Beyond This Horizon
Robert A. Heinlein
Baen, Oct 7 2014, $15.00
ISBN: 978147673686
Due to his ancestors’ need for the perfect human,
millionaire entrepreneur and government spy Hamilton Felix is the product of
generations improving the DNA until he is near the original paragon
objective. However, his late kin failed
to consider one nagging problem: ennui and disinterest especially in siring let
alone improving his family’s genetic makeup.
He and Monroe-Alpha Clifford dine on a restaurant’s
balcony, when his friend clumsily drops a crab leg into a drink on the table
below, which in turn wets a woman.
Appalled Monroe-Alpha apologizes, but another patron takes him to task
leading to a duel between the stranger and Felix who shoots him in the shoulder. However, unbeknownst to Felix or Clifford,
the wounded man believes, unlike the vast majority of society, that utopia has
not been achieved because of a lack of an upper class in charge’ he and his
associates plot insure this happens soonest with his group in charge. Felix is the star they need to achieve their
goal.
This reprint of a 1940s hard boiled science
fiction seems relevant with the debate on income distribution and other related
societal issues. Robert
A. Heinlein makes a strong case that a Utopian society fulfills the lowest two levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy (published at around the
same time) but once physiological and safety
needs are satisfied humans require much more (love
and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization).
Although at times the pace slows
down, overall this is an engaging thought-provoking thriller.
Harriet Klausner
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