Up until the last 80 pages or so, this was a real page-turner. But toward the end, the story started to get sort of wacky, and I had trouble getting through it. I wouldn’t have tolerated this sort of writing at the beginning of the book, I would have simply stopped reading. But since I was so close to the end…

I suppose it might be better if, as another post mentioned, you have read other books with the same characters. Which I have not.

This is a great Heinlein book, but should definitely not be read early in your Heinlein consumption. A real appreciation requires a familiarity with the characters and the history present in previous books. As this was one of the last written, its best to wait to read this one after you’ve been through most of the rest. You should at least get through Stranger, Time Enough for Love, and Number of the Beast, although there are probably more that I haven’t read yet either.

I did feel the end flagged a bit as it got bogged down in the backstory, and I would have liked to see this book stand alone from the previous Lazarus universe. But it was still quite good.