| First published in 1970 Latest edition: 1990 Publisher: Ace Books Mass Market Paperback ISBN 0441359175 |
 Reviews Heinlein's fat 1970 tome tells the tale of a powerful tycoon adrift in his private lifeboat (not a literal boat, but rather the opulent, gun-encrusted enclave that only a man of great wealth could afford) somewhere just after the turn of the millenium, in an America swollen with bodies, riddled with violence and insanity. CEO of his own Gatesian empire, Smith has reached his nineties and plans to retire, but has little left to look forward to. Mind youthful but body senescent, he sits wheelchair-bound, swaddled in life support equipment--costly health care gone wrong, for it does not permit him to die. How, then, to shuffle off his mortal coil? In true bullying, billionaire fashion, Smith finds an expensive, ingenious way to dodge doctors, heirs, accountants and other obstacles to his desired suicide: he will have a pioneer surgeon transplant his brain into another body. But what he never counted on was that the operation would succeed; Johann wakes up in a borrowed body. What is more, the body is that of a friend. A reader can treat I Will Fear No Evil as the exploration of what it might be like to have one's brain transplanted into another's body--that does indeed comprise a large part of the story. Still, there is another powerful aspect to the book: the glimpses one gets of the society Johann Smith has barricaded himself against. Johann's turn-of-the-millenium America has grown into a sprawling urban wasteland throughout which the have-nots wage gun battles in lawless Abandoned Areas. The haves venture out into this war-torn turf only in armored cars with armed guards riding shotgun, and return home to fortified enclaves. It is an America which has dismissed Horace Mann's dream and routinely shunts poor students into "illit" tracks in its public schools, and in which children can be prostituted in the aforementioned abandoned areas. It is an America held spellbound by television and sensational news headlines--classic "Crazy Years" items. Does all that sound a little familiar? As a dying old man, Johann Smith had no cause to embrace that new society. He once comforted himself with reminiscences about the Roaring Twenties, when both he and America were young and vibrant. But after the transplant renews his youth, he begins to sample the society he had turned his back on, and does so with hedonistic abandon. Beyond the momentary idylls he encounters, Johann concludes that human culture on Earth has entered into its agonal throes and now has only one hope: the transport of its best and brightest to another seat--in this case, the Moon. Thus a metaphorical transplant shadows the real one, and if a reader is looking for "message Heinlein" in I Will Fear No Evil, it resides in that metaphor. I Will Fear No Evil is customarily panned by the critics for having a number of flaws: too great a length, too little action, arch dialogue and a fantastic premise. While the book is a departure from typical Heinlein material, it remains entertaining, readable and thought-provoking. Heinlein fell seriously ill with peritonitis after wrapping up the first draft of the novel, so the manuscript never got the cutting and tweaking that Heinlein usually gave a book before it hit the presses. Nevertheless, the book is still in print, selling well, and highly regarded by a good proportion of readers. ~ Beth Ager
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