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"All You Zombies—": Five Classic Stories by Robert A. Heinlein Kindle Edition

by Robert A. Heinlein (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 652 ratings
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The story "All You Zombies—" is the basis for PREDESTINATION from Sony Pictures, just released in the US on January 9, 2015, starring Ethan Hawke, directed and written by the Spierig Brothers.

Robert A. Heinlein's brilliance and diverse talents are on display in this collection of five short stories that range from mind-twisters ("All You Zombies—"), paranoia and surprise ("They—"), hilarious engineering conundrums ("—And They Built a Crooked House"), fantasies ("Our Fair City), and the beautiful, heart-breaking "The Man Who Travelled in Elephants".

"Not only America's premier writer of speculative fiction, but the greatest writer of such fiction in the world … [Heinlein] remains today as a sort of trademark for all that is finest in American imaginative fiction."
- Stephen King

"There is no other writer whose work has exhilarated me as often and to such an extent as Heinlein."
- Dean Koontz

"One of the most influential writers in American Literature."
- The New York Times Book Review

"Heinlein wears imagination as though it were his private suit of clothes."
- The New York Times

"Heinlein… has the ability to see technologies just around the bend. That, combined with his outstanding skill as a writer and engineer-inventor, produces books that are often years ahead of their time."
- The Philadelphia Inquirer

"One of the grand masters of science fiction."
- The Wall Street Journal

about the author:
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), often called the Science Fiction Grand Master, was the author of such ground-breaking novels as STARSHIP TROOPERS, RED PLANET, STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND and THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS. He is generally considered the greatest and most influential science fiction writer of the twentieth century. In addition to being a bestselling author, Heinlein's novels won 4 Hugo awards, 3 "retro Hugo" awards, and the first "Grand Master Award" from the Science Fiction Writers of America.
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    89 pages
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    November 26, 2013
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00EIK1VCE
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Spectrum Literary Agency, Inc. (November 26, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 26, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2894 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 89 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 652 ratings

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Robert Heinlein

Robert Heinlein

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Robert Heinlein was an American novelist and the grand master of science fiction in the twentieth century. Often called 'the dean of science fiction writers', he is one of the most popular, influential and controversial authors of 'hard science fiction'.

Over the course of his long career he won numerous awards and wrote 32 novels, 59 short stories and 16 collections, many of which have cemented their place in history as science fiction classics, including STARSHIP TROOPERS, THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS and the beloved STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
652 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Israel Drazin
5.0 out of 5 stars Five very good tales by a master sci-fi writer
Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2017
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This book contains five short stories by one of the best sci-fi writers, Robert A. Heinlein. I read sci-fi tales as a youth, as my father who was very smart did, and as my son does. Besides enjoying a well-composed tale, Heinlein’s stories prompt readers to think: Is this possible? What does it tell us about conditions today? Can we read it as a parable with many ideas for us to ponder?
The first story “All You Zombies” was made into a very good film called “Predestination.” The story is about a time traveler who goes back in time to recruit a man, who was once a woman, to replace him, and travel in time to stop horrors from occurring. The key to the tale in both the short story and film is a song played a couple of times in the bar where parts of the story occurs, “I am my own grandpa,” and is symbolized by the ring that the barkeep wears which shows a snake biting its own tale. The story is opaque but becomes clear in the final page of the book and final scene of the film when we see that the barkeep, although a man, had gone through a cesarean operation. We then understand – what I will not reveal completely, not wanting to be a spoiler – that he has an unusual time-travel mission for which he had to jump back and forth from 1992 to 1970 to 1963 to 1964 to 1945 to 1992 to accomplish his last mission. The story is mind-boggling, unusual, and thought provoking.
The second tale “They” is about a man who is apparently in an asylum. He feels certain that he is being tricked and manipulated. All he is sure of is that he exists. But it seems to him that everyone else is not human as he is, and they are trying to deceive him. The story has a surprise ending, as does “All You Zombies.”
All five tales are very good. Each is written well, tells an engaging story, and each causes us to think.
12 people found this helpful
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James Elfers
4.0 out of 5 stars A few Classics In This Short Tome
Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2023
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There are a couple of classics in this short collection. "All You Zombies" and "He Built a Crooked House" are vintage Heinlein. The other stories are interesting, but not classics. All the stories are worth a read. Heinlein was especially good at dialog. The characters in these stories sound like real people. Short and inexpensive this is an easy volume to pick up especially if you have not read Heinlein before or, somehow, like me, you missed these on your SF reading journey. Mind-expanding ideas, clear, intelligent prose. What's not to love?
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Fritzi Hardy
5.0 out of 5 stars Heinlein at his best.
Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2023
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Our fair city about Kitten, the whirlwind is great!!! Science fiction in a humorous way. Traveling in elephants is sappy, but nice.
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NJ Dave
3.0 out of 5 stars Think of this one as "Heinlein light".
Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2015
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I was hungry for "meaty" sci-fi, and remembered "Stranger in a Strange Land", and "Starship Troopers" as a great works. I couldn't get Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" on Kindle, so I ordered this while the paperback was delivered. Some of the stories are clever, others are a bit obvious. None of them have the depth of story or insight as longer (and more famous) works by Heinlein.

I blew through this before the paper book was delivered, and am now into the Kindle-available "The Gods Themselves" by Asimov. I found these short Heinlein stories amusing, I find the longer Asimov work thought-provoking and much more satisfying. I expect the same from Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".

I'm not sure to whom I would recommend this book. It might work for a younger reader, but some of the perspectives are getting a little dated, so I'm not sure it would hit the mark with today's youth.
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Hillel Kaminsky
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!
Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2015
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I read some of these short stories over 4 decades ago and they still stick in my mind. Rereading them after all this time makes me appreciate Heinlein anew. “All You Zombies” and “And He Build a Crooked House” are masterpieces, but the others, while OK, are not representative of his best work. They are worth reading nonetheless.

BTW, "And He Built a Crooked House" was written over 20 years before the first episode of Doctor Who, so I was prepared for the concept of "bigger on the inside."
3 people found this helpful
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Michael J. O'Donnell
5.0 out of 5 stars 4 out of 5 ain't bad. I keep reading that earlier problems with the ...
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2018
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4 out of 5 ain't bad.

I keep reading that earlier problems with the book have gone the way of the dodo -- that the current incarnation is complete. Nevertheless, each time I reacquire the book (which I just did -- for the third time -- on April 29, 2018), I find that my favorite Heinlein short, "The Man Who Traveled in Elephants," is still missing. And, always, in its place is a second copy of "They."

Still, four out of five ain't bad.

Updated Jan 2024: Miraculously, the clouds parted; the sun shone brightly, dispelling the gloom. In other words, "The Man Who Traveled in Elephants" has finally, finally been included in the e-book edition! (To celebrate, I just finished rereading the story. Does it hold up? I will let you be the judge: as always, I cried by the end.)
4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Kirk McDougall
5.0 out of 5 stars Five great stories by a great author.
Reviewed in Canada on June 2, 2019
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Heinlein grabs your attention right away and keeps it until the end. These stories are classical Science Fiction at its best.
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Aditya Narain Lal
3.0 out of 5 stars Okay
Reviewed in India on October 19, 2016
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I bought the book as it was the backing story of the movie - Predestination. Frankly the movie is far better than the book. Overall the book is ok.
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Germano Vale Filho
5.0 out of 5 stars A great selection of science fiction (short) stories.
Reviewed in Brazil on October 11, 2015
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A great selection of science fiction short stories. Just bought because of the movie Predestination and the original work is really fantastic!
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Luca M.
4.0 out of 5 stars interesting
Reviewed in Italy on August 18, 2015
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I discovered this author just recently, watching 'Predestination'.
I like the style and i like how he is not focussed on sci-fi aspects of his stories...he place 'normal' carachters into sci-fi situations in a natural way.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Poignant, funny and surreal
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 24, 2014
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Compiled especially for Kindle, this collection of short stories by Robert A. Heinlein gives a brief yet broad overview of his work, containing poignant, funny and surreal writing.

Heinlein may be best known today for the infamously right-wing, militaristic young adult novel Starship Troopers, adapted by Paul Verhoeven into an ultraviolent satire of fascism in 1997. During his life, however, he earned worldwide acclaim as one of science fiction's best, most prolific authors. If Sturgeon's law is correct and ninety percent of sci-fi is crud, then Heinlein's in the latter ten, probably at one hundred.

The stories collected are "All You Zombies-", "They-", "-And They Built a Crooked House", "Our Fair City", and "The Man Who Traveled in Elephants". The first two are, in very different ways, about loneliness. "Zombies-" opens in a barroom, where a young man nicknamed the "Unmarried Mother", because of what he says when asked his occupation, tells his life story to an ageing barkeep. As well as being a deeply moving story about how lonely and claustrophobic a life can be, it has a number of strange twists culminating in a great surprise finish.

Also, this may sound strange, but it also features a pretty good, if allegorical, portrayal of transgenderism. The transgenderism portrayed is medical in nature, but in a world where gender fluidity is treated mostly as the punchline of jokes about straight men being "tricked" by trans women, it's oddly touching. For a fiercely militaristic patriot, Heinlein held liberal views about gender issues and sexuality. (This could have a dark side, though, in some of his books' blase attitudes to incest and paedophilia.)

"They-" is about a man in a mental hospital who thinks that everyone around him is either a mindless illusion, or part of some conspiracy to keep reality's true face from him. The story opens with a meeting between doctor and patient. They play chess while discussing his illusions and rejection of his wife, which stem from his inability to accept the mundanity and pointlessness of existence.

He can't find solace or truth in religion, or philosophy, so according to his doctor he's created a paranoid delusion where he's the centre of the universe. (Which reminds me of a Frasier joke: "I've got news for you - Copernicus called and you are not the centre of the universe!") "They-"`s ending has a touch of Lovecraftian cosmic horror, where space looms evilly over our meagre human designs. Even with its sci-fi elements this is a sincerely sad story, starring a profoundly sympathetic hero.

Departing from their predecessors' sombre tone, "-And They Built a Crooked House" and "Our Fair City" are whimsical, comic stories. "Crooked House" follows an ambitious architect as he creates a house in four dimensions, consequently trapping himself and his clients in a space-time anomaly. (Heinlein explains it better than me.) The story introduces us to complex ideas in a light-hearted, funny way, mixing entertainment with hard theoretical science. If a thermometer-smasher like me can follow it, so can you.

"Our Fair City" is a charming satirical fantasy, about a sentient whirlwind which befriends a parking lot attendant. He calls it Kitten, and no, I haven't been drinking. The attendant's journalist friend uses the whirlwind to expose political corruption, running it for office and using its "toys" (discarded scraps of newspaper, legal documents etc.) to write scandalous articles. As hopelessly insane as that synopsis sounds, the story is funny and uplifting. Its whimsy is just so gosh-dern infectious. It also takes a gently cynical approach to city politics.

The last story, "The Man Who Traveled in Elephants", is the most spiritual, and the farthest departure from sci-fi, though it could be called fantasy. The best box for it is, perhaps, magic realism, but boxes don't really matter, because it's a beautiful, heart-rending story of endless love and reunion. It's about a retired travelling salesman and widower who's taking a bus to a fair when his journey's diverted. He befriends an old woman, and I won't say what happens when they finally reach the fair.

What I will say, though, is that the scenes at the fair are delightful, and the story is a rich, empathic, hopeful evocation of love and grief. The relationship between the salesman and his late wife is perfectly developed, which makes the ending even more special. Alongside the central love story is a pleasant antiquarianism, best displayed at the fair, where endless parades and stalls celebrate a bygone age. Candy floss hawkers and swan boat rides litter the landscape, across which the salesman roams as a lovelorn, homesick pilgrim.

Each story in this collection is a perfect example of its author's craft, and serves as a great introduction to an artist probably better known for the aggressive action films he inspired. If you don't have a Kindle, be sure to look out for the above stories in print anthologies.
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