—All You Zombies— Review

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Full disclosure: this might be one of my favorite Heinlein short stories that I’ve ever read. It’s got all of my favorite things that I look for in a sci-fi short story: time travel, an epic twist, a dash of horror. But I won’t spoil it all right now. I’ll just say that I really enjoyed it, and I’m excited to share my review.

Surprisingly, Heinlein wrote this story in one day (which is an absolute dream of mine), published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1959. Now I’ll do my best to explain what this story is about, but trust me, unraveling this time travel story for yourself is worth it. It begins with a man who goes back in time and (by mistake) ends up impregnating himself. This man used to be a woman before being forced to undergo reassignment surgery. It also turns out that he is his own father and his own mother, and also multiple other characters are also the same person. I included an entire chart about how this works.

…

I’ll be honest, the story was tough to follow, but that was mostly because of the concept and not the actual writing itself. I imagine the people reading it in 1959 felt the same way. Heinlein does a fantastic job of actually allowing the concept to make sense within the story. In the end, everything culminates in a big reveal that puts things into perspective enough for all of the pieces to fall into place. This is where the writing clicked for me. Everything was clear enough when Heinlein described what was happening that the only thing I was truly mind-boggled by was the paradox, which is meant to be more than a little confusing anyway.

I think what ultimately works is that this story is told from the viewpoint of someone actually explaining what happened. We don’t see it happening in real time. Instead, we see someone explaining what happened in real time. It brings the same facts to light for us, the readers, as it does to the bartender, which makes the reveal that much more interesting.

“…But four weeks later that didn’t mean anything.”

“Eh?”

“She was snatched.”

“‘Snatched?’”

The Unmarried Mother almost knocked over the bottle we had bet. “Kidnapped—stolen from the hospital
nursery!” He breathed hard. “How’s that for taking the last a man’s got to live for?”

At the end of the day, I found it worth it to try to tackle all of the paradoxes, and I found myself reading the entire thing in one sitting just to find out what happens in the end. If you haven’t yet read any Heinlein, I’d recommend starting with this short story.

Now I just need to write a review of “By His Bootstraps.”

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