For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Customs

2.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
Forced off the road and over a cliff, Perry Nelson wakes up to find it's 2086 and he's occupying another man's body. A young woman finds him and arranges for history, social, and economics lessons.

Review
Frankly, this is better than I expected, given the reviews and even the introduction by Spider Robinson. It's certainly didactic, but that's always been true of Heinlein. In fact, the story is a mix of (thin) plot elements, idealist utopianism (as seen by Heinlein), and long drop-in critiques of American society. It's less disguised than the usual Heinlein spiel, but not really by a lot.

The plot doesn't offer much (1930s man suddenly awakes in 2086) and the characterization is thin (he immediately finds a helpful talented woman and they fall in love – for no good reason). The whole thing is very much a vehicle for Heinlein to work out some ideas – particularly about the economy. The didactic parts are pretty boring after a while, despite Heinlein's earnest suggestion for readers to follow along and make up their own game/demonstration tools. This would have worked better in the 1930s/40s than today, and the ideas are interesting, but even then the presentation is thin at best.

What I found more surprising was Heinlein's strong support for FDR and the New Deal. I have to admit that I'd taken away more of the free love and ‘only people with guns should vote' element, especially from his later books. But he was a little more complex than that, politically.

At the same time, despite the fairly awkward structure of the story, it does have a little of the freshness that the good early Heinlein stories did and that later mega-novels lost.

This is of interest primarily for established Heinlein fans who want to explore his thinking more. Definitely not a place for newcomers to start.