Job: A Comedy of Justice

For the past few months I have not read very many novels, books, magazines, or anything besides emails and the Sunday comics. Usually, at these most desperate times of literary lacking, I pick up a novel that I have been meaning to read for a considerably long time. I am near finished with the book "Job: A Comedy of Justice" by Robert Heinlein, which is one of these books; a book that gets me back in the swing of reading.

I first purchased the book in one of my Heinlein kicks, about 3 or 4 years ago. I read a vast majority of the books that I had bought (Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, Double Star, Red Planet, Assignment Eternity, Farnham's Freehold, Friday, Time Enough For Love, and The Cat Who Walks Through Wall to name a few{Heinlein wrote at least 50 books}), but every time I went to pick up Job, I could not do it. I would look at the cover for hours, I would read the blurb, I would get so far as to read the publication information and about the author. But, no matter how much I tried, I would not read the book.

I am happy to say, with about 50 pages to go, it is one of Heinlein's finest novels. It is both funny and cathardic; it is joyous and sad. It is a novel that addresses religion, taboos and human's preconcieved notions about life. In many ways these are common themes for Heinlein;s later works, including Friday and Time Enough For Love, but there is somethings else that sets this book apart.

One reason being the main character is an Evangelical Christian Preacher from another dimension. The second is because the book centers around Armageddeon (see also: The Rapture, Ragnarok, Judgement Day) or at least the ever present threat of the end. But more than that the book is about love and sex and everything that makes life so wonderful to live.

So, in conclusion, read this book and/or anything written by Robert A. Heinlein. Trust me.

P.S. if you read "Stranger in a Strange Land" (probably his best book) read the "Unexpurgated Version" with the forward by his wife. It has 60,000 more words than the first publication, and each one of them count.