AJ: regarding the incestousness of Lazarus Long. I have to admit that I find Heinlein's arguements (within the storys) to be fairly convincing: so long as there's absolutely no possible genetic repercussions (and assuming functional, consenting adults), what IS the basis of the stigma attached to incest?
Not to say I'd be willing to sleep with a family member, it's just a bit of a sociological question...
I'm on the same page. It didn't bother me. I more took it as a device to try and convey just how radicaly different life and morality would/could be thousands of years in the future, or for someone who'd lived that entire time. Then set that as the ultimate logical extension of Heinlien's reductionisim of culture and taboo (the ones he found to be "useful" at any rate) to what protected "pregnant women and children". i.e., the furtherance of humanity in it's most basic terms.
In simple terms, if humanity's oldest man travels back in time (boffs his "identical" teenaged twin sisters/daughters cloned from his body as a send-off) meets his mom during WWI, and sees her as a young adult, with adult eyes of his own for the first time, then does her too, well, no kids or pregnant women were harmed, so no foul, in the author's reductionist morality... I guess.
If there's any "advocacy" of "keeping it within the family" beyond stretching the envelope for it's own sake, I really didn't want to think about it.
However, I'd hate for that to be someone's first taste of Heinlien, and write him off permanantly either...