Farnham's Freehold

A classic Robert Heinlein tale mixing science fiction and social metaphors. He deals with racism by turning the standard white and black paradigm of the 1950's on it's head. And manages an interesting tale at the same time.

I first heard about this book in a collection of essays written by a liberal professor who saw everyone not sharing his far-left views as evil, fascist, and
clearly racist. So, naturally, I HAD to read it.
I couldn't believe that something so uncompromising had been published back in the mid-60's. A grim tale of a family thrown into the distant future, thinking at first that they were the only humans alive. Then, when they found out the truth, that dark-skinned people ruled, regarding the light-skinned folk as little more than talking animals.
When it came to dealing with the harsh realities, this book is about as subtle as a kick to the testicles. There's no gentle way, however, to depict a woman dying in childbirth, chattle slavery, cannibalism, and so on.
I would recommend reading this book with an open mind. It puts the lie to the myth that only white people are racist.

This is an entirely plot driven book with one dimensional characters that are, for the most part, unlikable. The core characters are twentieth century citizens who find their lives forever changed by a nuclear holocaust. The plot itself is a relatively simple one.

The main protagonist, Hugh Farnham, is a farsighted, twentieth century guy who builds a bomb shelter and stocks it with the necessities of life so as to be prepared in the event that nuclear war erupts. When it does, he, his wife, Grace, son, Duke, and daughter, Karen, as well as her friend, Barbara Wells, and Joseph, Hugh's employee, find themselves saved from destruction but hurled by the nuclear blast into a world two thousand years into the future.

The future, however, into which the characters are hurled, is a future in which the world is ruled by dark skinned people. All light skinned people are slaves to their dark skinned masters. Since the Farnhams and Barbara Wells are white, they do not fare too well in this new world order. The only one who comes out on top is Joseph, who happens to be black. He also happens to be the only reasonably likable character in the book.

While the future is an interesting one, the novelty of it is undone by the fact that the main characters are so unlikable. Hugh Farnham is nothing more than an insensitive bully and egotist married to a lush, whimsically named Grace. Barbara Wells is a woman who thinks nothing of abusing the hospitality of her hostess, Grace, by sleeping with her husband, Hugh, shortly after meeting him.

As luck would have it, Barbara's friend, Karen, also think that it is perfectly fine that her friend should be sleeping with her father, who just happens to be her mother's husband. Though, why Barbara would want to, however, is beyond me. Once in the future, however, Karen, for whatever sick reason, also seems interested in copulating with her father. Meanwhile, her brother, Duke, is nothing more than his drunken mother's enabler, at odds with his father, and a secret racist. The only remotely normal person is Joseph, and even he, too, has his moments.

One simply does not care about most of the characters. In terms of plot, however, the author is on firmer ground. The future that the author has created provides a lot of food for thought, as he covers many issues. Incest, cannibalism, race role reversals, women as sex toys, the neutering of males, as well as using some humans as breeders, are all interesting, though somewhat controversial, concepts. While touched upon, however, these issues are never fully explored or realized. Consequently, the plot, which is, at times, quite interesting, finds itself undone by the unlikability factor of its characters.

I loved this book when I read it years ago... but what I hate about it now is the terrible condition of the digital edition. Every page had typos. Sometimes an entire paragraph was unreadable. Plus, I remember the end of the book and this one doesn't end that way. It makes no sense now because the title isn't explained at the end as it was when I read it before.

I'm writing this so people will not purchase this copy and I suggest they avoid the publisher of this edition. They scanned it and didn't bother proofreading it. I'd like my money back, but I'd rather read the original before it was ruined for me.

It could have been a great book, with an original scenario, but it was spoilt for me by the character of Hugh Farnham. He came across as a dictatorial tin pot little Hitler. When he didn't get immediate unquestioning obedience from his son, he forced him out of their only shelter on a strange world, to fend (or not) for himself.
Later in the book, their young servant Joe, who had been well treated as an employee, then treated as an equal when the chips were down, suddenly developed an ex-slave's antagonism towards a family who had saved his life, and who had wanted to welcome him into their family, without any bias against his colour or upbringing.
Add to this mix a demanding self indulgent wife, and three of the main characters are so dislikeable that it spoilt what should or could have been a great read.
Heinlein rarely lays an egg, but when he does, it's a beauty!

Hugh Farnham is a blue-collar survivalist who likes to play Bridge. His college-age daughter Karen, her friend Barbara, his lawyer son Duke, his alcoholic wife Grace, and house servant Joe are playing cards at his house the night the bombs hit. Everyone scrambles to safety inside Hugh's modern bomb shelter.

As the bombs fall and his wife is passed out, Hugh starts up an affair with his daughter's friend Barbara, right in the shelter. As if Hugh's shallowness and arrogance wasn't enough to turn you against the protagonist, this nauseating little scene will.

When the shakes and quakes finally end, the family pours from the shelter to find themselves in an impossible, pristine, clean world. At first glance, it looks like utopia, but then as they settle into a rustic lifestyle they are suddenly set upon by an advanced race, imprisoned, and brought into a vastly different culture as slaves. Somehow, Hugh needs to find a way to break free of the civilization they are trapped in, so that he can be free with Barbara.

Of all the Apocalypse Fiction, this book is the worst. The protagonist is so lowbrow, so arrogant, so unlikable, so self-centered, so shallow, so immoral that he simply cannot capture any interest. He's not even a "love to hate" person.

The dialogue is flatly emotionless and yet irritatingly flippant, and Barbara and Hugh's constant prattlings of "Darling, Dear, and Beloved" do not fit the characters. Neither does Hugh's occasional spouting of words like "shall" and "shan't" along with racial diatribes that include heavy use of the "N" word.

There is little emotion from these one-dimensional characters even though they face the death of Hugh's daughter and Barbara's friend Karen, cannibalism, castration (Hugh cared more about his "boys" than he did his real children), pedophilia, racism, and $exual slavery, they show no more feeling than they would biting into a doughnut.

The entire plot-over-plot had a contrived and vapid feeling to it, as if the author himself didn't quite believe his story. And if he doesn't believe, how can he expect the reader to?

Overall, there is no depth or flavor in this story at all, other than the ugly aftertaste of a musty trailer park visit in the dusty twilight, as old men drink cheap stinking whiskey and the wind blows over the city dump next door. I recommend avoiding this book.

Farnham's Freehold is not a book I would recommend. It seems to be Heinlein's fantasy about surviving a nuclear war so he could bully his son and wife and sleep with his daughter's friend. The characters are reprehensible people, in my opinion; the dialogue is long-winded and very dated. The philosophies underlying the narrative are disturbing. I felt like I was reading the product of a sick mind. And the story never got interesting enough to make up for these glaring faults. I found myself scratching my head and wondering how this ever got to be considered a classic?

Farnham's Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein

We read and reread Heinlein because he spins a good yarn, his characters get into and out of dangerous scrapes that hold our attention. He introduces us to people we like with virtues that we appreciate and hope to emulate. We like the adventure. But he gives us very much more. He spoons us measured doses of his philosophy of human worth and dignity and the ever present danger of that worth and dignity either slipping away or of being stolen from us outright.
And he hates slavery. Farnham's Freehold deals explicitly with slavery as did Citizen of the Galaxy. Knowing of his love of liberty this comes as no surprise to his readers. In Farnham's Freehold he also takes on ordinary retail style racism from the most harsh and obvious to the well meaning, even unconscious sort that might be less damaging in the short run but leaves the receiver with every bit as much long term damage.
I like the period speech patterns too, speech used just prior to the 1964 publishing date of the work at least by well educated, well behaved people. Heinlein has his characters actually talk to one another and tell each other of their love (or not love as the case may be). Part of why we enjoy the characters comes from their verbal touching. It seems like living in the speech version of an Italian family where people constantly touch one another to show their love.
The unlikely time travel tale has a family blasted into the far future by a Soviet Communist atomic attack on the USA. In 1964 we thought that this might actually happen and many people, like Hugh Farnam took what precautions they could.
The interesting story of survival with little in the way of resources entertains us for a while but the future society makes us sit up and take notice.
Heinlein has a certain stock of characters that he rotates through his novels. We accept the rotation of familiar types only because he makes them different enough to be interesting each and every time. And he gives us new or reinforced ideas each and every time.
Like Heinlein and Patrick Henry I also value Liberty.
I am making a strong effort to reread the Heinlein library. He wrote important books that still speak to us in a compelling and relevant way. Farnham's Freehold certainly fits this mold.
Read this book.

This book sucks. I never been so disappointed in a book that was Highly Recommended by a person I really Respect. Don't waist
your time. You want to read a great book in the same Jandra, try the Patriot. Author Escapes me, But he has also a book called Survivor.

As a big fan of Heinlein in my youth I recently began to get a lot of the old Heinlein books that I had read and go back through them to see if they stand up and how I felt about them. There is a problem here.

Hugh Farnham(father and dictator), Grace(drunk mother), Karen(daughter, hot for daddy), Duke(son with daddy and mommy issues), Joseph(not so noble "negro" servant) and Barbara(single unattached girl, who presumably was going to be Duke's date for the evening) meet at the Farnham house, somewhere in Colorado, during a red alert for war. There is a broadcast about missiles being launched, so Hugh Farnham herds everyone into his bomb shelter and becomes the "captain of the ship"

The mood starts in bickering because Duke is mad at his father because his mother is a drunk and out of control woman and his dad in some way caused this and is not doing anything about it. This continues and escalates throughout the book and is a major theme. The book is extremely heavy-handed about making the dad look good at the expense of everyone. All the characters are stereotypically "Heinlein good" or despicable, spineless immoral creeps.

The bombs fall and during the night when Hugh/Dad is on watch the young beautiful Barbara, Karen's college friend cannot sleep she comes to sit near Hugh and is bowled over by his macho readiness, succumbs to his patriarchal charm and cannot stop herself from screwing on the first date ... and getting pregnant.

They make it through the bombing and when everyone wakes up the next morning and the air is running out, they take a look outside and there is a beautiful lush scene outside the shelter, which should be a scorched radioactive waste.

They set up housekeeping, growing plants, trying to hunt and survive successfully, though always with Duke and Hugh arguing and ready to kill each other several times. They seem to be doing fine, and just when Duke and drunk mom are about to move out together to live in a cave to get a divorce from daddy, a strange space ship flies by and takes them all into custody.

They wake up and find out that they are far into the future and somehow the atomic blast, instead of making giant mutated deadly insects has transported them in time to a future where the whole northern hemisphere ... all the "white" civilizations have destroyed themselves, and the blacks have been running the world for over 2000 years.

We find out the "negroes" have re-instituted slavery to the whites, and Joseph their servant is raised to the level of citizen, while the rest of the Farnham family and friend Barbara are made slaves. Mom, Karen and Barbara are put in the "sluts" quarters ... all the slave women are "sluts" while Hugh and Duke narrowly miss being castrated.

The story just gets worse from there, the point is the thing that is more destroyed than an atomic war ... there is no reason, not point, no lesson, no morality ... this is just a time-waster of a book.

Some people try to say this is "satire" or "fantasy" or claim to know what Heinlein was thinking or feeling when he wrote this, but I prefer to let the novel speak for itself, and it does that badly ... at least compared to other Heinlein novels I have read. Satire implies a certain coherent level of social criticism, which is missing from "Farnham's Freehold", the characters are one-dimensional - if that, and the constant clashes between Duke and his father are really a drudge to get through.

Some older science fiction is still worth reading, but I am finding a lot of Heinlein does not hold up as well as I would have liked. Miss this one, though at this point I cannot say which books to check out. The world has changed, and people's expectations and patience with books, movies and entertainment has too. Life is too short to bother with bad science fiction.

My copy of Farnham's Freehold claims this to be "Science Fiction's Most Controversial Novel." Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but the novel does feel far less shocking than I imagined it to be. Heinlein's quest is not without merit, but the final product just doesn't really accomplish anything worthwhile.
Aside from the themes of the novel, the plot is pretty decent. The Farnham's are inside of a bomb shelter when nuclear war hits and are blasted into another existence. Hugh, for all his faults, is definitely a fit leader who allows nothing, no matter how insignificant it used to seem in their old life, to be wasted. Heinlein really went out and covered all "what-ifs" aspects of a family struggling to survive with extremely limited resources. The set up is good and there's a few shocks along the way, but ultimately the beginning takes too long. It eventually feels boring and unnecessary, especially since it's blatantly obvious that the "real" plot is about whites being enslaved by blacks. Anyway, the story progresses. It does always tell a good story, but again the tired themes (of course over 50 years ago they weren't so tired) just did little to evoke my interest in any way.

I give this book three stars because of the unexpected twists that happened. The book has some incredibly gloomy moments, and I appreciate anything that can open my imagination and then blow me away with certain events. But in the end, a long-winded rant that doesn't feel nearly as controversial as it's supposed to be ends up being a so-so story that I couldn't really wait to finish. On a final note, I liked the ending very much.

Like many Heinlein novels this novel is easy to read and hard to put down. It is a science fiction novel, not a novel of character development. Its strengths are those of science fiction. Like much of the best science fiction, it is a novel of ideas. Most importantly, it is a satire; for that aspect, please read Gabrielle's review upon which I could not possibly improve. It also opens a window to the past, the world of the 1960s, when the threat of thermonuclear war was a reality. Those who were not adults at that time can have difficulty understanding how real that threat was. This novel may help them understand.

The novel is a scathing commentary on survivalism. That may not be obvious, since Heinlein clearly regards rugged individualism as a supreme virtue. Hugh Farnham makes extensive and careful preparation, has an impressive array of survival skills, and finds himself in a far kinder post-holocaust environment than he could possibly have expected. And yet, despite all that, what happens? (Spoiler alert!) His daughter dies in childbirth. Talk about obvious symbolism! At the end, he is not following the survivalist ideal of total independence. Instead, he is operating a trading post: commerce, rather than self-sufficiency.

Finally, Heinlein uses this novel to dramatize the fact that the future may be dark indeed. We think of slavery as a thing of the barbaric past, lingering on only in our world only at its margins or in disguised form. We think of cannibalism as even more remote. Yet those things, and things just as bad, may return. The brightly optimistic 19th Century was followed by the horrors of the World Wars. America, land of liberty, when 911 put it under stress, turned to torture, detention without trial, unrestricted surveillance, and preventive war. Who knows what lies ahead? Heinlein warns us that it may be utterly evil.

When I was growing up, I read pretty much anything Robert A. Heinlein had written. Of course, most of his great books had been around a few decades by then. When I was reading Heinlein, he had begun to enter his "dirty old man" stage (late 70s and early 80s). I think his greatest fiction was the earlier works that are accessible to all ages without the rated-R material of some of his later books.

Farnham's Freehold, first published in 1964, is both a product of the time and a product of Heinlein's great vision. At the height of the Cold War, Hugh Farnham's concerns about an impending nuclear disaster lead him to build and equip a fallout shelter in his basement. When bombs start falling, Farnham and his family, along with a friend of Farnham's daughter and a household employee, descend to the shelter and lock up. Once stillness returns to the world, they find their surroundings completely altered, but somehow familiar. They learn that they are in the same place, but have been bumped hundreds of years into the future.

The first half of the novel details their adaptations for survival. Hugh's admirable preparations pay off, and the six of them begin to settle in, making the best of their isolated existence. But that all changes when human visitors arrive with technologies far advanced of anything they have ever seen. They learn that in the 2000 years since the war they took shelter from, civilization in the northern hemisphere has fallen apart, and white people exist largely as slaves in a rigidly hierarchical society ruled by blacks.

Heinlein, writing in the midst of the civil rights movement, takes the opportunity to make some observations about race and racism. Yet the fiercely independent Hugh Farnham isn't willing to accept a life of slavery, no matter the skin color of his captor. My edition calls Farnham's Freehold "Science Fiction's Most Controversial Novel" right on the front cover. I suppose Heinlein's views of racial equality were quite a bit more controversial in 1964. More problematic is the eventual revelation that not only did the black slave owners keep a stable of slaves for sexual purposes, but that some of them ended up on the dinner table. I can see how that would not go over well with certain readers. . . .

Reading Heinlein is always a delight. Farnham's Freehold is not one of his best novels, but does exemplify his trademarks: a grand vision of the future, a philosophy of political freedom and individual self-sufficiency, and a story the includes characters to cheer for and villains to hate. The fact that this is still in print 50 years after its first publication is no mistake. Heinlein remains one of the great masters of the genre.

I just finished reading "Farnham's Freehold", which I'm now certain I have not read since I was a teen. (Ouch!) There was some discussion in the Kindle Books forum recently about Heinlein and race. "Farmham's Freehold" was written with NOTHING else in mind but to debunk the theories that all bigots and racists hide behind. The least likable character in the book (Farnham's son, Duke) is an out and out racist.
Heinlein deliberately created a highly personable black character and outraged the reader by having Duke direct highly offensive bigoted statements and attitudes against him. It is an open and courageous device aimed straight at the conscience of the reader. Heinlein wants the reader to be shocked and outraged that such views would be expressed, and to learn from that.

The hero of the book, Farnham, is essentially color blind. His lesson comes through strongly.

By reversing the racial stations in "the future", Heinlein clearly identifies bigotry as an issue within every man, while trying to pose the sympathetic view of "what if I were in his shoes?" It is a clear statement that race is an innocent result of birth, but bigotry is a learned behavior not to be tolerated.

It is a very powerful book, not only in its presentation of racism in a villainous perspective, but addressing the whole issue of the many meekly accepting the unjust rule of the few.

The lessons in this book are as important today as they were the day they were written. Yes, nuclear war is currently off the table as a daily concern, but the weapons do still exist. However, there is no question that bigotry still exists, even if strides have been made in the fifty some odd years since this book was written. It would be hard to agree with and enjoy this book and still feel that any men are born inferior to any others.

Robert Heinlein has his fans--of which I'm becoming--and is obviously considered a legendary writer, but sometimes even a "legend" has some bad books, or at least, books that have had potential.

"The Door Through Summer" was a book that had a definitive goal and obstacles, where some of the books by Heinlein are just people going through the motions with no clear goal, until maybe the final third where there is a plot the protagonist has to face until he or she realizes some life-changing matter. (Note: These are books I obviously don't see myself returning to).

"Farnham's Freehold" wasn't a book to have a definitive goal, I discovered after reading it, but it did offer some ideas that I found intriguing, which initially drew me to the novel. That idea is a planet that has a majority of "people of color" (i.e. of African descent). Hugh, the Caucasian hero, also doubles as the audience as he is thrust into "foreign" world he isn't used to, {coming from the racially charged 1960s). For most of the book, it's about Hugh and his family, their squabbles, and it's not until their discovery of a different world that a plot to escape (in the final third of the novel) hits. And, it's not necessarily that big of an obstacle, since they are let free anyhow to go back to a time where they are comfortable.

Of note, this world is devoid of any Asians, specifically Chinese. The reason for this is the generalization that their skin is "white," which in turn generalizes all Asians, since there are different shades of Asians...and not all Asians are from China. The "Asians" were killed off in the initial battle that led up to the predominant black/white civilizations. Interestingly, Hindu individuals, in Heinlein's story, are considered closer to "black" due to their skin tone--again, generalizations--since Hindus are Asian, and even "black" people have different shades.

The world is devoid of anyone who is non-white Hispanic/Latino, or Native American. All we know is that there is a black civilization over a white subclass, and the black leader is a cannibal...eating teenage white girls.

There are no dimensions to the black ruling class Hugh and his family meet. Heinlein could have pushed further with this world, as we really don't learn much or care by the end of the novel.

** out of *****

I first read Farnham's Freehold when I was a boy. Like 13 or 14 and I loved it! I was pulling down new books for my Kindle and ran across the downloadable version of the book and held my breath waiting for it to load. Heinlein wrote this in an era where race discrimination was, from what my father has said, an acceptable attitude held by many rather than the broader minded era we live in now (and I hope we continue in this direction until stupidity like race/sexual preference/age/gender/etc. discrimination is gone). Heinlein's crafty wording and ability to draw you into the characters is incredible. The boldness of approaching racial discrimination as he did in the time period in which he wrote this is admirable. The sideways references to incest seems to point to his support of it but, again, considering the period of sexual revolution during which this written, might just be considered a 'sign of the times' and is forgivable - at least the two characters involved with the incest situation were adults and not an adult and child. I didn't understand the theme of the book when I was young but enjoyed it just for the story itself. As an adult who has encountered racists and their rhetoric, I was able to appreciate Heinlein's probing of the acceptability of slavery and race discrimination. Overall, the book is well written and the subject matter presented is thought provoking, well structured, and most importantly enjoyable.

I read for the moment most of the time and don't remember the story very long. This one, however has stuck with me for years. It has been 20-30 years since I rea Farnham's Freehold and I consider it one of Heinlein's best. In other words, I remember it well! Why? I think it is the time travel part. Time Travel stories always get my attention because it has to make sense as well as details have to be just right. The ending really grabbed me. It worked! I have compared many time travel stories to this one and ths one always comes out on top. Will read it again and see if I get the same results.

Through Hugh Farnham's adventures after a nuclear disaster, Heinlein blends genres. He infuses the expected sci-fi with history - real and alternative, and socio-political observations with an aside on rewritten, distorted religious doctrine. Also, there is dark, sometimes humorous parody that can be taken literally; but, to do so would be the reader's error.

I re-read a paperback with cover art showing Hugh and Barbara armed and carrying bundles. This artwork is a hint at a significant scene in the story. Like this picture, every scene, theme, and character contributes to a strong discourse on survival in a dystopia, family and national conflicts that have the same disastrous results, and universal human behavior that defies time and place. When this book was published in the `60s, most Americans had limited exposure to or interest in the world beyond that which immediately affected their own borders. So, the Civil Rights Movement (a discussion mostly between Black and White peoples) and the Cold War (USA capitalists vs. Soviet communists) were largely viewed without their broader context. While the specific racial and ideological divides of that time have been, if not settled, diminished, they have morphed into more expansion multi-ethnic and religious debates. Today's better informed, more worldly readers will see the genius in Heinlein's still relevant fiction.

The main characters, which comprise the Farnham family and their guests in the fallout shelter, can be viewed as one-dimensional. There's the drunken, self-absorbed wife, Grace. There's the disrespectful, arrogant, and racist son, Duke. The daughter, Karen and her college friend, Barbara, and the servant, Joe; these three are mostly goody-two-shoes, who unquestionably follow Hugh's orders . And, Hugh, the heroic, forward-thinking, and multi-talented lead, who ensures everyone's survival. I think their lack of complex development is Heinlein's intentional device to better display the characters that are introduced later in a repressive, stagnant society. The roles outside Hugh Farnham's circle show how social strata are developed across cultures and political borders. As one character says to Hugh, "There is always a ruling and a serving class." Thus, to read "Farnham's Freehold" in Black and White is to miss seeing the big picture that may keep humanity making the same mistakes for another 2103 years.

I recently reread this classic and controversial Heinlein novel in its original, illustrated three-part debut in 1964 issues of "If" magazine (I found the trio of issues at a yard sale). It was a real treat to rediscover this novel after many years. Heinlein's story telling is never better here and it's as fresh as it was when published in 1964. I am not the least bit offended by the sexual, racial and survival themes of this novel; in fact, I think the book is especially topical today. I am sorry I never included this title in my high school English class reading list when I taught during the late 1970s. It might be a bold and astute selection for an English teacher to teach to students today. The story is engaging and the characters are lively. I can't understand why Hollywood never developed this property into a motion picture. With today's panic rooms, Islamic terrorist threats, simmering racial tensions, and rogue kooky nations—such as North Korean and Iran—with nuclear technology, "Farnham's Freehold" remains right on the money!

Hugh Farnham has built a bomb shelter, and stocked it with the kind of things he thinks his family will need after the reds drop the big one. He takes a lot of criticism for this from his highly educated lawyer son, who even blames Hugh for the fact that his mother is an alcoholic. But when the bomb hits, everyone becomes a believer and quiet Hugh becomes the leader. Some odd twist carries his bomb shelter into another world, or another time, with no human life it seems.

I love the early science fiction novels by Heinlein, I have read some 4 or 5 times over my lifetime. This book was written in the later Heinlein period, and his writing began to get weird for me. Some people probably love it and prefer the later stuff, just my own tastes. I liked the beginning and end of this book, but a huge chunk of the middle turned me off. The book has some weird sexual relationship issues, tons of racial tension, family disputes, alcohol dependency and other issues that took away some of the excitement and danger of a survivalist story. The post-apocalypse world he envisions has a race with technology far beyond ours, yet most of their society is uneducated and not devoted to progress. So you wonder where they got this technology. The characters in the story have little depth and realism, outside of Hugh and his former employee Joe. Or else their personality changes so fast you can't keep up with it. I reread it this year, after having read it last about 20 years ago and still feel the same. i have to say that near the end of the book, it kind of goes back on track and after several chapters of painful reading, the book blossoms again and makes you wish he had spent more time in that part of the story. In fact, the last chapter would be the a great introduction to a sequel. having said all of this, Heinleins's worst books are better than most of his contemporaries books, so don't get me wrong. If you like his later books, you will enjoy this.

Heinlein's worst book! Just don't read it. It is racist and sexist and not in a cool modern way. Generally offensive, and not very well written anyway. I like some of his other books, but this one is the worst!

Hugh Farnham expected a nuclear war was coming. Thus he built a bomb shelter while people including his adult son ridiculed him for Farnham's folly. However, as the news begins reporting of the threats of war growing hotter, he persuades his alcoholic wife, their son and, daughter, a friend and Joseph the servant to enter his silo. The bombs are sent while Hugh and his retinue remain safe.

When they finally exit the bomb shelter, they have been somehow been forwarded centuries into the future with no other person around as if humanity has become extinct except for their small circle. The group struggles to survive when the descendants of survivors of the apocalypse find them. Except for Joseph, the rest of Farnham's party is held guilty by the color of their skin causing the pandemic holocaust. Hugh knows that for him and his family to survive, they must go back to prevent the bombs from causing the end of the world.

This reprint of an engaging 1950s futuristic science fiction tale makes a case against de jure and de facto racism. The story line is fast-paced once the bombs explode and never slows down as Farnham's family is held in contempt. Although the characters are one dimensional stereotypes, readers will enjoy Robert Heinlein's argument against racism.

Harriet Klausner

I was seriously going to put Farnham's Freehold (1964) down about halfway through, something I very rarely do, but I was stuck on a bus ride with nothing else to amuse me, so I kept reading. I'm kind of glad I did because the book does pick up past the halfway point, when author Robert Heinlein presents us with an alternate civilization where darker skinned people whose ancestors survived a nuclear war that devastated much of the Northern Hemisphere keep whites in slavery, treating them like...well, like the O'Haras treated their slaves in Gone With the Wind: not so much with cruelty as with a grinding condescension. Turnabout is fair play? At the least, it's a very interesting concept.

However…

The first half of the book is a mess brought on by a) Heinlein's wooden characters and even more wooden dialogue and b) his maniacal insistence on presenting a true-blue, dedicated survivalist, to the point where the character, Hugh Farnham, becomes so utterly obnoxious that the reader not only stops caring about him but wishes the Russians had better H-Bombs.

The book is also replete with a sexism that goes beyond the norms of the period in which it was written. I don't expect Gloria Steinem when reading a genre book written in the early 1960s, but Heinlein's parade of dim-witted shrews and sex kittens (including very compliant 14-year-old sex slaves) is nauseating, especially as just about all of them (except his alcoholic wife) think the middle-aged Hugh is just the cat's pajamas.

That includes not just his daughter's friend Barbara, a divorcee half Hugh's age, with whom he gets naked the first chance they get, but, incredibly, his 20-year-old daughter as well. In perhaps the creepiest scene in a book not lacking for them, daughter Karen confesses that if their little group is all that's left of humanity and her choice of a mate is their black servant Joe, her brother Duke or dear old dad, she would definitely go with dad because she always thought he was kind of hot…

Oh. My. God.

The book does neatly divide into two parts. In the first part, Hugh and his family (plus Joe and Barbara) survive a nuclear holocaust but are tossed into some kind of future world where they think they are the only humans left. It is here that Heinlein goes to town describing all the survivalist stuff he learned as the little band sets up a homestead, starts farming, goes hunting, etc. Complication arise that leads to a tragedy but the entire section is marred by the totally static characters engaging in dialogue so inane that it makes Father Knows Best sound like Shakespeare.

The second part describes what happens after the family is captured by the existing civilization. The characterizations remain wooden but at least the society is somewhat interesting. This partly redeemed the book but still, the best I can do is squeeze out a three star review for the thing as a whole.

Hmmmm.... I am never one to take the hatchet to the Grand Puba of olde tyme sci-fi...
That said this was a very confused piece. The story was good around half-way through, detailing a family survival of a nuclear war.
Then it turned into a social commentary about black and whites that I found more than a little preachy, and even more than that, just not interesting. I am sure at the time it was scandalous to suggest that negroes were just like us, and if they were in power and kept whites as slaves they would abuse their power just like us. But it isnt too surprising to us unlightened 21st century types. In fact, with the canabalism in the upper ruling negro class, it actually goes a bit beyond anything that I have ever heard of in our own country's slave times. I suppose a case could be made that it is even a touch racist, saying that black owning whites just couldnt keep the animal at bay and had to go to the most basic of horror and eat the whites... I dont know, maybe I just got tired of being preached at and started seeing windmills not there, but I would have like this better if it stopped around halfway.

Farnham's Freehold is #6 on my list of All Time Favorite Science Fiction Novels. Number six. I probably reread this novel about every three years. Heinlein was clearly having a lot of fun while he wrote it, and that shows. Copyright 1964. Structurally, it's cleaner than Stranger in a Strange Land; although it lacks the brilliance of the first half of Stranger.

My favorite part is the love story between the old guy and his son's date. I probably like that too much.

Nuclear War. Time Travel. Fascinating family dynamics. A future where the power hierarchy is completely restructured.

There is some "racial stuff" going on that will probably piss off people obsessed with political correctness. But I like the way Heinlein handled it.

Do you like to play Bridge?

@hg47

(And yes, I am guilty of stealing from Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold and sticking background bits into one of my own novels. Can I call it "tribute?")

War is inevitable so a family and friend move into a fallout shelter for the duration. Due to some quirk they come out in another time after the war has finished off civilization, as we knew it. Now prepare for a different civilization.

This book is a classic example of Late Heinlein works as opposed to his early works i.e. "Past Through Tomorrow Future History Stories." However as in any discipline the early product is usually more structured and well inside the curve of accepted norms. You can only carry that so far. Then any artist that is to stand out must experiment and take chances beyond the norm. That is what made "Stranger in a Strange Land" (be sure to read the full length version) so great. What do you do after that? Die? No you ether stagnate or further define your point. I can not tell you which this book does. However it is definitely worth reading.

Farmer in the Sky by Robert A Heinlein

I recently read Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land, liked it, and decided to read some more of RAH's works. So I went to the bookstore looking for The Number of the Beast, the Heinlein I had decided to read. I didn't see it on the shelf, but I did see a book called Farnham's Freehold. As I had never heard of this book before, I took it off and looked at it. The strange cover (as if the title wasn't strange enough) intrigued me, as did the subheading "Science fiction's most controversial novel". Hmmm... Then I read the summary on the back of the book and decided to buy it. And then I read it.
What can I say? I liked the book. But it's not for everyone. It is very light science fiction (but then so are most (all?) of Heinlein's), but the overall story itself is complex. It shows a future world where blacks are the predominant race, and whites are slaves. Lots of other things too; cannibalism, free love (Heinlein for you), racial slurs, and constant reference to women as "sluts". Etc., etc., etc. However, all this is in here for are reason. This book is more satire, than sci-fi. It is a bit like 1984 or Brave New World at times, like other Heinlein works at others, but in the end, definately in a class of it's own.
Don't go into this book expecting to read another Strange In A Strange Land, or Starship Troopers. It's not. It's different. Not something for everyone, but possibly everything for someone.

If you asked a group of Heinlein enthusiast to pick the master's two greatest books, I think that a rough consensus would name "Stranger in a Strange Land" (1961) and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" (1966). Between these two masterpieces, though, Heinlein wrote "Farnham's Freehold" (1964) but frankly, it's a disappointment. Not just that it doesn't measure up to its immediate predecessor and successor; it's just not very good, period.

My main complaints are three. First, none of the main characters are very likeable. The title character is a bit of a jerk, his son is even worse and his wife is an alcoholic shrew. The most sympathetic character dies a horrible death about of a third of the way into the book. Seriously, if Heinlien's point was to show that you can cheat on your wife, terrorize your family with deadly force, kill your best friend and be rewarded for it by surviving the apocalypse, he succeeded.

Second, this is perhaps the earliest example of a tendency that flourished in Heinlein's later books where the whole novel seems to be two separate books spliced together jarringly. The first half of the book seems to be a survival-in-the-wilderness book like "Swiss Family Robinson" (or the author's own "Tunnel in the Sky"; suddenly, and literally within just a couple of pages it's a dystopian novel like "Brave New World" or "1984." Wha' happen?

Finally, there's a ending that can only be described as "deux ex machina." The putative hero finds himself in a terrible fix, how is he ever going to get out of this one? Just a few pages later, everything is made right and the book ends. It makes me wonder if Heinlein himself didn't get tired of writing this turkey.

I won't comment on the major theme of the novel, which is race relations and racism. The book reflects its time; in fact it's best understood in the context of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. To judge it by the sensitivities of a later era seems foolish, so I'll refrain.

Still, the book is not without its merits. It's a Heinlein, and Heinlein was the master of making strange worlds vividly real. The conversation sparkles and the pages, as always, keep turning. Nevertheless, I wouldn't recommend it, not when there are so many better books the author has given us. Someday, if you decide to make it your life's goal to read all of Heinlein's works, read it then. In the meantime, sample the waters elsewhere.

The first time I read Farnham's Freehold, I was too young for it and just tolerated it. As I matured, the novel seemed to get better, because I better understood some of the things Heinlein was saying and doing.

I think most folks today will get turned off by this story. However, it actually is good writing. Some of the points about reverse racism are telling. Actually, the book is more about several kinds of prejudice. Goodness knows that there was a lot of prejudice in the 1940s and 1950s. Some of the other reviewers have pointed to most of what seems to be happening. However, Heinlein's story does have more than one level and appearances can be decieving.

This novel, still (many years later), is not as good as Heinlein's better works. If you are new to Heinlein, start with one of his juveniles.

It had been way too long since I picked up a Heinlein title: "Stranger in a Strange Land" being the last time I ventured into his densely written world 15 years ago.

The book touts that this is "Science Fiction's most controversial novel"...and I can see that since it was written in 1964. However, the disturbing elements of slavery, incest, and cannibalism cetainlty transcend time.

As for the storyline, it is inetersting and well put together. This book seemed to me like two stories in one. The first half could be entitled "The Survivalist Guide After the Complete Destruction of the World as We Know It" and I shall be certain to take this book with me for reference in the (un)liklihood I ever find myself in a bomb shelter or lost in the woods.

The story finally takes a turn halfway through when we are introduced to the inhabitants of this future Earth. The "color war" has taken a turn and now dark skinned folk are the masters and the light skinned people are the slaves. This new world is explained in detail as well as how the caste system works.

Our main characters adapt as best as they can according to their individual personalities. I do not entirely agree that there is nothing to like about Farnham's clan. It is a cross section of the kind of personalities that make up the world: leaders, fighters, followers, cowards, dependants, etc. The strong survive and the weak get sucked into and accept their lot (even learn to like it).

The time travel twist is one of the only features that make this title "sci-fi". Other than that, it can be looked upon as any other interesting work of fiction.

If you can muddle through the first half of the book, dense with dialogue and technicalities that will make your head spin, you're in for a good read. This book will make you think and consider how different a world can be if roles were reversed and democracy was no more.

As this story opens a family is around the dinner table, father Hugh, mother, Grace, grown son Duke, college student daughter, Karen and her friend Barbara while houseboy Joseph works in the kitchen. Soon tensions within the group appear, Grace has a drinking problem, and father and son are at odds. Before the evening is over these problems are overshadowed by a nuclear attack. Hugh has prepared for this and established a bomb shelter where they weather the attack but when they come out they discover not the devastation they expected but a pristine forest. They cope with surviving in this new environment and just as they seem to adapt they are discovered by the owners of the property.

It seems that the blast has sent them to the future, a future where whites are enslaved by blacks. Quickly Hugh grasps that no matter how he attempts to adapt his and his family's future here is bleak. He resolves to escape and discovers that time travel is not necessarily a oneway trip.

This book was written in 1964 and is very much of this time. For anyone who does not remember this period it was filled with tension, threats of nuclear and/or conventional war were and had been almost constant throughout the decade. The premise of nuclear attack, and how a family could survive both the attack and the aftermath were very much considered and debated at the time. In addition to these problems the '60's also had other concerns - racial tensions were high, women were beginning to challenge both their traditional roles and marriage, and the youth vs. age conflict that would appear as the hippie movement of the late '60's was beginning. FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD addresses all of these issues and gives the reader plenty to think about - how far would you go to survive for example. Heinlein, as always, manages to provoke thought. He also has an uncanny talent for predicting future developments, the story is set in Mountain Springs which bears a strong resemblence to Colorado Springs. In the book Mountain Springs was a target due to it's nearby missle base, Colorado Springs became NORAD HQ long after this book was written.

So what makes this my least favorite? It has all of Heinlein's weaknesses and none of his strenghts. The characters lack the sympathetic traits that Heinlein's characters usually have. Hugh Farnham is in many ways an earlier version of Lazarus Long but lacks his mischievous and endearing traits. Instead of Lazarus' reflection of humanity, 'warts and all', Hugh comes across as overbearing and obnoxious. The other characters never emerge as more than cardboard included in the book only to serve Hugh.

While many of Heinlein's works leap into the fantastic it is usually so well done that the reader is happy to go along for the ride. In FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD the reader is drug along hoping that things will improve down the road. For example, the reader is supposed to believe that Barbara is a respectable, intelligent, sensitive young woman but that hours after meeting her friend's father is madly in love with him and beginning an affair with him with his entire family sleeping just a few feet away.

If you are new to Heinlein's work begin just about anywhere but here. If you are a fan FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD is interesting for the hints of things to come, as mentioned Hugh is alot like Lazarus, the idea of traveling in time and/or to alternate universes returns in THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST, TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE and many other works, as the themes of group/open marriage, incest and cannibalism. Happily Heinlein handles these and other controversial subjects much better elsewhere.

Is this science-fiction's most contraversial novel? I'm not sure if I could call it that, there's plenty here to raise eyebrows but I can probably think of three or four SF books that exacted the "contraversial" feeling from me more than this book. It's typical Heinlein and if you just left it at that, longtime Heinlein fans would probably know exactly what I was talking about. For those not so blessed, let me explain then. Heinlein generally takes an idea that's a little on the edgy side (here blacks taking over the world after the whites wipe themselves out) and runs with it, having his characters functioning as little more than mouthpieces arguing his points over and over. If you're into it, you'll forget the lack of extensive plotting and delve into the idea . . . if not then you've got a hard road in front of you. Farnham and his family take cover in a fallout shelter to avoid a nuclear war . . . the resulting war somehow propels them two thousand years into the future where the Chosen race (guess who?) has taken over and all light skinned folks are used as slaves (among other things, but you'll discover that when you read the book) . . . Farnham gets dropped into this and being the practical self made man that he is, adapts himself while thinking of ways to get out, while Joseph, a young black man who worked for him, sees little problem is taking advantage of the situation, while remaining essentially decent (sort of a "shoe is on the other foot thing" but Heinlein wisely stays away from too much of that line of thinking). They are about the most well rounded characters, though Farnham is a typical Heinlein protagonist, always thinking, uses his wits, an unshakeable core of his own morality, stuff like that. Joseph is much the same way. The women fall into two catagories, either simpering useless wimps (Grace) or mindnumbingly devoted sex kittens, smart and loyal. Right. Some of the stuff shown here will definitely make you wonder how much he believed in and how much was pure shock value (and it wouldn't be a Heinlein book without a discussion on sex, this time revolving around incest, but I'll let you discover that one for yourself) but overall it's a swift tale that contains a bunch of ideas that are worth thinking over, mostly how slavery is bad no matter who does it, among other things. Gear yourself up for it before you read it, because he's not going to make it easy, keep your head above water and you'll make it through, it is a strong novel and not one of his absolute best but maybe strong enough to make the second tier of greats.

That seems to be Heinlein's philosophy. Let's make it hot as Hades, and keep stressing that they all have to get naked, and the dirty old man (a stand-in for H. himself) can immediately have sex with his daughter's friend!

(Maybe my Kindle version was missing something, but the sex was represented suddenly and entirely by a few lines of oo's and ah's, After which, miraculously, they both state they love each other.)

That didn't bother me as much as the character's own daughter telling him she'd mate with him before she would the single, non-related male character.  I don't believe Heinlein had any children, thank goodness.  Maybe he was attracted to his own mother.  Or father. Who knows.

Nonetheless, I kept turning pages happily enough.

This book was really hard me to get through I don't know about the rest of you. This book is a fine illistation of how well some of Heinlein's idea have transfered over into the 21st century (moon is a harsh mistress).

Others simply have not (Farnham's Freehold). I really didn't like where the book wound up for the vast majority reads like a sort of Turner Diaries in reverse only this time with the black men on top but than suddenly at the end of the book the main charecters are suddenly forgiven all of their transgresions and its back to square one. In the end the book really doesn't make any kind of sense and too otp it all off the book is almost drianed of the author's usual good humor and wit. Therefore it was really no fun for me too read.

Overall-The author wrote this book for two reasons Either he was trying to make a vast social statment to white people about the shoe being on the other foot someday and that us white poeple had to change our ways.

Or he just really hated black people I honestly don't know. I do know that nothing in this book inspires me to read it over and over agian ike I have done for practically all of Heinlein's other works that I have read.

This book was a quick paced, fast read, but not Heinlein's best. The main characters aren't particularly likeable. Hugh Farnham is an arrogant, bellicose bully, his wife is a middle aged idle lush, son Duke is an equally arrogant, racist mama's boy, and little Karen wants to make Daddy her partner for procreation. Barbara is somewhat likeable, although she comes off a bit trampy, and the houseboy Joseph is about the most decent guy in the household/fallout shelter. The basic plot of the book is that nuclear war between the USA/USSR destroys most of the population in the Northern Hemisphere. Over generations, the darker skinned races of Africa and South Asia gain power, creating a matrilineal society where whites and lighter skinned races are slaves. RAH made some keen observations in this book, the one I liked was a reference to black peasants and small farmers known as "poor black trash". Just as "poor white trash" were in economic competition with slaves and black freedmen in the antebellum/Jim Crow South, so poor black farmers compete economically with white slaves in this future. This book was written in the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War. Reading books such as this and "Tramp Royale", it becomes clear that Heinlein was always a man of his time. This was an enjoyable book, would have liked it better if the main characters weren't as repugnant.

Submitted for your approval... one Hugh Farnham, the slightly henpecked patriarch of a typical "Father Knows Best" 1950's family. He is a man ridiculed by his loved ones for building a basement bomb shelter and endlessly scanning newscasts for any signs of Commie aggression. But when the Reds drop the big one right in Uncle Sam's backyard, Hugh and his clan, his house boy and daughter's friend Barbara, gets more than some radioactive fallout. They are transported into a future dimension where the Africans rule and all others are slaves.

Flat pros, one-dimensional characters and stiff dialogue keeps this flight of fantasy earthbound. Some might be shocked by its treatment of sexuality in a post apocalyptic world, others by its depiction of racial stereotyping.

This is not one of Heinlein's best works, but it does touch on some interesting viewpoints regarding racism, prejudice, and slavery. In part, many of the attitudes are now rather outdated, which is not to say that these issues don't still exist, but that they are more subtle and invasive in nature.

The characters are painfully shallow, but then I've met some painfully shallow people in my lifetime. Also, this is not a work about human nature so much as about exploring one specific set of human dynamics.

The story starts off with a cold-war-era family, bigoted and fairly ignorant of it, complete with black family servant. They are thrust into the future unexpectedly, only at first they believe themselves to be the only survivors of a disaster.

During this part of the book, Heinlein explores how some people will attempt to hang onto class distinctions past the point where it makes any sense. (We may be the last persons alive, but I still won't marry someone beneath me...) The struggle exists between what is practical and what was considered socially acceptable in the past, and how the two ideas don't always coincide.

Then the characters meet 'civilization' as it appears in this books, as blatant slavery, racism, and sexism. Whites have become no more than 'animals' and blacks now rule over them. Thrown into such a rigid caste system, some of the characters easily fall into the beliefs patterned by this new society. The once mild-mannered black servant slowly becomes a bigoted master who justifies his revenge on the white mistress that used to constantly torment him. The former white mistress (who, thoughout the book, is entirely racist and self-centered) falls into the slave-viewpoint of 'freedom is not as important as living a life of ease'.

Heinlein then tacks on a watery ending just to keep the reader happy. Worth reading, provided you can keep an emotional distance from the controversial subjects and study some of the lifelike interactions between the characters. That shouldn't be too hard, since the characters aren't very lively thoughout the entire book.

The year is 1962, U.S./U.S.S.R. tensions are running high, and Hugh Farnham is all too aware of it. In the face of mocking by friends and family, Farnham has excavated and stocked a bomb shelter in the back yard of his Colorado mountain home. On the night in which the story opens, Hugh has been using a transistor radio with an earphone to listen to ominous news items out of the Kremlin as he plays bridge with his son, daughter, and daughter's friend. Their game is interrupted by a red alert, and Hugh, the young people, Hugh's wife and his black servant race toward the shelter. As they seal themselves in, thermonuclear weapons buffet them. With the shelter's temperature rising rapidly, his wife in an alcoholic stupor and everyone else sleeping under sedation, Hugh turns to Barbara, his daughter's friend, for a little comfort, but their lovemaking is punctuated by a direct hit from an H-bomb.
One would think that the story would end right there, but it does not. Farnham and company survive and emerge, strangely enough, into a pristine wilderness. Heinlein treats us to one more of his well-done survival stories, detailing how the Farnhams stake their claim and improve it by living off the land and farming with the supplies that Farnham has so wisely stocked the shelter with; but that is not the whole of the story; it also deals with questions of marital strife, child rearing, personal integrity, competency, racial relations (most definitely that) and even slavery and cannibalism. Farnham's Freehold might have been told at novella length, but Heinlein deals with quite a few issues here, and fleshes out the post-nuclear wilderness episode in great detail. He takes the time to write movingly of several events and, in the latter third of the book, he describes a whole new society radically different from our own.
It bears mention that Heinlein and his wife lived in Colorado Springs at the time and also maintained a bomb shelter under their mountainside home. During the early 1960s, the threat of nuclear war was especially evident, and government brinksmanship and civil defense loomed large in the public mind: Conelrad, public shelters, `duck and cover,' the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev saying, "We will bury you." True to form, Heinlein holds forth in Farnham's Freehold on issues of consuming importance to him, cleverly clothing it all in fine entertainment. ~~~Beth Ager

After a bomb warning screaming from the Farnham household television, the family, along with their servant and a friend of their daughter's, rush down into their bomb shelter. They wait in fear at the world they will find upon emerging, but when they finally open the shelter, are amazed at the beautiful untouched world around them. After some adventuring, they find that they are in the same place as when they began, but the land remains untouched by human developement. They are seemingly alone in the newly beautiful world and become adapt to being self sufficient. Together, they plan to start a new civilization, until one day they are discovered. Taken and enslaved in the 'new world' where people of colour become the ruling class and the anglo's the slaves, they find that they somehow had been catapulted into the future. This new world is a place where people are born into certain classes, their futures being determined by birth. Much like the world we live in today, the people accept their places willingly and never question their status. Hugh Farnham, however, see's the injustices of this new world and devises a plan of escape. Although I'm not a huge science fiction fan, I really did enjoy 'Farnham's Freehold'. Heinlein weaves a clever little story with this book, and throws in a few neat twists at the end. Covering the issues of race, governing politics, and those of gender, he comes up with a really creative tale that is accessible to a wide audience. It's really worth a read.

This and Glory Road were the last two Heinlein novels I really liked. Afterwards Heinlein changed his style and many would agree not for the better. One problem with this book is that it does not flow as well as his earlier works partly because Heinlein takes up too many pages with thinly disguised preaching about society and how it should be run. Bear in mind that Heinlein was essentially of the Campbell school of thought about science fiction: take an idea and derive its logical conclusions and consequences and present them in story form. But no matter how one tries, when the subject is about economics, society, and people rather than about physics, chemistry, and engineering, personal opinion and bias is bound to creep in. The bias in this book shows very clearly that Heinlein, although progressive in some areas of thought, was definitely a prisoner of his time in others.

Normally I don't like rating a book based on "I liked it" or "I didn't like it," but in this case I made an exception. All the pieces of a good book are there, but they don't come together.
It's the story of a man and his family (plus a couple more along for the ride) who are vaulted into the future by a nuclear blast. In this future, dark skin = superiority (i.e. black africans, dark Indians, etc.) and light skin automatically makes you a member of the servant/slave class. Back in the mid-60's, this would have been an uncomfortable (and/or controversial) setup. This aspect kept my interest, but when you strip away the controversy value, there's little left to recommend this book.
Hugh, the main character (and patriach of the family) seems to alternate between extreme (at the time) liberalism and right-wing militarism, as required by the plot. The other characters are barely developed at all. The science is never explained (although, that's not the point of the book, so it's probably better that way).
Overall, I'd have to say I'm dissappointed. Certainly, this is a better book than many of his juvenile novels, but it's far inferior to his other adult works, in my opinion, and hence the 2-star rating.

First half: A family plus a few extras go into a bomb shelter and are saved from armeggedon. But when they emerge from the shelter they find themselves in a strange land with no other people. Not sure where they are, they begin to form a civilization and set upon the road to the propegation of the species.

Second Half (and just when I was getting into the first half): some "Chosen Ones" of a futuristic civilization show up and make them all slaves, with the exception of the black man, because he is a "Chosen One" too. (based on his skin color) Now the story is about a man trying to rescue his family from opressors.

I liked the first half, and the second was ok, but they don't work that well together. For me, this is sort of typical of Heinlein. For a comparison, check out "Stranger in a Strange Land." Starts out one story and changes completely. Of course Heinlein also uses the book as a platform to preach his societal ideals, which could be called his trademark. And, for good measure he throws in some cannabalism. (This is another good comparison to "Stranger in a Strange Land", in which Heinlein basically endorses cannabalism.) For me, its 3 stars, not his best but not a bad read either.

It's the 1960s and World War III has started. The release of energy from a nearby atomic bomb explosion hurls the occupants of a bomb shelter into an unknown time and place. The survivors, two men and two women, are left to fend for themselves and build a new life with only the few things they have in the shelter and what they can find in the wilderness. Without giving too much of the plot away, this `wilderness' is actually the private land of a technologically advanced humanoid race. This book address two distinct, primary themes: wilderness survival in the first half of the book, and personal freedom (and the master-servant relationship) in the second.

This is an entertaining read, but it is far from Heinlein's best. There are some glimmers of EH at his best. For example, it is clear that EH thought a great deal about what should and should not be contained in a bomb shelter, and what it would really take to returning to `living off the land'. Some interesting suppositions for us modern day, high tech, world-wide web connected folks that hopefully we'll never have to actually get serious about. The first half of the book is definitely the stronger of the two sections, however. EH often explores issues related to government, personal responsibility, and the relationship between the government and the governed in his writings, and this book is no exception. In the second half of the book, the protagonists are captured and EH explores the relationship between them (the protagonists) and their somewhat benevolent captors. The issues that EH raises, and the manner in which he raises them, are really facile and cliched, though, not something that most readers are likely to identify with. No profound or eternal insights are ultimately provided, and the story degenerates into a not particularly memorable escape/evasion narrative. A nice twist at the end though.

This is a decent, moderately entertaining novel. It certainly lacks the gravitas of EH's finest works. I rate the first half at four stars, the second at two, for an average of three stars. Certainly not a waste of money, although this is not a novel that most readers are likely to read more than once in their life.

Clearly one of the most controversial novels by Robert A. Heinlein (author of Starship Troopers, Space Cadet, Stranger In A Strange Land, The Puppet Masters, etc.), pushing the envelope of political correctness a quarter of a century before that phrase was coined.

A typical American family is plunged into the future in a nuclear attack - bomb shelter and all. Survivalism is just the beginning of this engrossing novel; the strange society they discover in the future challenges the reader's sense of decency and tolerance.

A short version of this novel, as cut and revised by Frederik Pohl, appeared in Worlds of If Magazine, 1964. It's easy to see why Pohl censored it; this is the full text. But to call Heinlein racist absurdly ignores his whole body of work - some 30 other novels. This novel explores ideas - including cannibalism; but no one has called the author a cannibal.

I have to agree with many of he previous reviews that the characteres were highly one dimensional and not very likable. Also, the two halves of the book are two wholly distinct and separate story lines. It does not make for a well-designed plot. Ironically, although I would call this poor writing, it does come at a critical point and saves the book. I was just beginning to loose interest in the story when it became a completely different one.

What distrubs me most about this book, however, is the reactions of the readers. It appears, to my horror, that there are many people who disliked the book because they saw it as racist, and worse!!!!! many who LIKED it BECAUSE they thought it was racist!

We have a bit of confusion here. This is not a racist story, but certainly one which explores the subject. Writing a book ABOUT something does not make the author automatically FOR it. It is possible to study WWII and not be a Nazi. Really.

In my opinion the story's greatest merit is the exploration of racial relations and how morals are tied to the structure of a society. My first Heinlein, and I think that was a mistake. It does have the potential to turn off readers. Fortunately I am stubborn and decided to research the author before giving up on him. I think now that the reviews of his other books warrant some more Heinlein reading.

I won't bother repeating the plot of the book, as many others have already done so.

I have read most of Robert Heinlein's books, and although Farnum's Freehold is far from his best it is memorable with typical several typical Heinlein characters. The father is the self sufficient, thinking "hero" who does not have to be perfect, the mother a traditionalist with no original thoughts, the friend a younger, female match for the father, etc.

This book is from the early 1960's, and should be judged for the time it is written. I have the advantage of having read the book closer to its original publication date. Many of the ideas were new at the time - the idea of the reverse slave society, the time travel due to some extreme event - these are all being done again and again by current authors (think some of Turtledove's stories, and Flint's "1632" and its sequels). They might seem hackneyed now, but let's remember who came first.

Many think of Heinlein as sexist, but little could be further from the truth. His frequent use of strong female characters was way ahead of its time, both in and out of science fiction. Yes, he shows some of the stereotypical weak female characters - but usually as the antithesis of his strong, female heroines.

I picked this book up in the store because it looked interesting... then didn't put it down again until I'd read the whole thing three times. Heinlein became one of my favorite science fiction authors as a result. A futuristic "What is the world coming to?" type novel that can be likened to "1984", "The Handmaid's Tale" or "Brave New World", Heinlein puts his own spin on things, and it's decidedly more human than some of the afore-mentioned books (although I love them all dearly). Intelligent and sometimes downright astounding, the character relationships are much more clearly drawn and developed than in your standard run-of-the-mill pulp sci-fi that gets pumped out by the publishing machine. If you read one Heinlein, this should be it, although I am not knocking "Stranger In A Strange Land". While I have not found any of RAH's other works to live up to the standard he set for me with this one, I would still highly recommend trying any of his works.

Reading over how polar the reviews here tended to be, I had to revisit my own opinion, and the book came up a notch.

Heinlein is one of my favorite authors. As a teen, I was influenced greatly by one concept in 'Starship Troopers': the concept that to have any potential to be a good leader one has to serve first, and not necessarily in the armed forces. Over time, there were many other nuggets of philosophy I've gathered from his novels. Not every concept, mind you, but several. 'Farnham's Freehold' is devoid of anything like that.

All in all, I found the book a bit over the top and one dimensional as some here have said. However, looking over all the controversy that continues to this day, and all the varying opinions of the characters, especially the main character, I'd have to call this a success for Heinlein. To cram so much controversy into a thin novel and make it at least passably readable is actually an achievement.

My greatest problem with the book has been and is still the ending. Let's get into the leader's mind here: "I'm going to send my worst enemy, who is at my mercy, back in time, making him promise to leave me a message telling me he got there and my experiment was a success." Yeah. Most despots would have never even spoken to him, just executed or castrated him and be done with it. As I say, over the top, and a bit contrived.

It's a funny thing to say about a novel that features incest, racism, slavery, ritual cannabalism and nuclear holocaust, but Farnham's freehold is Robert Heinlein's best novel of his entire career. Even now, this book is full of shocks and surprises. When it first came out, it was a shot heard round the world. Some people see it a protest against the arms race. Others say its more about the early civil rights movement. I think both of things are true, but most of all its great storytelling. Farnham's freehold starts out slow for all of fifteen pages and then you know what hits the fan. Then the book takes three or four wild turns, all of which are hold perfectly to the logic of the story. What's best is that the good guys are a little bad and the worst bad guys are a lot of good if you look through their eyes. This book is Heinlein's best even if its overshadowed by more popular titles.

Farnham's Freehold (1964) is a standalone SF novel. It is initially set in the Cold War era.

In this novel, Hubert Farnham is a former Navy man and a jack of all trades. Hugh is married to Grace and has two children. He has become wealthy through his own efforts.

Grace Farnham is Hubert's wife and the mother of Duke and Karen. She is a homemaker, but enjoys the wealth of her husband. She has become a lush.

Barbara Wells is an unhappily married woman. She is a student at the same university as Karen.

Joseph is a servant in the Farnham household. He mostly takes care of Grace, but is also the handyman.

In this story, Karen has brought Barbara home with her for a visit. Duke is also dining with his parents that evening. During the meal, Duke accuses his father of frightening Grace by listening to an emergency band radio. Barbara sides with Hugh and mentions that she has a survival kit in her car.

After the meal, everyone but Grace sits down to an evening of bridge. But their casual evening is interrupted by a nuclear attack. Hugh sends everybody downstairs to the bomb shelter. Then a nuclear bomb hits nearby.

A battery operated radio on the wall is knocked out of its fixture and is broken to pieces. Hugh mentions that another radio is available in the supplies. Duke demands that it be unpacked so that they can hear the emergency bands.

Hugh refuses, but Duke persists. Hugh tells Duke that the party is operating under lifeboat rules, meaning Hugh is Boss. Then Hugh tells Duke that he can leave if he cannot abide by Hugh's rules. Duke agrees to cooperate, but does not agree to obey Hugh's order.

Hugh calls a condition seven and Joseph gets out a submachine gun. He points it a Duke and waits for Hugh to give the order to shoot. Duke is convinced that Hugh would have him shot, so he agrees to obey.

Hugh points out that promises made under duress are not binding. So he asks for Duke's parole. Duke agrees to the parole and Hugh gives him an automatic pistol. Duke gives it back.

Some uncomfortable time later, another nuke goes off further away. Their attempts to receive anything on the other radio are futile. Then still another nuke goes off, seeming right over their heads.

For some reason, the shelter is cooling off. Apparently the firestorm had died down. They try to go out the main door, but it is sprung. So they use the escape tunnel.

The area around the shelter is virgin forest. They shoot a deer close to the shelter. The water from a nearby creek is not radioactive.

This tale puts the Farnham party into pioneer mode. They start a garden and even level the shelter. Then the natives appear.

According to the introduction, this story is a satire. I originally read it as a straight adventure story with sophisticated side issues. It was written shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis, so the story was appropriate for that timeframe.

The issue of survivors of a nuclear armageddon coming from the southern hemisphere appeared reasonable. Even the slavery of white people by the darker Southerners seemed likely given the death counts within the northern hemisphere. The cannibalism situation was not out of line in any culture, including that of the author.

Like all stories by the author, the characters are human. The good characters have some bad in them and even the bad characters have some good in them. Characters are always capable of doing the unexpected.

But Heinlein never limits his novels to one story. There are other themes lurking within the background. Virtually every novel and many of the short stories contain a distorted reflection of our own culture.

This story also presents a heavy handed message of preparation for all obvious dangers. Take out reasonable insurance for all known risks. Farnham built a shelter because the obvious risk of nuclear war. Even though it would not protected them against a direct hit, it could have saved them from a lesser blast.

Highly recommended for Heinlein fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of survival planning, cultural conflicts, and persevering humans. Read and enjoy!

-Arthur W. Jordin

I love this book. It starts with a man who is hen-pecked by his wife and tortured by his son. It ends with that same man being the consumate freedom fighter and survivalist.

Farnham goes through several changes that we openly see: party host to bomb shelter manager to prisoner to rebel to freeman. Then there are the other changes we read about but don't realize until they are thought about later: father, widower, master, slave, lover, and even everyman.

As with all of Heinlein's books, the story is good. It has enough action to keep one riveted and holds enough future events to kee sci-fi junkies happy. But, it's the way he pulls the reader into the story that makes it more than just a tale. It becomes easy for the average reader to compare himself with Farnham. This is not a superhero but a man who is willing to make choices when they are required. Farnham makes us think about they way we treat others and helps us hope we treat them better in the future.

Heinlein's writing of Farnham's Freehold, in my mind has not held up over the years. His characterization of Hugh is very sketchy, on one hand he is preaching about moral and philosophical issues, and then fails to deal with Hugh's loss of a daughter. Emotionally he should have included that, instead of his indignation at his 2nd wife being mistreated by Ponce.

I love Heinlein's early stuff. His later stuff is often preachy with the pacing of molasses in a New England winter. And then there is this.

It's the pacing of the early work, with the preaching like quality of the later, and characters I find it hard to believe Heinlein created.

None of the characters are really all that believable. They are flat and inconsistant in their behavior. Even the Ayn Rand-esque main protagonist seems poorly thought out and tiresome.

The story has many interesting points, and some of the future society ideas are very well done. But the plot that they backdrop is far less interesting. I often wondered where events were coming from. And the ending seemed self-indulgent and disappointing.

I love a great deal of RAH's work, but this isn't one of them.

I love all of Heinlein's book but this is one of my favorites because it's the FIRST of his books I read! It was the beginning of my lifelong love affair with sci-fi -beginning when I was about 9 years old!
This one has social commentary, as all his books have, and stronger and smarter people who make their own destiny rather than going along with the crowd!

That's what I told the guy who gave me this book by the time I got to chapter three. And it only went downhill from there.

Conceptually it's a good story. A fairly average household of that time, plus one guest, live through a nuclear attack and end up in a very foreign world. You can get the gist of the story from other reviews.

The problem with the book is two-fold.

Firstly, the characters all fall nicely into various stereotypes and they carry out those stereotypes perfectly. When different situations come up, they all act exactly as they would be expected to from the very beginning of the book. I'm not even sure that Hugh Farnham would have been seen as a mold breaker because there were certainly plenty of non-racist White men at that time.

Secondly, I take issue with certain aspects of the future world. I don't want to go into details because I want you to have the same shock I had when reading it. But I will say this, certain things are too convenient, certain things are blatantly unnecessary, and one conversation in particular between Joe and Hugh is completely unrealistic.

That said, the book is worth reading because the situations that this group of people perpetually end up in are completely unexpected even though their reactions to them are.

I was turned on to Robert Heinlein about a hundred years ago way before I was a teen ager. He had such a deft touch with character development that you could visualize him in your minds eye. This story with its time travel element was a mind blower to me, and I remember when I read it for the first time that I read it in one mad dash. Robert has never failed to satisfy his readers and Farnham's Freehold is no exception.

I don't even know where to begin or how to describe this book. Part cold war I built a fallout shelter in the basement, part time travel, part survival (conservation), part life in the future. Some very interesting thoughts about revisionist history, religion, freedom, self reliance, and cannibalism. I read it over the weekend, quickly.

A sign I liked:
Farnham's Freehold Trading post & Restaurant, Bar
Free Kittens
Any book accepted as cash
Warning:
Ring Bell. Wait. Advance with your hands up. Stay on path. Avoid mines. We lost 3 customers last week. We can't afford to loose you.

I have read a few of Heinlein's works and am still on the fence about how I feel about him. The book does have some interesting points; time travel, African ruled future, and some survivalist fiction in the middle. However there were some aspects that I found to be off-putting. I did not care for some of the sexual undertones. It seems like the old guy ending up with the young girl is a favorite of Heinlein's. I could also do without the constant references to card playing. Overall, I felt it was worth reading, but not at the top of my list.

Yes, this story gives good and bad. For the good you have a conservative older man who builds a bomb shelter to attempt to save his family from being destroyed in a nuclear war with Russia. The concept is not new although he was writing about it before it became a popular storyline. The bad news is that he begins to discuss 'deviant' sexual behavior, primarily when his adult daughter admits to the main character 'Hugh' that he was welcome to have her sexually. Now he of course declines but the very discussion was repulsive, they were of the belief that the small band of survivors were the only people to survive but still! If you and your daughter were the last 2 people on earth I would hope her virtue would be safe. What kind of mind thinks of such awful things? As a story FREEHOLD was quite good and I recommend it. Just beware that it has some odd mores exhibited within. I do recommend this novel but some of his later works tend to be sexually twisted.

Reading other reviews of FF surprised me by showing RAH "fans" that didn't understand the concept of "lifeboat rules". In a lifeboat, there has to be one captain who imposes STRICT discipline for the group to maximize its chances for survival. There isn't time for democracy. AFTER the action slowed down, Hugh's "bullying" stopped. Hmmm. . . RAH looks at the REAL bottom line - survival. ALL political and economic ideologies, rights, etc. MUST take a back seat during times when the fertilizer hits the fan. I do not recall RAH saying Hugh bedding Barbara was for the good of the world. He DID say that, given the number of people involved, one more set of genetic material increased the group's chances of survival. IT DID! Even a cursory study of genetics will demonstrate this to be factual.

A good book about a post-apocalyptic future written by a great. The society the Farnham's encounter after a nuclear war is disturbing to say the least. The heros are not always heroic and the ending is somewhat dry. I guess what I mean by Hugh not being that heroic is that he is a cut-and-dry realist. He does what's necessary and will cut loose a family member if the situation requires. It's a "top of the food chain" type world and Hugh is gonna survive. Good for the average reader. Of course, a must for Heinlein fans.

JK

I'm a big fan of Heinlein in general -- both pre- and post- "Stranger in a Strange Land". I've read nearly all of his novels, and enjoyed them all -- except for this one. I had a problem with how unlikeable the "hero" was and how unrealistic his interactions with the other characters were. Usually I like character motivation and behavior to flow with the plot more realistically, even in fantastic situations like science fiction novels. That didn't really happen for me with this book, though. The "hero" seemed to be there more as a mouthpiece for a political philosophy, and that kind of soapboxing by an author often overshadows the story itself. It certainly did in this case for me. I wouldn't recommend this as your first Heinlein novel.

If you are only going to read one Robert Heinlein book read this one. If you're only going to read one sci-fi book, read this one.
This book has a very moving story and characters so interesting and human it made me cry.
The story focuses on Farnham's family. Living on a farm, they survive the 1960s nuclear holocaust trapped in a bomb shelter, only to awaken in an earth reborn anew, then to be abducted and taken to a planet of the apes like civilization. The saga of the family's survival through one disaster after another provides a very moving drama of family and curage.
I cannot recomend this book enough.
Heinlein's writing really flows beatifully. It's easy to see why he's so popular. It's easy reading with hard emotions.

Here we get a Heinlein entering his senior era and lusting through the pages of his novels for sexy young nymphets, dreams of being caught in a post-ww3 bunker beneath his home and shuffled to the future. I'm kind of vague on the plot cuz i read it so many years ago, but this and Door into Summer are the Heinlein books I remember best. This one's not as proselytizing as "Stranger", and made me a laugh a lot more. Heinlein always left me with the impression that he was right, even if he was insane. But apparently he had some kind of fun before the 80s killed him.

Frankly I am SHOCKED at the poor reviews this book recieves.

There are two MINOR complaints I have about this book, one that the son's acceptance of his castration is a little too easy, could have had 2 or 3 sentences that would have made this more believable, either to set him up as a yes man (where he would do anything to get ahead) wich he did not seem to be; or to have him willing to do anything to be with mommy and make her happy (wich he was not when it came to talking about her drug problem etc).

The second minor complaint that I have is that I think the sign at the end of the book could have had more impact and shown the moral of the story or what the characters learned through their experiences more. Such as: books for barter was good but it should have listed other things wich would have underlined the story such as labor/work (underlying theme is that labor is virtue and sloth is evil), Training (self improvement is stressed, the value of knowledge), Durable goods (items saved from pre apocolipse = forthought and planning, Items manufactured post apocolipse = labor and skills) etc. Keep the bridge lessons as a insider joke but they could have had something about Be nice or leave- no intolorance will be tolorated etc to underline the anti racism message. I just feel like he diddnt wrap it all up in a nice polished way and that it was a missed oppertunity.

Ok now onto the positives.

This book is not racist. If you think it is you are completely missing the whole point and I kind of wonder if you really read the whole book. Im going to refute things in list form since there are so many points and they overlap.

people have claimed Racism because-
1. The Dark skinned overlords are Cannibals.
Cannibalism was practiced worldwide in history, and often by caucasians. Look it up in Wikipedia. Not to mention that Cannibalism is sprinkled throughout european mythology. So Yes cannibalism is a metaphor for barbarianism (no pun intended barbary pirates) but that is not nessicarily African or dark skinned barbarism and to assume that they are cannibals BECAUSE they are black is the readers being racist and missing the authors non racist point. He is showing how the Slaves are being treated as livestock. Eating them only drives this point home. Yes its shock value, but frankly its a shock the story needs so that people dont think to themselves "hey, true they arent free men (and women) but is it really so bad? The protagonist starts out (when he is captured) thinking "Ill just play allong for now..." and as things progressively get worse he thinks "ok this is bad but I should bide my time" untill he see's the furthest extreme wich is the cannibalism that shows how he is not just viewed as chattel but as cattle; thats when he finally thinks "I gotta get outta here no matter what happens... death is better than this!" We can accept castration as a outrageous but believable cultural norm for this society, why is everyone so outraged that the author chose cannibalism as a plot device? Plain and simple, people have a view of the stereotypical black boogieman cannibal (robinson crusoe, king kong etc) with bone through nose standing around a boiling cauldron of human soup or chasing the poor innocent white explorer with spears or dart guns to eat them. Keep in mind that this could instead be a aligory for a aristocracy that consumes the lower caste using them up completely with no regard for freedom or human life. Think Vlad the impaler or The Bloody countess, instead of the Cannibal bushman and the racist outcry becomes meaningless. PS people read a Modest Proposal by Swift Im sure you will hate it.

2. The black people are all Muslim, the book is anti Islam!
You need to put this into historical context. This book was published in 1964 the year Malcom x was assasinated. Islam was at that time viewed by many as the religion of the radicalized black extremists. As opposed the ML King message of love the sinner hate the sin of racism, Malcom X had a message of segregation and that White people were inherently oppressive, racist, and evil. The black panthers were predominantly muslim, and much of Africa southern Asia and
the middle east is muslim. It is only natural that the black culture in the story would have a muslim bent. But if you notice the protagonist says repeatedly that they are NOT true muslims, they belong to a bastardization of muslim beliefs and that he himself had read the koran and knew more true phillosophy of Mohhamed than they did and did not think that true muslims would approve of this warped Islam. Also if you read Stranger in a strange land you will see that the Author actually is fond of many religions including Islam and speaks well of it in terms of a idea but that he thinks the people who practice it dont often follow the idea as with all religions. Personally I disagree with the Author, I think all religion is a bad Idea.

3.The book uses the N word it must be racist!

So did Huckleberry Finn wich was why it was burned. The problem is that where the characters use the N word the author is showing that the character in question is either racist, or its the black character talking about how racist people treated him. So in fact by using the N word the author is in fact pointing out racism, and condemning it. Yes the N word makes me wince, part of me never wants to hear it or read it, but I dont believe in rewriting history to only keep the nice shiny happy bits, if I believed that I would be a holocaust denier. As a white person I especially should understand and condemn racism, and without confronting it how would I understand why it was bad? The (black) character Joseph uses the N word in a sentence where he is saying you (white man protagonist) dont understand what its like to be a black man. Nore will we ever if we dont view the horrific effects of racism. The fact that it makes us wince shows us the bitter medicine is working.

4. The black men all rape the white women in the book, showing how the author thinks that Black men are all sex crazed and that white women are more desirable than black women etc. Its perpetuating the stereo type!

WRONG! How could you miss that this is DIRECT mirroring of how slaves were treated in the American South? Decreed to be sub-human but raped by their masters and the idea of a mixed child being abhorrant? This doesnt have to do with black men desiring white women, but as slave women being used for sex and treated as sub human. How could you not get that? Also the castration and the studding and eugenics breeding programs were also a part of American slavery. Its all in your history why dont you see it?

The same arguement can be applied for the lazy arguement, Slave masters are lazy, slaves were always running around trying to be productive. Drugs being a means of control etc. Its all a satire of history.

5. There is no good black character, Joseph character is a uncle tom etc.

No he proves that it is power that corrupts not upbringing. Joseph is a important character as he is the one who transforms the most. In the beginning he is a servant in the truest sense of the word, a free man but Bowing scraping and trying not to give offense. At the end he is the wealthy and powerful man who is willing to use people he called friends as cattle, and takes pleasure at retribution to his former "oppressors" when he gets the upper hand. Heinlein is saying that no one should weild that much power over another man, that even a good man will become a despot given too much control. He also says it when he says that no white man would have been any better if in the same position that the black leader was in.

At any rate this is getting long, I appologise, I can understand those who said it did not have a lot of character development or description, thats Heinleins style and some people dont like it. I can even understand people (kids) who found it boring, some people arent really readers when it comes to more challenging material. But please, please please... stop saying its racist.

Written at the height of the cold war, this is a story of a family who survives a nuclear holocaust to find a world very much different than the one they were in. That's pretty much what you get on the cover. The problem is what happens after the bombs start falling.

The main character is a 60 year old married father of two, how has an affair with his daughter's friend, portrayed as a 25 year old bimbo, with no personality other than that she gushing over a man more than twice here age. Then even though he's still legally married to his wife, he declares this 25 yr old his wife even though they've known each other for 6 months.

So it was hard for me to get into this book, when I didn't care what happened the main characters. The other characters are portrayed as equally detestful.

Instead of critically examining what would happen in a post holocaust world, we are transported to a fantasy land, when a bunch of unrealistic stuff that is gross and where cannibalism and slavery are the norm.

The only reason that I gave this book two stars instead of one is that it is full of surprises, and the reader is always kept guessing what will happen next.

I have read this book several times over the past 15 years and do not recall ever reading that hugh "grabs" barbara and proclaims that "I am going to bed this wench for the good of the human race". I searched for this passage numerous times and was never able to find it. For those whiners who label this book brutal and insulting, deal with it. War is brutal and insulting, so is racism and nuclear weapons, but they unfortunately do exist. My feelings are that this book shows that hard work and self responsibility are not just nice virtues to have around but are important for the survival of the human race. It also demonstrates that racism in ANY form is inherently wrong and could lead to the fall of western civilization.

While reading Farnham's Freehold, I had a terrible time staying awake. The story was so slow, so boring, so many uncalled for words, and I couldn't get my mind wrapped around anything but the thought of a turtle wading through peanut butter. I found myself wanting to suckered punch Hugh and Barbara wasn't far behind, especially if she called him "hon" one more time. I wanted to know how it ended, without skipping to the last few pages, so I devised a plan : read every two pages. After reading like this for awhile, I went back to the skipped pages and noticed that I didn't miss much at all, so I began skipping three, then four pages. This is how I managed to drag myself to the last few chapters and the quite unbelievable plan of the Lord Protector to send them back to their own time. After that, it was pretty much a LOL or WTF moment, up to the end.

I am a sucker for any type of post-apocalytic story. Farnham's Freehold is this type of story. I really liked this book and also disliked it at the same time. Hugh and his family; wife, son, daughter, servant and a friend are caught by a nuclear surprise. They survive in Hugh's shelter; and are catapulted to a world in the future where all 'white' society has been obliterated, and black rule over whites. Slavery, studding, torture, castrating and cannabilism are the norm in this society.
These situations are not sensationalized but they are shocking.
Problems with book:
1. Not much character depth: The most truthful characters are Joseph the servant, and Hugh himself. The other characters are as followed: the drunken wife, a mama's boy, a daddy's girl and a sexy friend of daddy's girl.
2. Not scientific. I can buy how Hugh builds a well stocked shelter. I can buy how they got catapulted to the future. I can't buy how only black society survived. Certainly, the Chinese (more technologically advanced than Africa in 1962) or the Japanese would have survived also.
3. Disturbingly written. Cannabilism and torturing are disturbing actions. But they way in which it is written seems to be more shocking than the acts themselves.
Good points of book:
1. Stunningly adroit fable of racism. Slavery has visited every society, including the kinder, gentler and more responsible Masters.
2. Use of drug 'Happiness' to keep slaves happy and docile. Very reminscent Huxley's soma. Wise foreshadowing on how some believe illicit drugs are used to keep down the black man and other underclasses.
3. They way Hugh and Joseph are written. Hugh is over the top, a man who will do whatever it takes to survive while still having a moral compass. Joseph is everyman who is doing what he must to survive. The roles of Hugh and Joseph have flipped. Although Hugh is a fair and loving boss; Hugh does not even blame Joseph when he is placed in a position of authority.
If you read this book as SF you will be slightly disappointed.
If you read this book as a satire you will be impressed.
If this seems dichotomous, I don't care. I said I was a sucker for post-apocalyptic stories.

Reading this book I'd equate to playing tennis on a cold, windy, Saturday afternoon: Yeah, it's fun... but you'd probably rather be doing something else, like reading any other Heinlein that isn't so damn dumb. This book is entertaining, yeah... but then again, so is watching the Brady Bunch. But thoughtful? Original? Insightful? No! If you read to be entertained, then you won't be dissapointed. If you read to be challenged, to think deeper about how the underlying theme applies to YOU (i.e.Lucifers Hammer)... then no, you'll come away feeling same as I.

I read this book first in my early 20's. It was one of my first favorites. I've read it a couple of times since, lost my paperback, and I ordered it as a kindle. Forty years later, it was better than it was then. It is timeless.

I'm giving this one three stars just because there are some interesting speculations in it about the future of a postapocalyptic world (and because I share the lead character's positive view of the United States, as Heinlein clearly does as well). But this one ranks near the bottom of my own list of Heinlein's novels.

For one thing, he wrote this one smack in the middle of his Nuclear Rant Period, and he's very heavily into Soapbox Mode here. This was a time in Heinlein's life when he got (let's put it gently) deeply annoyed at anyone who suggested that massive nuclear buildup wasn't the way to handle the alleged Soviet threat, or that maybe surviving a nuclear holocaust might not be such a terrific thing. (Indeed, he built a bomb shelter at his Colorado Springs home -- _before_ Colorado Springs was anywhere near a likely nuclear target; NORAD didn't exist yet.) His surly attitude (not to mention his tub-thumping sermons about the Benefits of Military Service) informs this entire novel.

For another -- and it's probably a consequence of the first problem -- _not one_ of the characters in this book is even remotely likeable. Joseph, the 'houseboy', is as close as we come to a decent human being, and even _he_ turns out to be sinister and menacing before we're through. It's hard to take sides between Hugh Farnham and his son Duke; the dad's a jerk and the son's a whiny wuss. Hugh's wife Grace is no prize either, and their daughter Karen -- apparently intended to be sweet and innocent -- just comes across as spoiled. And Barbara never gels as a character at all.

For a third thing, even the stuff some readers _like_ about late-period Heinlein isn't well done here. For example, some readers have commented on Heinlein's apparent approval of incest. That shouldn't be news; _all_ of Heinlein's works stand in part for the proposition that moral standards are relative to time and place, and there's quite a bit of (authorially approved) incest in his later works. Nevertheless, _here_ it just doesn't work: in the context of _this_ family (hardly one of Heinlein's freewheeling horny-redheaded-genius open marriages), Karen's remarks to Hugh on the subject just sound out-of-place and weird.

This one belongs next to _Expanded Universe_ on the shelf of books that could well have turned me off to Heinlein if I'd started with them. It's not without merit -- again, there's some interesting social commentary and speculative future history, and I can't fault the patriotic intent -- but for my tastes the merits are far outweighed by the flaws.

When I first encountered Heinlein as a teenager, I agreed with the consensus that he was a great science fiction author. However, each of his works I've read lately make me less and less enamored with him.

Some authors have many stories to tell. Heinlein has two. The first is about the military, which is at the core of almost all of his earlier works. The second, which includes Farnham's Freehold, is about free love, and these later works use the science fiction genre as nothing more than a thin veil through which to explore sex. Heinlein's first novel of this type, Stranger in a Strange Land, was groundbreaking, and absolutely worth the read. As I read more though, I start to see patterns that tell me these novels aren't so much about exploring sex as they are about living out the author's personal sexual fantasies.

Incest plays a major roll in this novel, with the main character's daughter throwing herself at him on multiple occasions. Incest is a frequent plot point in Heinlein's novels, allowed because the only thing that makes incest wrong, according to Heinlein, is that it can reinforce harmful genetic mutations. Since Heinlein's main characters are always genetically perfect, that doesn't matter.

Then there's the most problematic part of Heinlein's fiction, exemplified in this book (though not as strongly as in another work of his, The Number of the Beast). Heinlein likes to develop strong female characters only to have them broken down and dominated by even stronger male characters. What starts out sounding enlightened always degrades. Whether through angry lectures, physical violence or just the woman coming to an unexplained realization that her power, career and force of personality just aren't as important as making babies, the man always wins, and the woman falls to obscurity.

Farnham's Freehold takes that a step further. This time, the male character doesn't only dominate the strong female character, but takes his power trip out on his whole family, even nearly murdering his son for disobeying him. Of course, the son eventually comes around and realizes the flaw in his own modern attitudes of equality and free speech.

Besides all that, Farnham's Freehold just isn't a very good story. It explores racism, but not in any unique or interesting way, and otherwise just takes a good hard (and approving) look at domineering men, generically hysterical women, and the joys of incest.

Even if you have the stomach for Heinlein's obsessions with incest and domination of women, skip this book. Try some of Heinlein's other works. While Heinlein does only have two stories to tell, the quality of his writing is high, so he's still worth reading once or twice.

It's hard to like Hugh Farnharm. He drives his wife to alcoholism, turns his son into a mortal enemy, and impregnates the only woman available to that son in the apocolyptic future. He conveniently gets rid of his old family to start a new one with a much younger woman. His son Duke, however, is a good and moral man, despite often being wrong, but he's wishywashy. It's clear that Duke gets shafted, but it's only because he fails to act. There is a time when Hugh tells Duke that his best option might be to shoot Hugh in the back. It's too bad Duke didn't do it. Hugh Farnham deserved it.

I really enjoyed this one! It appears to be like on of Heinlein's shorts with little to read inbetween the line's. But this has almost as much depth as Stranger or Cat who walks... This is most definatly a must read, both fun and incitefull.

Heinlein wrote some significant books, but tends to preach. Everything worth saying Heinlein said in his early work, concluding with "Stranger in a Strange Land". His early work is interesting and sometimes charming (cf "The Star Beast"). Heinlein is one of the greats of Sci Fi, but would have been more so if he had not written anything after "Stranger". His later work is not worth reading and this goes in particular for FF. Hope it stays out of print.

This book was by far the best book i have ever read. Farnham's Freehold about a man and his dysfunctional family that is thrust forward in time by a thermonuclear blast. This story has no real meaning to it but maybe thats what makes it so much fun to read, it makes u think even if there isn't anything to think about.

This is a fine novel! I'm not sure what these pople are upset about. It seems as though it is the society which he fabricated which seems to turn everyone off... the canibalism etc. I'm not exactly a litterary scholar but I Know when I find somthing that I like. a great book, definitely not one of Heinlein's worst!

I had already read almost every book Heinlein wrote before I got to this one and did not think I would ever find a book of his that I would hate, but this is it. I gave it a 2 for what I thought of as an inspired plot, but pan the rest due to really, really, really poorly conceived characters.

I found the first half almost unreadable. I put it down, decided to give up, then picked it up again and skimmed through to the second part, where the interesting "sci-fi" bit took over.
Some people have a problem with the perceived racism of the book. It is quite shocking when Duke - a major character - starts spouting his racist views. Even the other white characters congratulate themselves with a cosy smugness that they are "liberal" as far as racial matters are concerned.
For me, the two main problems were Hugh Farnham's character and the terrible SEXISM of the book.
Hugh is the most dreadful control freak imaginable. He humiliates his wife and son and demands absolute, unquestioning obedience from everyone. He even goes so far as to threaten physical violence to his wife and to kill Duke. The fact he was so loathsome was why I nearly gave up. He fails to realise that he is at least partly responsible for the way his family has turned out. At the end of the book, he gives up on his "first" family, and abandons them to their fate. I could totally empathise with the hatred Grace and Duke felt for him. As much as I disliked Duke as a racist he was the only one to stand up to Hugh.
The writing is saturated with sexism from the beginning. Even bearing in mind that it was written in 1964, the female characters are weak and dominated by Hugh's monstrous ego. Grace is a pathetic alcoholic and her character flaws are dealt with at length, without challenging that it may well have been her husband who made her like that. Barbara and Karen accept Hugh's tyranny without complaint.
The second half of the book is interesting and thought-provoking. The creation of such a dystopian world could perhaps have been dwelt upon more. It is interesting in its treatment of racial stereotypes and the abuse of power, and the depiction of cruelty and injustice is up there with 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale.
There is no psychological depth or proper character development, however. I realise these things are sometimes secondary in science fiction, but they do not have to be.
Ultimately although the story is interesting (in its second half), the awkward style and dreadful characters spoilt it for me and I would not recommend it.

I thought I had read everything of Robert Heinlein's but just came across this book in the library. I hated it! I must admit I haven't finished it but I am so disgusted at the attitudes, high handedness, and put down of women, that I just may not. I loved the cat, the only decent character in the book. This is definitely not a book that has stood the ravages of time.

I am so surprised that this book ever got printed. At the beginning of the book, there is a part where a girl falls for the neighbor's dad..in a matter of a few hours after being trapped inside their shelter, she professes her love for him and he does for her in a manner that two 8th graders would. For Heinlein to harvest this story beyond the first chapter is confusing and at the same time laughable. The story zips along as if it is contrived of paper dolls and cartoon images. Not a good one, my friends. Not entertaining for a sophisticated reader. I think perhaps a 12 year old might be entertained. But my gosh,...please mom, steer your children onto something with a little meat on its bones.

Farnham's Freehold...What can I Say? Over the decades,I've read almost the entirety of Heinlein's work,but This one put me off like no other. The basic concept for this book is pretty much Heinlein writing himself into a book as the title character. If you've ever read anything about or of Heinlein,you'll see what I mean. Farnham's attitudes and opinions are Heinlein's. It's funny he didn't title it "Heinlein's Freehold".
From Farnham threatening to kill his son if he didn't kiss his ring and declare him to be lord and master,to Farnham throwing his wife away and taking up with-what would amount to in this case-a Kid,the story goes downhill from there. It's a shame that one of them didn't get a hold of a gun and put a bullet in his head. People can pontificate and muse over the "deep social message" etc,but,for all sakes and purposes,this abomination,such as it is,is pretty much rubbish and should never have seen the light of print. Apparently,at the time and day when he wrote this,Heinlein's rep and selling power were at such a high point,the editors didn't Dare refuse this "thing" and tell him what they really thought about it. Again,the triumph of the all-mighty dollar tops them all. Heinlein had So many Other Great novels under his belt-it's a pity he saw fit to publish This sputum and blemish his name as one of the Science Fiction Masters of the Golden Age.

If Heinlein wanted to do a critique of "absolute power corrupting absolutely"- he would have done well to remove the racist and misogynist aspects before he wrote this.

Also, I am not a fan of time travel; it generally does not make much sense.

Both are prominent in this book.

Generally, when I've read Heinlein, he's had 3 characters- multiplied to fill the book: the Geezer, the Stud, and the Chick. I will say that this added the Former Chick, and the Studs were sacrificed on the altar of the Geezer.

The misogyny: Grace (the Geezer's first wife) had an essay about how admirable she used to be, but has "let herself go" by both gaining weight and drinking. Now, our Geezer would frankly drive anyone to drink- and though he admits this, his new Chick gives him a full pass because she thinks he is teh sex0r. Women are not, actually, that stupid. As their relationship coalesces, she gets deeper and deeper into pure admiration of whatever he deals out, and he gets smugger and smugger. Also, he does a fair amount of slut-shaming her- although she does not react- because gods know that ALL the lust must be on the part of the young woman, and not the established man sleeping with someone young enough to be his daughter, literally. Yep.

Also, she becomes pretty much a yes-man for Hugh, and Hugh is totally in the "benevolent patriarch" mode, which wants the best for everyone unless it would make life more uncomfortable for him, in which case "the best for everyone" is OBVIOUSLY the same as the best for him... which is eerily similar to his complaint about the Powers That Be in the black-run future. So It's OK when it's him, but not when it's someone else... While he disclaims this in theory, he also acts it out and preens on it.

I won't even go into the romanticizing of incest- though not acted on here- because it's way creepy and pretty familiar to anyone who has read any Heinlein.

The racism: Heinlein seems to be trying to draw a parallel between American slavery pre-Civil War, and the future version- which not only has the darker-pigmented at the top rather than the bottom, but which is far more controlled and repressive, as witnessed by

1. intentional breeding to make the whites smaller and stupider than the blacks;
2. a far more controlled slave culture without anything like abolitionists; and
3. explicit cannibalism of white people on the part of the black ruling class.

Something more accurately reflective might have made a stronger point.

It was interesting that the most bigoted whites in the book are also the ones who adapted best to slavery for themselves. I am not sure how realistic that is, but it is symmetrical.

And the ending? The "Freehold"? Dangerous to approach! I personally would not want to go to a bar and grill that threatened to kill me before I entered. I'm fussy that way.

Very much a polemic, and not recommended, except as a historical artifact.

For me, one star is generous. I finished the book so I could make sure that it didn't get better. The characters are shallow and have no depth. I enjoy a good apocalyptic novel, but this doesn't come close to any I've read. The Postman, No Blade of Grass, Alas Babylon, Lucifer's Hammer are all vastly superior.

This book had potential with the nuclear bomb transporting the characters to a different time, but didn't follow up on it. Too many bridge references, and I enjoy playing bridge.

Not worth your time.

I found this book a revolting example of white guilt I've ever read. Heinlein has a well deserved reputation for being a disciple of Aynn Rand, and a vehement opponent of Christian morality. He manages to mix all of that witches brew with a puky dollop of mostly unearned white guilt.

Anyone should feel guilty for the bad things that they have done, but to feel guilty over the actions of your ancestors is assinine, especially if you don't, or haven't benefitted from those actions, and then to hold yourself guilty for the actions of some of the members of your race..too dumb for words.

I am pretty tired of the white guilt thing, especially since around 2/3 of the whites who came to America prior to the Revolution did so in chains and were sold and treated with less consideration than that accorded blacks. The Ellis Island wave came to feed the plants and mines of the northern tier states. Ever hear about the national guard using machine guns on striking mine workers when in high school? No? Neither did I, but I did hear about endless black suffering. 2nd hand guilt is worse than cigarette smoke.