From Publishers Weekly
Heinlein fans can rejoice-the SF master's lost first novel, composed between 1938 and 1939, has been found! In 1939, Perry Nelson suffers a bad car accident, but when he wakes up, it's 2086. A beautiful girl, Diana, takes the confused man under her wing, and naturally, they fall in love, but when Diana's ex shows up and flirts with her, Perry hauls off and hits him. Next thing Perry knows, he's being deprogrammed to get rid of his irrational sexual possession and jealousy. As Perry learns about the new world around him, he receives lectures about economic systems, aircars, rockets, U.S. history, religion and more-and these, of course, are the point of the story. Heinlein creates a utopian world of unparalleled prosperity and personal freedom and sketches out, through Perry's teachers, exactly why it all works. Since Heinlein mined ideas from this novel for all his other works, much is familiar, from the frankly free sexual mores to the active role of women to the rolling roads. Although this book can't stand alone on its own merits as a novel, it's a harbinger of later themes, best read critically and in conjunction with Heinlein's more mature fiction.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
Heinlein's later novels were often accused of sermonizing rather than storytelling. His previously unpublished first novel shows that he started out preaching, too. It's a utopia, however; hence, it belongs to a didactic genre with roots in Plato's dialogues, especially The Republic. A young army flyer blacks out in a car crash in 1939 and starts coming to in 2086. A lovely young woman finds and brings him home to recuperate. When he fully awakens, he discovers just how lovely she is, for clothing is optional in 2086. The taboo on nudity, and also sexual fidelity, blue laws, unemployment, poverty, victimless crimes, and political campaigning as 1939 knows it no longer exist. Much of the text is spent explaining how Depression America became a utopia, and if the history lesson is intriguing, the economic one, based on C. A. Douglas' Social Credit system (Ezra Pound's hobbyhorse in the Cantos), is soporific. Heinlein is clearly no Plato, but the future he depicts is no Cloud-Cuckoo-Land, either. A neat discovery for Heinlein and utopia fans. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"July 12, 1939. Perry Nelson is driving along the palisades when suddenly another vehicle swerves into his lane, a tire blows out, and his car careens off the road and over a bluff. The last thing he sees before his head connects with the boulders below is a girl in a green bathing suit, prancing along the shore." "When he wakes, the girl in green is a woman dressed in furs and the sun-drenched shore has transformed into snowcapped mountains. The woman, Diana, rescues Perry from the bitter cold and takes him inside her home to rest and recuperate." "Later they debate the cause of the accident, for Diana is unfamiliar with the concept of a tire blowout and Perry cannot comprehend snowfall in mid-July. Then Diana shares with him vital piece of information: The date is now January 7. The year...2086." "When his shock subsides, Perry begins an exhaustive study of global evolution over the past 150 years. He learns, among other things, that a United Europe was formed and led by Edward, Duke of Windsor; former New York City mayor LaGuardia served two terms as president of the United States; the military draft was completely reconceived; banks became publicly owned and operated; and in the year 2003, two helicopters destroyed the island of Manhattan in a galvanizing act of war. This education in the ways of the modern world emboldens Perry to assimilate to life in the twenty-first century." But education brings with it inescapable truths - the economic and legal systems, the government, and even the dynamic between men and women remain alien to Perry, the customs of the new day continually testing his mental and emotional resolve. Yet it is precisely his knowledgee of a bygone era that will serve Perry best, as the man from 1939 seems destined to lead his newfound peers even further into the future than they could have imagined.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

Embedded in the lectures on good governance that make up the bulk of For Us, the Living is a detailed ''future history'' of the years from 1939 through 2086. Although he set the manuscript aside and later destroyed all the copies in his possession, Heinlein went on to mine this material for his most distinctive short stories and novels. For this reason alone, the belated publication of this early work is a major contribution to the history of the genre. — Gerald Jonas

Publishers Weekly

Heinlein fans can rejoice-the SF master's lost first novel, composed between 1938 and 1939, has been found! In 1939, Perry Nelson suffers a bad car accident, but when he wakes up, it's 2086. A beautiful girl, Diana, takes the confused man under her wing, and naturally, they fall in love, but when Diana's ex shows up and flirts with her, Perry hauls off and hits him. Next thing Perry knows, he's being deprogrammed to get rid of his irrational sexual possession and jealousy. As Perry learns about the new world around him, he receives lectures about economic systems, aircars, rockets, U.S. history, religion and more-and these, of course, are the point of the story. Heinlein creates a utopian world of unparalleled prosperity and personal freedom and sketches out, through Perry's teachers, exactly why it all works. Since Heinlein mined ideas from this novel for all his other works, much is familiar, from the frankly free sexual mores to the active role of women to the rolling roads. Although this book can't stand alone on its own merits as a novel, it's a harbinger of later themes, best read critically and in conjunction with Heinlein's more mature fiction. (Jan. 6) FYI: SF author Spider Robinson provides an introduction, scholar Robert James an afterword. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Sf master Heinlein wrote this first novel in 1939 but put it aside when he was unable to find a publisher. Now being published for the first time, it provides an interesting foreshadowing of what was to come. Clearly influenced by such classics as H.G. Wells's When the Sleeper Awakes and Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, the book features a protagonist who dies in a car accident in 1939 and returns to the living in another body in the year 2086. Perry is shown adjusting to life in the distant future (eerily, Manhattan is destroyed in a terrorist attack in 2003) via a series of preachy discussions or thinly veiled lectures on many topics ranging from economics to marriage. Although the two major characters are well developed, the didacticism here prevents the novel from working as fiction. Still, Heinlein scholars and devoted fans will be fascinated by the germs of many themes and ideas, such as a religion-based dictatorship, that Heinlein expanded in later books like Revolt in 2100 and the classic Stranger in a Strange Land. With an introduction by sf author Spider Robinson and an afterword by Robert James of the Heinlein Society, this is essential for any library with other works by Heinlein. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/03.]-Bill Drew, Morrisville State Coll. Lib., NY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews