Semi-mad scientist Jake Burroughs, his beautiful daughter Deety, her strong love interest Zeb Carter, Hilda Corners (“Aunt Hilda” if you prefer) and their time/dimension-traveling ship Gay Deceiver yak and smooch their way though many time periods in many universes (including that of Lazurus Long), soon realizing the true nature of the world as pantheistic multiperson solipsism.

In Heinlein’s first version of this novel, written in 1977, the middle third of the story takes place on Barsoom, but in the 1980 published version, Barsoom was replaced by a futuristic British Mars
—Michael Main
Sharpie, you have just invented multiperson solipsism. I didn’t think that was mathematically possible.

Tags

(22)

Variants

(3)
  1. The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein (Fawcett Columbine, 1980).
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Robert A. Heinlein
  2. prominent excerpt.The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein, 2-pt. excerpt, Omni, October–November 1979.
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Robert A. Heinlein
  3. alternative title to coincide with the publication of The Pursuit of the Pankera.The Number of the Beast: A Parallel Novel about Parallel Universes by Robert A. Heinlein (Caezik SF and Fantasy, March 2020).
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Robert A. Heinlein

Translations

(9)
  1. English: audio reading.The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein (Blackstone Audio, May 2012).
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Robert A. Heinlein
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . translated by Bernadette Dunne
    Emily Durante
    Malcolm Hillgartner
    Sean Runnette
    Paul Michael Garcia
    Tom Weiner
  2. Czech.
    Číslo bestie [Beast number] by Robert A. Heinlein (Classic, 1996).
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Robert A. Heinlein
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . translated by Martin Tkaczyk
  3. Dutch.
    Het getal van het beest [The number of the beast] by Robert A. Heinlein (Elmar, 1981).
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Robert A. Heinlein
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . translated by Bob van Laerhoven
  4. German.
    Die Zahl des Tiers [The number of the animal] by Robert A. Heinlein (Heyne, May 1981).
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Robert A. Heinlein
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . translated by Thomas Schlück
  5. Hebrew.
    666: מספר החיה [Beast number] by Robert A. Heinlein (כתר :: Ketr, 1983).
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Robert A. Heinlein
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . translated by Emanuel Lotem
  6. Italian.
    Il numero della bestia [The number of the beast] by Robert A. Heinlein (Gradi Scrittori di Fantascienza, November 1981).
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Robert A. Heinlein
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . translated by Giacomo Gramegna
  7. Portuguese.
    O Número do Monstro [The monster number] by Robert A. Heinlein, 3 vols. (Livros do Brasil, 1980).
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Robert A. Heinlein
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . translated by Eurico da Fonseca
  8. Russian.
    Число Зверя [Beast number] by Robert A. Heinlein (Эксмо :: Eskmo, 2002).
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Robert A. Heinlein as by Роберт Э. Хайнлайн
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . translated by Алексей Иорданский
    Евгений Маевский
  9. Spanish.
    El número de la bestia [The number of the beast] by Robert A. Heinlein (Martínez Roca, 1982).
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Robert A. Heinlein
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . translated by Domingo Santos

Previous Works
major rewrite of The Pursuit of the Pankera, (1977)

Indexer Notes

(1)
  1. Tags—A gaggle of characters from Heinlein’s other stories and other fictional universes show up, but we’ve tagged only the time traveler Lazurus Long. If we notice any other characters who time traveled in their own right, we’ll tag them later. We did tag those definite fictional settings that we could identify such as Oz and Lensman Universe. Also, plenty of real-world authors are mentioned as attending the climactic convention, but we spotted only Lewis Carroll on stage or having a significant effect on the story at hand, so we didn’t tag the rest. Perhaps we should also tag additional characters such as: Glinda the Good, Captain Bill, Woggle-Bug, Mr. Scarecrow, Jack Pumpkinhead, Alice’s rabbit,