-opening, mind-bending experience when I was 12 or 13. I was a passive observer, a passenger, in my reading up to that point. That taught me to keep my left up while I was reading. I still enjoy the ride but I don't buy it all because someone wrote it.

Heinlein and I parted company with "The Number of the Beast", a nonsense book, poorly written - I wondered if he'd sketched out the ideas for it and let someone else write it, like James Patterson does now. He never won me back after that.

"To Sail.." is a continuation of RAH's Lazarus Long/Future History stories and the lead character is Long's mother. She wakes up in bed with a dead man and a cat, with no idea of how she got there. That's a pretty good hook for a story. So, RAH, tell me about it.

Nope. The next 7 chapters are the joys of Maureen Johnson's sex life threaded around daily living in Missouri beginning in the 19th century. At page 122, I lost interest and started skimming and skipping, hoping to discover the plot. I failed.

RAH has three basic characters, the Wise Old Man, the Naive Young Man (usually the protagonist and narrator), and the Hot Chick. I can deal with that, I don't read RAH for characterization. MJ is, of course, the Hot Chick (with some WOM through in).

RAH has really gone to FantasyLand for this character. Hugh Hefner and Ian Fleming, whose detractors view them as prototypical chauvinist pigs, were never this extreme. Is MJ hot to trot? Always. Every tired or busy? Never. Second thoughts about where, when, position? None. Adultery? Why not, we'll both do it. Swapping? Sure. Group sex? Of course. Incest? It's good clean family fun. Sexual diseases? Only happens to other people. I'm not extrapolating, it's in the book.

Really, RAH? Science fiction is a wonderful avenue to challenge accepted wisdom on society and mores. This book is the extended fantasy of a 15 year old boy who isn't getting any. It should probably have been explored thoroughly with a competent therapist, not printed as a book.

The book checks RAH's standard repertoire: glorification of the military, libertarianism, liberals as the cause of the fall of civilization, evils of religion, education (usually hard sciences), cats, and firearms training.

I used to think Heinlein was insightful. I liked his aphorisms, thinking they were the conclusions of the Wise Old Man. I recently found a statement that certainty is an emotion, not a logical conclusion. RAH has certainty by the bucketload.

One and a half stars, rounded to two. Not recommended.

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of his last & about the worst book Heinlein ever wrote, in my opinion. It's long, wordy & without much to recommend it. There is some action in it, but it's buried in windy passages. Not worth a re-read & I only got through it because I'm such a fan of his other works. Again, he is promoting incest.

[Nathaniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wish I hadn't bothered; this book is terrible. The thesis (oft-repeated) seems to be "Maureen is an amoral wench," and this is backed up by pages and pages of her sexual exploits. In between the incest and polygamy is nonsense about alternate timelines and an assassination squad. All this is tied back into other novels like Time Enough for Love, and since it's told from a different perspective (Maureen's), hard core Heinlein fans will enjoy some of it. But ultimately it's only a few excellent paragraphs on the folly of "warm body" democracy, paper money, and bad parenting that make up the book's redeeming qualities.

[Evan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Among Heinlein's last books, "serious" fans aren't quite sure if he was going insane in his old age, or if this book was meant as a sort of wink-wink nudge-nudge self-parody. In any case, it's pretty terrible.

[Starch · Rating 2 out of 5]

Update: Finished it. Kept the 2/5 score. The writing isn't that bad. This isn't the way a story should be written, as every character is just an author self insert, but if I look at the book purely as a vehicle for Heinlein to explore his own ideas (well, mostly to preach them), then this book has some merit. Ignoring the incest (which isn't very doable, but still), the main character is interesting and at times well-written.


Original review:

DNF 43%.

(tl;dr: The problem is not that there's incest, but that this book reads like an incest fantasy with little else to it, and that the character writing is one of Heinlein's worst.)

It's not a bad book. In most respects it's a usual Heinlein book, with the usual Heinlein caveats. Only this one takes the Heinlineniness to the extreme: every character with any kind of page time, and I mean EVERY character, is simply a self insert of the author with zero variation. In his other books usually every character portrays a different aspect of Heinlein, but here they're all exactly the same. Also, there's no plot and no action, and instead a lot of political ramblings and sex.

This is a historical drama about Maureen Johnson, a 19th century girl (and later woman) experimenting with sex, getting married, and living in general. Sounds interesting? in theory, sure. Even the incest could, in theory, be explored in an interesting manner. But it isn't.

The problem isn't the content, but the execution: 1. It reads purely like a sexual fantasy. 2. Every character is just Heinlein (I mean, more than usual). 3. There's only the preaching of ideas, never explorations of them. 4. Having no plot, the characters have to do the heavy lifting -- but they aren't nearly good enough for that.

Imagine an 80 year old man. He just wrote a book. The book is about a fourteen year old girl in the late 19th century who's character is exactly like the old man's. She's hypersexual, and strongly attracted to her father, who's an exact image of the old man. Her body leaves a scent that makes men unable to control themselves around her, so she has to wash her skin regularly. She often enters into "rut", unable to think of anything other than sex. She sleeps with all sorts of people, most of them disappointing to her. She finds a perfect man and marries him. He is also an exact copy of the old man. They have lots of sex. Both of them just happen to be swingers, irreligious, and libertarian, with the same opinions on everything else. They have several children. I haven't gotten to that part yet, but from what I hear one of the children (Lazarus) will later, as an adult, marry his mother.

If this is your kind of book, I'm honestly not judging you (though I am judging the book). The contents are not for me, and the writing I simply find bad.

[Denis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reread Heinlein’s work every few years if only because I love his writing and story telling style so much. This is maybe my third or fourth reread of the Lazarus Long novels, which include the “The Past Through Tomorrow” collection of shorter works “Future History” stories, published or written between the late 30’s and the late fifties.

“To Sail Beyond the Sunset” 1986, was the final novel written during Heinlein’s rather long career. It is a sequel or parallel novel to his 1973 Lazarus Long themed novel, “Time Enough for Love”. Here Heinlein managed to conclude his World of Myth series of novels. By this time, Heinlein has been completely free to write and publish whatever he wanted and however he wanted to present it. He has odd non-conventional ideas on custom, norms, taboo and such which he has dedicated much of his writing to for most of the second half of his writing career. Much of this I can not subscribe to or find distasteful yet I do understand completely that in future times, ideas on custom, norms, taboo and such that are not conventional presently may be of no concern or even the norm in later times. Look backwards a hundred years or a thousand and you will certainly agree.

This is Maurine’s Lazarus’s mother’s story. Interesting reading from her perspective, the events that occurred in the original 1973 novel. The reappearance of Pixel the cat from, “The Cat Who Walks Though Walls”, is a fun addition. As with, Time Enough for Love”, the novel is told with a series of recollections, this time told by Maurine, with an ongoing plot of she being in prison while interrogated - which is when Pixel keeps showing up from time to time.

Though very disturbing at times, if one can get over or reluctantly accept some of the few (often regretful) and cringe-worthy elements of this individual’s personal ideas, this novel is a fine end to the “Grand Masters” long and somewhat controversial career.

[rivka · Rating 1 out of 5]

It has been close to 20 years since I read this, and remembering it still makes me want to scrub my brain.

[Scott Holstad · Rating 1 out of 5]

On March 7, 2014 I reviewed Robert A. Heinlein's "I Will Fear No Evil" and gave it one star. It was a sex-obsessed orgy with little "science fiction" to offer. Realizing it was published in 1970 during the Sexual Revolution, I thought maybe it was a one off. I was wrong. I started "To Sail Beyond the Sunset" yesterday and the initial premise seemed good -- a woman wakes up in bed with her cat and an unknown dead man, and she doesn't know who she is or where she is. Sounds good, right? Wrong. The next umpteen chapters are flashbacks to nineteenth century Missouri where Maureen, the main character, learns about sex as a pre-pubescent from her father and proceeds to whore herself out to every possible boy and man available. And to make matters worse, the dialogue is simply unbelievable. Witness the exchange between 12 year old Maureen and her pervert father. She says, "...this is why your anatomy book doesn't show the clitoris. Mrs. Grundy wouldn't like it because she doesn't have one." Um, okay.... Then "Father, there is something here that doesn't make sense. Why is 'vagina' a good word while 'cunt' is a bad word? Riddle me that." Seriously, how many 12 year old girls talk about clits and cunts with their father??? And he's egging her on to lose her virginity too! Which she finally does when she's 14, and damn proud of it too. The book reads like a cross between the Penthouse version of Caligula and de Sade's "Juliette," but not as good. There's adultery, swappings, orgies, incest, etc., all over the place. I'm no prude, but Heinlein was a serious perv and he wrote this book in his eighties! Finally, the thing that kills it for me is there's little science fiction. Oh, there's time travel and alternate universes, but those hardly matter to the plot of Maureen getting laid as often as possible. It's a very disappointing book to read and since this is my sixth Heinlein book I've attempted, it's also going to be my last. He was a seriously overrated, perverted sicko writer with little to offer. Definitely not recommended.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

WARNING: Please read Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, Revolt in 2100, Methuselah's Children, Time Enough for Love, The Number of the Beast, and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls prior to reading this. A familiarity with the "future history" stories are also recommended.
Maureen Johnson, born in 1882 and mother of Lazarus Long, is one horny gal. This is her memoirs, told to us while being held in a jail on some unexplored timeline. Let me just say straight off that if you have a problem reading about incest, you should probably skip this (and the rest of the World as Myth series as well). If you can get over that, you'll find Maureen's life pretty interesting, sort of a rounding out of what we've been told before about Lazarus' mother and grandfather. The reasons for the jail cell and the eventual climactic rescue of...someone... cap the book, but I think deserve to have been a little better explained. This isn't my favorite of Heinlein's books, but it is his last full-length novel and the "end" of the World as Myth Series, so I recommend you read it if you've gone that far. It's also a (very) little better as a standalone than the two previous World as Myth books.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh dear. What to say about this book?

If you're thinking about reading it, be warned that there is a LOT of incest and I mean a lot. If Heinlein's evil plan was to overcome our natural 'phobia' of incest by repeated exposure then he may have partially succeeded because by the end I really didn't care any more whether Maureen slept with her father/son/whatever. If his plan was to write a good book then I think he might have failed. I found myself plodding through this but unwilling to give up altogether.

I'm not particularly prudish and if everyone involved is a consenting adult then I have no objections to any sort of sex really. The issue of consent is pretty much absent here however, so I'd have to say that this bothers me more than all the incest. For instance one of Mo's friends casually tells her that she 'gave her cherry' to a man 3 times her age when she was 12 or so. Sorry Bob, but in my book that's child abuse. Maureen also regularly comments that one can easily avoid being raped by taking a few precautions. Talk about blaming the victim.

Heinlein might have thought he was making some important statement about sex and morality but really he follows a very patriarchal model where the ideal women wants lots of sex all the time with any old man and a woman with other ideas is a freak. From a modern perspective Heinlein is actually extremely old-fashioned in his values. Have sex with your father/brother/cousin? Sure, nothing wrong with that. But you have to get married and you definitely can't be gay. Cos homosexuality is weird. Then there's the patriotism. Anyone who doesn't want to take up a gun to defend the good old US of A is a despicable coward.

Perhaps all this would have been forgiveable if the book was any good. Unfortunately it wasn't really. The back story of how Mo came to be telling this story is very thin and puzzling. The story itself doesn't have much going for it. There's not much sci-fi. The characters are pretty flat and inexplicable. The idea of all these people living forever and going around fiddling with time-lines is quite unpalatable.

[Ian Kemp · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is his worst book by far of what I have read. It is really just bizarre sex thing over and over again apparently told by a woman. Which when you remember this is actually being written by a weird old man makes you just feel creepy.

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes this ties for fave with Stranger in a Strange Land, but most of the time this one wins. It's actually a pivotal book in the Lazarus Long series, because it deals with his mother and his origins. Frankly, I find Maureen, his mom, about a million times more interesting than Lazarus himself. This book was really forward thinking in portraying a smart, capable woman who really, truly pursued what she wanted in life, and was kind and even-handed in doing it. Maureen is a real role model in a lot of ways. The one downside into recommending this (or any other Heinlein book for that matter) is the sheer amount of sex in them. He doesn't write sensual books; all the situations are described obscurely or used to illustrate something else but they are undeniably sexy and sometimes very forthrightly. This book also deals with the idea of polygamy, open relationships, and incest, all in very positive terms (Heinlein tends to use human biology and science to explain his position on open, honest sexuality and commune-like communities). In this book, the sex is actually a major plot point, in that it is a theory of encouraging people genetically disposed to long life to marry and procreate to extend the human lifespan over generations. Perhaps with current science it seems a bit simplistic but it's very believable in the book. It also, like all his books, deals with time travel as well. Really a fascinating read.

[Jeff Yoak · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a huge Heinlein fan who has read many of his books several times, it was a delight to realize that I hadn't read this one at all. When I was younger and going through his novels I had a general dislike for the World as Myth later novels and I guess skipped this one entirely.

I still dislike this aspect of the novel, but as I've become a diehard fan, it was a chance to spend some more time with characters whom I deeply love. Seeing Jubal, Lazarus and others again, and with a new story, made the experience.

Nonetheless, I wouldn't suggest to anyone who isn't either a similar die hard fan or possessed of an intent desire to explore Heinlein's attitudes about sexuality. (The book serves as autobiography for Mama Maureen, and mostly details her century and a half of sexual exploits.)

2017: There is one more Heinlein novel that I missed reading with the kids (OK, two with Hoag), but this is the last. An end of an era. All of the most loved characters are married, safe and live happily ever after. I've read it before, but this was the time with the kids and it wrapped up this part of our family book-reading with a bang. They both loved the story.

[Jen3n · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oy. I should have quit while I was ahead with this series.

Well, "series" is a misnomer. Heinlein wrote several books in a row which were connected through both characters and concepts, but they were disjointed in their style and focus.

But no matter what you call them, this book is the last one. I think. I am willing to be corrected.

It tells the whole saga of Lazarus Long and The World as Myth all over again, but this time through the eyes of his biological mother, Maureen.

And one of his wives, Maureen. Same lady.

Look, I'm not a prude. I swear. But at some time in the series/non-series I felt badly that I was still squicked over the concept of incest. Oh, I understand that the technology was sufficiently advanced to guarantee no genetically screwed-up children... and I understand that their society was sufficiently advanced enough that there was no such thing as jealousy and everybody could love and sex-up everyone else and be one big happy family no matter if the one you were sexing up was your daughter or grandmother or son or whomever. Fine. But ... I can't get over my personal feeling that incest is a step too far; that the protective, nurturing relationship between parents and children should not become sexual. And I felt like an awful, close-minded, backward, prudish jackass for STILL feeling that way after I was done with the books. They all sort of hit one over the head with that message: you ARE an awful, close-minded, et cetera if you don't think it's a beautiful thing that one of the child-producing couples in the huge, multiple-partnered, immortal Long family is a mother and son.

While a lot of the book was interesting, though-provoking, and well though-out, and while I always love Heinlein's writing (hence the three stars,) the interesting and engaging story kept being interrupted by incestuous orgies through the ages. At one point, I just flipped through the middle of the book and read a sentence randomly. It was a father in the 1910's deflowering his daughter. Whee.

If you're interested in this sort of thing, or have read the rest of the books in the series, I would recommend this book. I love many of the characters, and the multi-universe concept is simply beautiful. Just remember you have to wade through siblings porking each other to get to it.

[George Saoulidis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Heinlein's last novel. It's what you get during your I-don't-give-a-flying-fuck author phase of your life, and it's wonderful. Full of references to earlier works and characters, this one is pure fun and I love it.

[M.M. Strawberry Library & Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the narrative of Maureen Johnson and the details of her childhood. While the earlier talk about sex (losing her virginity, for one) was enjoyable, the later talk about sex (orgies, incest, etc) felt a bit too much. Nonetheless, her story (especially the part with her stuck in the alternate universe) was a very good read, and a lovely addition to the Long Family/World as Myth books. The alternate realities thing was also a good device for the narration.

One good function this book serves is to show the Howard Foundation in its early stages. Maureen Johnson was second-generation which is very early, and lifespans for them were shorter than the lifespans of those in 'Methuselah's Children', which can be seen as the next story in the Howard Families 'saga' that is a story of its own within the World as Myth/Long Family/alternate universes/Pixel the cat series. (yes, long name for a series, I know!) Overall a must-read for any fan of the saga, just be forewarned of gratuitous sex.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in September 1998.

To Sail Beyond the Sunset was Robert Heinlein's very last novel, published just before his death. Like his other late novels (I think this applies to every one published after Job: A Comedy of Justice), it brings together many of his favourite characters. It is a sequel to The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, though you will have needed to read several other Heinlein novels to really understand what's going on (notably The Number of the Beast and Time Enough for Love; there is a full list of characters and the novels they come from at the end of the book.)

To Sail Beyond the Sunset is a first-person account of the life of Maureen, the mother of Woodrow Wilson Smith, otherwise known as Lazarus Long and the hero of Methuselah's Children and Time Enough for Love. She is apparently supposed to be autobiographical, but she reads more like a twelve year old boy's dream of what women should be like. This is a characteristic of many of the women in Heinlein's later books, and no doubt explains the popularity of these books with teenage boys.

[Joan · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the story of Maureen, Lazarus's Mom. It really is a critique of the 20th century, and he did not approve of much that happened in the US in this time. He makes a lot of strong assertions but being fiction, doesn't have to provide evidence for any of it. He throws in a couple of teens that were Maureen's kids to show how rotten kids had become and then lets them fall out of the story when having done this. At the end for no good reason except that Maureen misses her Daddy and wants an incestuous relationship with him, they mount a special expedition through time to save him. Hey, I miss my Dad too. I don't see me qualifying for such help. My point being that by this time Heinlein had decided special people get compensated in special ways just because they are special. Read, extremely smart. Extremely smart people can be immoral, something that Heinlein doesn't choose to acknowledge when he has them running the universe and politics, etc. I'm glad this is a library book. It means I do not have to go to the bother of tossing it, just return it!

[Ričardas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have read all Heinlein but this book was most disturbing romance history book with some time travels in background. Does author mean that today being amoral is future's normal? Whatever incest scenes were disturbing.

[Alan Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the last book Heinlein wrote, and while it is by no means up with his real classics, such as "Time Enough for Love" and "Stranger in a Strange Land" it's a fitting enough finale for the great man.

The work is essentially the autobiography of Maureen Long, mother (and wife, and lover - yes, it's that kind of book) of Lazarus Long, the oldest man in the galaxy. A conclusion to his "World of Myth" series (essentially a kind of exercise in literary cross fertilisation, where Heinlein's various alternate timelines are meshed into one, along with elements of his favourite fiction by other authors) the novel takes us from Maureen's childhood, where she deals with a sexual fixation on her father, her budding sexual lusts in general, and her discovery of the Howard Foundation, up into her old age. We learn about her adolescence, marriage, and subsequent life.

The story comes across as a strange mix indeed. Much of what Maureen experiences is right out of the pages of mainstream fiction (adolescent sex, loving in rural poverty, losing loved ones to wars,) while another set of occurrences are the kind that are unique to science fiction (a lover from hundreds of years in the future, dealing with the fact that she might well live twice as long as other humans) and still another stream is simply... as happens in most of Heinlein, particularly his later works... Maureen acting as a mouthpiece for her creator's ultra-rightist, extreme capitalist and conservative views. The ills in her own timeline and every other she experiences, we are told, are because good old-fashioned American grit and greed have been replaced by namby-pamby liberal ideas about social security and progressive thinking.

To those reading Heinlein for the first time, there might be a suspicion he is using satire here... after all, Maureen's permissive views on sexual freedom, religion and incest are certainly not those endorsed by conservative middle-America... but those of us who know the man are used to this strange mix of the progressive and archaic to be found in his work, and have no doubt he means it all quite seriously.

Tacked onto the autobiography (and interspersed as a framework) are a kind of adventure story dealing with Maureen's work on the Time Corps (a group of warriors who deal with setting to rights "mistakes" in history,) her imprisonment by a gang of state-sponsored religious police, her rescue by a cat who can travel through dimensional walls, her falling in with a group of terminally ill assassins who adopt soubriquets from famous real or fictitious psychopaths such as Dracula or The Old Man of the Mountains, her rescue a split second before the car crash that, in the original version of history, proves fatal to her, and her eventual reuniting wity just about every other major character in the Heinlein canon in a kind of incestuous group marriage. And they all - as Maureen herself finishes the work - live happily ever after.

If you have followed the man's stuff through his many decades of writing, from his earlier hardcore pulp stories, through the classic works of his middle period and the somewhat weird novels that marked the end of his life, then this is certainly one you need to read for completeness.

At the close of this reading, I found myself truly in two minds. It's by no means a bad read, though it'll never become a true classic. Those of us (like me) who do not really feel Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion belong in the same universe as Jubal Hernshaw and the Space Family Stone will read it once and close it with a sigh both of relief and admiration. But even those that enjoy it will probably never reread it... not a thing you could say about "Time Enough For Love!"

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I've been reading sci-fi for forty years, I was never a Heinlein reader. Not sure why, he was just not someone I had discovered and followed. But of course I was familiar with him. And so, in the late '80's I read The Cat Who Walked Through Walls and had picked up this book, a follow-up (and Heinlein's last) novel. This has been on my shelf all these years and I finally got around to reading it. And I'm sorry that I did.

My perception here is that as he was ending his career and life, Heinlein became a dirty old man. There is nothing in this book other than a great deal of sex, described in moderately good detail, though rather clinically (ie boring) so.

I'm hardly a prude, and the sex itself didn't bother me (though the incest and the rape, handled so cavalierly, strikes me as morally wrong), but I saw no purpose to the sex. It's character-defining, sure, but 400 pages of character and no plot is just, frankly, dull.

Although this is an homage to many of his previous books, I would still never recommend this to anyone.

[Neil · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thots while reading:
I enjoyed the discussion about revisionist history and how the United States is always portrayed as the 'villain' in the 'new' historical narrative. It was an interesting discussion, and the disparaging comments do add a new twist to Heinlein if they were truly what he believed.

I get that Heinlein is not happy with religion, in general, and specifically 'organized' religion, but his continual comments about Jesus of Nazareth not being a historical figure are a bit old. One may not agree with the miracles attributed to Jesus, but He was mentioned in other historical works written by others who were not followers or believers. Also 'interesting' how much 'Christian stuff' he has in his books [one way or the other] despite his anti-Christian leanings. He sure likes to quote from the Bible and reference Christian beliefs throughout his works!

I agree with his aspersions to the public's 'right to know' and it not being a right as guaranteed by the Constitution. So funny how the media feels they can say or do whatever they want and claim it is the public's 'right to know' such things, regardless of the negative consequences that can [and often do] happen. It has to be a hard line to toe, knowing what is 'okay' and what should be off-limits.

Regardless of how loopy the man gets in his books, he usually comes across as supportive of the military. That is something I will always respect and admire about the man; I am sure part of this stems from his having served and believing people have an obligation to serve to better appreciate the rights of living in a 'free' society.

I realize life is not fair, and never will be, so his discussing how 'unfair' it would be if only bachelors served in the military was a bit 'funny' to me, but it was still a sound argument about why married men should be allowed to serve as it highlights the question "what are we willing to lay down our lives for?" [and most married men and fathers would be willing to die to protect their families].

More 'thots' as they come to me while reading. Despite the way the book is progressing, there may be more than I anticipated.
---------------------------

Yeah, I think I'm done with this abomination. Thankfully, this is the last book he ever wrote. If he did not feel the need to fill it with promiscuity, incest, adultery, homosexuality, bigamy, polygamy, orgies, debauchery, lechery, spousal swaps, potential rape, raping of children, sexual assault of children, pedophilia, and an assortment of other nonsense, I think it would have been a good book. It definitely had the potential to be a good book; maybe even a great book. The overwhelming [yet mild] descriptions of sex with lovers, strangers, cousins, friends, comrades, pastors, siblings, parents, teenagers, spouses, whathaveyou, just got to be too much. I made it until page 160; then I jumped to the last couple of chapters to see if I really wanted to read the intervening three hundred pages. Yeah, I'm glad I skipped ahead. Saved myself time I would never get back finishing this piece of garbage. Perhaps this is covered elsewhere in the book [it is hinted at early into the book], but by the end Maureen gets her fondest wish fulfilled: she is able to marry her father, the only man man she has truly ever loved and has wished to bed for as long as she can remember! That's what the point of the whole book was about? Maureen being able to finally have that incestuous relationship with her father that she has always longed for in the deepest, blackest pits of her heart?

Perhaps because I did not read the entire book, I missed out on his usual didactic blatherings and bitter diatribes about whatever drivel he considers important to rail against; I was surprised in the pages that I did read I did not come across any of his vile verbiage where he rails against whatever he perceived as failures in society, of whatever part of society which did not have his approval. So the first 160 pages were a pleasant surprise, when considering how angry, disappointed, and disillusioned he sounds in the latter part of his life's work.

Trying to look at the book objectively, it did have a 'nice' flow to it that made it easy to read. It did hold my interest better than other writings [those being primarily his stuff written after 1968], which is truly bizarre considering how much disturbing behaviors he has in the book. It has nothing to do with 'maturity' or 'being able to handle adult material'; the man became seriously deranged in his writings toward the end. Need to stop now, or I'm going to get on a soap box.

I do agree with the author on one thing: sex in its proper [appropriate] place is nothing of which to be ashamed. The degree to which the author goes to show sex can, and should, be had in any place at any time with no feelings of degradation or shame goes to show that perhaps there truly is an appropriate time and place for sexual expression to take place. Otherwise, why does he make such a 'big deal' about the license with which his characters feel they can take with such an act? There is a 'reason' why shame is felt when the act occurs inappropriately, but that is a whole other discussion for a different time. Yet Maureen, his 'heroine', is quite proud of her loose, immoral, bawdy, licentious, lewd, shameless behavior. At least she uses protection, right? [At least, initially she does. Not having finished the book, I cannot say for certain she continued to do so.]

The author does do a nice job of describing Maureen's non-sexual experiences growing up in Kansas as well as after getting married. Heinlein truly does do a great job with building her backstory, with her large family of siblings while growing up before moving on to how large her family became with her first husband, Brian Smith. I really wish he had been able to tell her story without feeling the need to go into detail about her sexual peccadilloes. The 'constant' sex detracted greatly from the book.

Also, I am grateful I did not come across an excessive amount of 'spankings' between the characters. Well, maybe more the threat of people spanking each other. Maureen mentions that they did occur, but they to not occur nearly so much as in other books he has written. Again, perhaps it occurs later in the book. If so, my skipping the 'middle' three hundredsome pages allowed me to miss them.

I was quite happy to read that Colin Ames and Hazel did indeed survive the 'suicide mission' at the end of 'the Cat Who Walks through Walls.' This is discussed early in the book, and is mentioned again at the end.

Mycroft Holmes IV - hah! Has to be a tie in to Sherlock Holmes' brother!

I did wonder when it would turn into 'science fiction' instead of a 'sex-filled memoir of a red-headed nympho.'

This book could have been so much more! It has hints at potential greatness in it. In fact, it could have been an incredible ending to an amazing life for Heinlein as an author! Instead, he made it a less-than-common story by dropping the narrative in the cesspool of what can only be his mindless wish-fulfillment sexual fantasies of how he must have seen himself [or wished he had lived] in his old age. As I mentioned in my 'thots while reading', I felt there were indeed some gems in the first few chapters as I was reading. However, I am not sure it was truly worth it to wade through the muck and mire to come across those gems.

I did like how Heinlein includes a 'bibliography' at the end of the book which ties this book into previous books/stories he has written.

I am going to give it a one-star rating as I cannot give it any less, and I don't want people to think I forgot to rate it. I realize I didn't 'finish it' finish it, but I'm going to mark it as such since I did read the ending.

Avoid this book at all costs [unless you don't mind wasting X-number of hours of your life you will never get back from reading it].

[Rhy Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe I was 17 or 18 when I first read To Sail Beyond the Sunset; I loved and hated it. I found parts of it disgusting or infuriating, but never, ever boring and always thought provoking. Sixteen years later I have re-read it a dozen or more times and it remains a favorite read that retains interest in part because what irritates and how has changed over time.

For example, I was sputtering mad about the divorce when I first read it. I still get irked today (and I think you're "supposed to"), but I see something different and sympathetically human in those scenes today.

One of the most beautiful things to me about this novel is the perspective on human life. It starts off in the 1880's with exploits from Maureen's upbringing in the conservative Christian mid-West. Raising a huge family through WWI, the depression, WWII, the sexual liberation, the first rockets, and the corporate era, all in Maureen's distinct, entertaining voice.

The earliest parts of Maureen's life are the best drawn, the most rooted in setting of time and place. As Maureen ages, decades go by as fast as months did in the earlier parts of the novel. She never loses her intellectual (or sexual) thirst, but she has become relatively fixed, ever so slightly grim, and fairly isolated by the 1980's.

Then there are the parts of the novel that take place in the far future with a rejuvenated Maureen. The hallmarks of Maureen's future are fantastical, including the relative ease of the communal and technologically advanced Long household, the meta-duty of creating more positive universes if she can, and the chance to reunite with her most beloved friends and family, including her long-gone father.

To me, To Sail Beyond the Sunset has many other enjoyable attributes, but how the novel evokes the feel of a full life via Maureen's loosely connected reminiscing about her dreams and her regrets combined with how the pace shows the vagaries of time as it passes are the most noteworthy. I don't think it's an accident that it looks back at the sunrise of Maureen's life and transports her--the implication is she still wants more, still hopes that beyond the sunset is more adventure; that the story, at least, may go on, even if individuals don't.

Something important to this female-narrated novel is that it seems to be commonly accepted that things are very wrong with Heinlein's women. Depending on what exactly "wrong" means, I sometimes find this reductive; my perspective is that his novels (including this one) typically tackle sexism by aligning heteronormativity with empowerment, but aren't...misogynistic. This novel seems to say that men and women may "naturally" feel and think differently due to their sex and that some (though not all) characteristics of traditional gender roles may be "facts" of biology, but that this doesn't mean women aren't smart, courageous, decisive, and capable. If men can fight, govern, learn, and invent under the influence of their hormones, so can women. This is literally sexist in the sense that it is a doctrine of how things work that is based on sex. Personally, I think it's best to be suspicious of heteronormativity and, in TSBtS, there are many details that I don't like or agree with. But I don't think it's toxic in its approach, either. I've even read romances with much less believable women as narrators. I've said more about this elsewhere.

[Andrew Sayles · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is a lot of unhealthy paradox to unpack here. To start with, I would probably retitle it "Anachronistic Polyamory in the Multiverse, but Mostly Missouri." Then again, that might make you more likely to read it. The truth is, it is among the least favorite books that I've ever read. But I did finish reading it. This is partly because it was recommended to me, and partly because it was always just intriguing or absurd enough to keep me going. Maybe if I had read some of Heinlein's earlier work first, I would have been less flabbergasted by the odd plot choices and more amused by the entrance of certain characters. As a stand-alone work, however, I cannot recommend this book to anyone.

The narrative is somehow both punchy and plodding; playful, and pedantic. Its bouts of sudden social commentary are followed by exhausting divergences into investment portfolios and family lineage. And then, quite suddenly, time travel. I say "quite suddenly," even though the story actually begins in the undefined future. Maureen, the central protagonist, awakens imprisoned in a room with a dead body she doesn't recognize and a cat named Pixel. I was, admittedly, hooked. But from this predicament, Maureen begins to recount her (very, very, very) long life to the reader, spending the bulk of her time in a Missouri of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Yet, despite the belabored backstory, there was not enough groundwork being laid for the larger plot, and I was startled by the unsatisfying jump back to science fiction and time travel.

Then there are the views of the author, which have not aged well. In attempting to portray Maureen as a woman liberated from sexual mores, Heinlein ends up defining her personality almost exclusively through her sexual appetite, regularly pointing out how hot she is, and engaging in quite a bit of moralizing of his own. And while paying lip service to gender equality and giving her victories against male counterparts, he consistently presents Maureen as an exception rather than the norm. Ultimately, it is less about being a free-thinking individual (as the author perhaps was aiming for) than it is about the "right" kind of thinking (that the author dogmatically hammers into his pages). Which, it turns out, is basically libertarianism, but with SEEEXXXXXX (insert flashing neon lights). To describe this work in its own copulatory terms, it is the unlikely literary lovechild of Ayn Rand and Tom Robbins, raised in the year 3132 of timeline 69.

The least forgivable aspect, however, is its "the world is going to hell" shtick. Kids have stopped respecting their parents, education is being watered down, and democracy descends into mob rule once we do something crazy like letting everyone vote. The book is overtly paternalistic, covertly sexist, and incurably cranky. If it is indeed satire, as some readers have argued, then it fails in its most basic task: it does not entertain.

P.S. There's lots and lots of incest.

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

Arminzerella's recommendation. Pretty good so far, albeit a tad confusing.

About halfway through now. This book should be subtitled "A Time Traveler's Guide to Eugenics Through Multidimensional Incest."

I guess it shouldn't be a surprise after reading Starship Troopers that any of Heinlein's other works should be head-bludgeoning social commentary thinly guised as science fiction.

I'm tempted to say this is proto-Mary-Sue-by-proxy... or maybe not by proxy, I don't know enough about Heinlein to be sure.

Still, it's entertaining, if you can get past the multi-generational parallel-reality incestuous orgies every few pages.

Or, depending on what gets you off, maybe that's the entertaining part. I can remember a time not long ago when this book would have elicited a monthlong erection from me... guess I've mellowed some.

So, yeah. Finished. Interesting in parts, but... nothing really happened. Nobody was ever in serious jeopardy. I never would have thought that the memoirs of a time traveling red-headed nympho would be so... dull. I mean, stuff happens AROUND her all the time, but very little of anything interesting happens TO her. The parts that ARE interesting are brief vignettes, mostly flashbacks. The part where she has to fight some of her kids who have gotten out of line (altho what "out of line" means for a completely amoral family is questionable on its own) might have been interesting, if, say, those kids had turned out to be the ones working against the Time Corps to change reality. Hell, maybe they did, in one of the six or seven other books set in this multiverse; but I'm not terribly inclined to follow up.

Sorry =\

[Andrew Rodda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've ground to a halt on Heinlein's "To Sail Beyond the Sunset" Specifically Chapter 3. An old guy writing from the point of view of a 15yr old girl describing her first time is more than just dated. #books #scifi unreadable.
78% through his complete works, but this may be as far as I can endure. #horrible

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The biography of an immortal, time traveling red headed babe.
Entertaining, but you really need to have read some other Heinlein books to get what he's doing here, as it doesn't stand on it's own very well, as he uses this book to retell some parts of other books from a different POV.
Enough humor and interesting 'debates' on life, sex, politics etc to keep you from realizing not much is happening and it's taking a lot of pages for nothing to happen.

This book and 'The cat that walked through walls' were basically used to tie all his other books into one big 'Heinlein-verse'. Entertaining for fans, but rough going if this was your first Heinlein book.

[Trey Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this in high school, and then reread it at some point, but it's been a long time since I checked in with Maureen Johnson Long. Heinlein himself may be an acquired taste, and heaven knows his politics are dubious, but I find Maureen charming — an adventurous, sex-positive, no-nonsense broad to contend with. She is of course a figment of a strange man's strange imagination, but I enjoy her company. And the author's weakness for cats is kind of endearing.