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nancylebovThe Pursuit of the Pankera is an early draft of Heinlein's The Number of the Beast. The first third is the same, the rest is material which wasn't previously published.
I'm not sure when Pankera was written-- Number of the Beast came out in 1980.
I'm hoping for a better answer about who the Black Hats were, but don't tell me.
My plan is to post notes about what I notice as I read, and I'm starting at the beginning.
I'm not sure how much I liked Zeb and Deety's aggressive style of flirting when I first read the book. Did I like it or just tolerate it? In any case, I find it somewhat wearing now.
On the other hand, I find the descriptions of dancing a lot more interesting than I used to-- I've gotten deeper into tai chi and qi gung.
There's a mention of transexual operations being common. I would count that as pretty good speculation.
Zeb's rapid takeoff and evasive maneuvers remind me of John Lyle's piloting in If This Goes On--.
The John Carter/Denah Thoris bit still works for me emotionally though I'm not especially an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan. The geek background is still strong stuff. But not so strong that I left off the Edgar Rice, since I don't want people be caught short by thinking it might be William Burroughs.
Minor failure of prognostication. Long distance phone calls are still expensive. Pay phones are still common.
Prognostication win: Personal news filtering.
NotB and Pankera could possibly be paired with Friday and Job and possibly others as being about searching for a home.
Current plan is to comment on about 5% of the book at a time, rounded to the end of a chapter.
I'm not sure when Pankera was written-- Number of the Beast came out in 1980.
I'm hoping for a better answer about who the Black Hats were, but don't tell me.
My plan is to post notes about what I notice as I read, and I'm starting at the beginning.
I'm not sure how much I liked Zeb and Deety's aggressive style of flirting when I first read the book. Did I like it or just tolerate it? In any case, I find it somewhat wearing now.
On the other hand, I find the descriptions of dancing a lot more interesting than I used to-- I've gotten deeper into tai chi and qi gung.
There's a mention of transexual operations being common. I would count that as pretty good speculation.
Zeb's rapid takeoff and evasive maneuvers remind me of John Lyle's piloting in If This Goes On--.
The John Carter/Denah Thoris bit still works for me emotionally though I'm not especially an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan. The geek background is still strong stuff. But not so strong that I left off the Edgar Rice, since I don't want people be caught short by thinking it might be William Burroughs.
Minor failure of prognostication. Long distance phone calls are still expensive. Pay phones are still common.
Prognostication win: Personal news filtering.
NotB and Pankera could possibly be paired with Friday and Job and possibly others as being about searching for a home.
Current plan is to comment on about 5% of the book at a time, rounded to the end of a chapter.
