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The Cat Who Walks through Walls

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The Cat Who Walks through Walls

By: Robert Heinlein
Narrated by: Tom Weiner
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About this listen

 Robert A. Heinlein wrote some of the best-selling science-fiction novels of all time, including the beloved classic Stranger in a Strange Land. In The Cat Who Walks through Walls, he created his most compelling character ever: Dr. Richard Ames, ex-military man, sometime writer, and unfortunate victim of mistaken identity.

When a stranger attempting to deliver a cryptic message is shot dead at his dinner table, Ames is thrown headfirst into danger, intrigue, and other dimensions where Lazarus Long still thrives, where Jubal Harshaw lives surrounded by beautiful women, and where a daring plot to rescue the sentient computer called Mike can change the direction of all human history.

©1985 Robert Heinlein (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Adventure Classics Mystery Science Fiction Technothrillers Thriller & Suspense

Critic reviews

"Dialogue as witty as Oscar Wilde's, action as rollicking as Edgar Rice Burroughs', and satire as spicy as Jonathan Swift's." ( New York Times)
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The story is disjointed and poorly constructed. There is, for the most part, minimum explanation or reason given to sudden changes in the stories direction. If you expect something more akin to Stranger this will be a let down lacking any real plot or meaning.
That said the truly dreadful breathy narration with an irritating habit of putting emphasis at the end of every sentence, does a bad novel no favours.
There are many, much better, books and audio books written by Robert Heinlein.

Love Heinlein but this one is not good...

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There is a temptation to label this novel as 'Heinlein at is best', but 'best' may be the wrong word. It is very classic Heinlein, though: jingoistic, sexist, and politically incorrect in just about every way.
It is not for everybody. Certainly for fans of classic SF, certainly not for those with a broad and open mind.
The narrator sounding more than a little like a cross between Cary Grant and Captain Scarlet took a little getting used to, but worked really well.

Classic Space Opera

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Similar style to various other Heinlein books, I found this enjoyable and entertaining. Links in with some of the other Heinlein books in terms of the characters.

Another typical Heinlein - nice story

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“The cat who walks through walls“ started off OK (though let down by gratuitous over-sexualisation throughout), then it makes a surprise jump into time travel which (despite the author also writing what I consider to be the only truly good time travel story in the form of " '—All You Zombies—' ") feels as crude as imagining a combustion engine would only be used to drag a plough through a field, then in the last chapter the lead character does something they’ve been opposed to throughout with no explanation or justification. And that’s ignoring the surprise (and in my view not important when you already have time travel and multiple dimensions) introduction of the philosophy of The World As Myth in the works of someone highly regarded for hard science fiction. If you divide the work into each section, and consider those sections separately, then the first is certainly decent despite the shortcomings. The rest is not.

The over-sexualisation and the surprise plot twists spoil it

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...and I must admit I was not that impressed. I think in defence of Heinlein, I should have read a couple of his earlier books, including The Moon is A Harsh Mistress, and would recommend other people to do so if they have not already done so. This would have put what I was listening to into better context.

Irrespective of the placement of the book in a series, I found the style irritating, with the dialogue attempting to be too sassy and quick-witted for it's own good. The narrator, either through his own artistic choice or by the way the text was written, regularly lapses into a poor imitation of the classic 1950's US Private Detective series voice-over. Unfortunately, it starts to irritate.

The plot drifts about continually, with a painfully long description of a journey that the protagonists make, whilst only briefly returning to the main storyline - whatever that was.

I would recommend this book to frustrated teenage boys as tribute to the only consistent part of the plot - the continual references to beautiful, leggy and oft-naked genetically-improved women (totally plot-irrelevant) who greet you with long wet kisses and who seem prepared to do anything in bed, with anyone.


My first outing in Heinlein's Multiiverse...

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