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An Angry Fabulist's Expression of
"Rejection Syndrome"
Ó1998 All rights reserved. Précis and essay by Agplusone@aol.com (David M. Silver)
I Will Fear No Evil
by Robert Anson Heinlein
The novel I Will Fear No Evil was almost fit for publication when in January 1970, peritonitis almost ended Robert Heinlein's life. Just before hospitalization, he completed the first cut of his draft. The author gravely ill and unable to make business decisions, his wife and agent exercised their authority over his affairs and decided upon publication in unfinished form. The result is said by one critic to be "a rather rambling and murky story line that almost certainly would have been shortened and tightened up considerably had Heinlein been able to edit the draft before publication." Heinlein remained very ill and underwent other surgeries for the entire next two years. Because it lacks final polish and contains what many then considered bizarre subject matter, it has been one of his least appreciated works-a sad fate considering current social history and, also, what I believe is its true intent.
It is not a part of the Future History Series but seems to exist further
down the time line of Stranger In A Strange Land, which Jubal Harshaw, in
his brief encore appearance in To Sail Beyond The Sunset, tells us is our
very own.
Dramatis Personae:
The story occurs a half-century or so into the future. Johann Sebastian Bach Smith is perhaps the richest man on an increasingly crowded Earth, a self-made, cantankerous very old coot who has made the final error. He has let himself fall into the clutches of the medical profession, and they will not let him die. Mentally as acute as ever, but perma-nently harnessed into life support gear afforded only the very rich, he has found a way to outwit the medicos by committing an elaborate suicide. A brilliant, unorthodox surgeon, considered charlatan by most, claims he has successfully transplanted brains from one chimpanzee to another-and there are films of the operation and both simians now climbing trees and eating bananas. Doubting whether a first attempt with a human will succeed, even if the operation was not a fraud, Smith does not care-he's got no choice. The hopeless alternative is to accept increasingly mind-numbing narcotics to offset pain until a final vegetal state arrives. He wagers not to wait and suffer mental or physical ag-ony. All he needs is a body, recently dead; and, as it would make a wildly overoptimistic surgical team more willing to attempt this lunacy if the body has the same rare blood type as he-AB Negative, his solution is simple: advertise for a body!
Eunice Branca, a delightfully beautiful, young, nubile and intelligent woman, is Smith's recently promoted private secretary She supports her husband, a body-painting artist, whose favorite canvas is his wife. She likes old Johann, appreciates his gallant efforts to evade the inevitable fate tied to his automated bedpan, and delights in displaying herself to this very old man in his last few days: Are those tights she's wearing, or just paint? Only Eunice, her husband, and the reader, know for sure.
Jake Salomon is Smith's private attorney, long-time friend, and co-conspirator against the medicos. One other thing: he's quite a "fixer." Organ transplants have become big business. Relying on precedents that a dead body is 'property' of the dead person's es-tate, Salomon has little difficulty in setting up a lawful offer to buy a recently dead one in 'prime' condition for his very rich client. It's simply a matter of awaiting some acci-dent to provide a proper host for Johann's brain.
Joe Branca is the prototypical artist as a young man, seemingly a minor character, not very bright, but talented in an obscure area few would seriously believe is art: "body-painting?"! It's doubtful whether he would be able to live, let alone pursue this "art" without the effort and strong loving support of his talented wife. He is offspring of an in-dolent cranky ungrateful mother, who, vicious, bigoted and stupid, lives on the largess of the country-a welfare drone, paradoxically grinding out bastard children who grind out bastard children ad infinitum and, amazingly, thinks herself neglected by and "better" than almost all others of her indulgent, troubled, decaying society.
