The Number of the Beast cover art

The Number of the Beast

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Get this deal
Offer ends on 15 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.
More purchase options

The Number of the Beast

By: Robert A. Heinlein
Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne, Emily Durante, Malcolm Hillgartner, Sean Runnette, Richard Powers, Tom Weiner
Get this deal

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £21.67

Buy Now for £21.67

The wickedest, most wonderful science-fiction story ever created in our - or any - time. Anything can begin at a party in California - and everything does in this bold masterwork by a grand master of science fiction.

When four supremely sensual and unspeakably cerebral humans - two male, two female - find themselves under attack from aliens who want their awesome quantum breakthrough, they take to the skies - and zoom into the cosmos on a rocket roller-coaster ride of adventure, danger, ecstasy, and peril.

Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) was the dominant science-fiction writer of the modern era, a writer whose influence on the field was immense. He won science fiction's Hugo Award for best novel four times.

©1980 Robert A. Heinlein (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Adventure Science Fiction Space Opera
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1

Critic reviews

“One of the grand masters of science fiction.” (Wall Street Journal)

“The most influential science fiction writer of all time!” (Locus)

“[A story] about two men and two women in a time-machine safari through this and other universes. But describing The Number of the Beast thus is like saying Moby-Dick is about a one-legged guy trying to catch a fish.” (National Review)
All stars
Most relevant

Would you consider the audio edition of The Number of the Beast to be better than the print version?

Much Better

If you’ve listened to books by Robert A. Heinlein before, how does this one compare?

A bit too technical - I could have done without all the maths

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

doing this as separate narrators per person fitted the book exactly and it ran very smoothly. very well done.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

mainly irritation at all the wrangling about who was "Captain"

Any additional comments?

I have had this book in my to listen to pile for a fair while but was a bit nervous about playing it mainly because I did not want to be disappointed as I had re-read the book and found it very hard going. Not to worry ~ I thoroughly enjoyed it (mostly) but all 4 could have done with a good slap at times.

Very well done

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a long way from being the best Mr Heinlein wrote but the choice to have each chapter narrated by a different character (which is how it is in the book) simply means that you get four different voices for each of the four main characters plus a bunch of others for good measure, It's confusing and so disengaging that it throws you out of the narrative every couple of minutes. I don't know if I'd have been able to follow the plot if I hadn't read it before, It doesn't work at all well,

Not Bob's best but the narration didn't help.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I found this one quite hard to follow as it is vey much like a never ending “gossipy” conversation which I couldn’t always make sense of.
I also found it slow and lacking interest at times, although it did seem to get better later on in that regard.
Overall it was worth listening to though, although I much preferred some of the others by Heinlein.

Variable - slow in places

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have read this story a few times over the years so I bought this. I made a mistake don’t make the same mistake as I did.
The acting is awful if I’m being polite, the characters are specific ages but the actors are clearly not, I know that sounds picky but it’s really distracting. Read this book don’t listen to it.

Terrible performances

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Started well, but got a little drawn out, more a taste of fantasy than science fiction.

Went on a bit !

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews