'All You Zombies'

Five Classic Stories

By: Robert A. Heinlein

Narrated by: Spider Robinson

Featuring "All You Zombies", the basis for the movie Predestination

This collection from grand master Robert A. Heinlein includes five short stories sure to please science fiction fans everywhere. The title story tells the tale of a young man who meets a time-traveling bartender whose origins - and relation to the young man - are more complex and stranger than the Ouroboros ring on the barkeep's finger. In The Man Who Traveled in Elephants - one of both Heinlein and Spider Robinson's all-time favorite stories - we join a former traveling salesman on a bus. The man and his wife had once traveled with a host of imaginary animals searching for places to sell elephants.

"They" takes listeners inside a mental institution, where a man suffering from delusions has been confined. In "Our Fair City", a parking attendant named Pappy, a sentient whirlwind named Kitten, and a crusading reporter named Pete aim to take down their corrupt city government. Lastly, in "And He Built a Crooked House", a clever architect designs a house in the shape of the shadow of a tesseract, but it collapses through the fourth dimension when an earthquake shakes it into a more stable form.

©2013 Robert A. Heinlein (P)2014 Blackstone Audio

Nothing Like A Good Paradox To Spin Your Brain

This is a nice collection of five short stories by Heinlein. They are not, by any stretch, the philosophical behemoths that Heinlein is known for, but they are uniquely Heinleinian from the perspective of his cleverness and licentiousness. I think I read somewhere (probably Wikipedia) that RAH wrote 'All You Zombies' in a day, so just be prepared for an incomplete and not very deep story, yet it is still fantastic.

I think my favorite story was, 'And He Built A Crooked House,' based solely off the concept of originality; a house imploded on itself in the 4th dimension. RAH's description of a tesseract, despite his writing capability, still required me to look up a modern-day, computer-generated, models of various tesseracts because I had previously not know what one was.

The narration was great, but on "3x speed," it was unclear and jumbled together; I had to lower to "1.8x speed." This wasn't really an issue since the book is so short, but I don't understand the discrepancy between this audio book and 99% of the others I listen to at "3x."

Some neat concepts

fun and short scifi stories - entertaining to read with some neat ideas of reality

Nostalgic

I read these stories when I was in high school, 1953. And again to my Grandson, 2010. I probably could locate the paper back copy that I think I have. I was a great listen for me.

Fun Heinlein, As Usual

5 Heinlein short stories, all entertaining, as usual. This author has such a WAY with both narrative and dialogue. Nothing is contrived or "pyshed" to be surprising or funny, and yet, it is. Heinlein's characters just POP like soap bubbles inflated with laughing gas.

Narrator was also brilliant and perfectly suited to the material.

Early Heinlein

It is always enjoyable to read these short stories again. I especially enjoyed The Man who traveled in Elephants. The narrator does an excellent job portraying all characters‼️