Time Enough for Love
Robert A. Heinlein
 The book covers several periods from the life of Lazarus Long (birth name: Woodrow Wilson Smith), the oldest living human, now more than two thousand years old. The first half of the book takes the form of several novellas connected by Lazarus's retrospective narrative. In the framing story, Lazarus has decided that life is no longer worth living, but (in what is described as a reverse Arabian Nights scenario) will consent not to end his life as long as his companions will listen to his stories. This story concerns a 20th century United States Navy cadet who rises in the ranks while avoiding any semblance of real work by applying himself wholeheartedly to the principle of "constructive laziness". After the Naval Academy, the protagonist becomes rich by taking advantage of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which paid farmers not to farm their land. Lazarus tells of his visit as an interplanetary cargo trader to a planet with a culture like that of the medieval Middle East (reminiscent of Citizen of the Galaxy), whereon he bought a pair of slaves, brother and sister, and immediately manumitted them. Because neither has any knowledge of independence, nor any education, Lazarus teaches them during the voyage "how to be human". The two are the result of an experiment in genetic recombination in which two parent cells were separated into complementary haploid gametes, and recombined into two embryos. The resulting zygotes were implanted in a woman and gestated by her, with the result that although both have the same mother and genetic parents, they are no more closely related genetically than any two people taken at random. They have been prevented from sexual relations by a chastity belt; but having confirmed that there is no risk of genetic disease in their offspring (described as the sole valid reason against incest), Lazarus solemnizes their marriage and later establishes them as the owners and operators of a thriving business. At the end of the story, he reveals a belief that they are descendants of his own. A short scene-setter written after the style of "The Song of Hiawatha" introduces a planet whereto Lazarus has led a group of colonists now living in a manner reminiscent of the American Old West. Lazarus, now working as a banker and shopkeeper and keeping his true age secret, saves a young girl named Dora from a burning building and becomes her guardian. When she grows up, he marries her, and the two become founders of a new settlement where Lazarus' long life is less likely to be noticed. They are successful and eventually build a thriving town. Because Dora is not a Howard Family member, she eventually dies of old age, leaving Lazarus to mourn her loss. At the beginning of this story, Lazarus has regained his enthusiasm for life, and the remainder of the book is told in a conventional linear manner. Accompanied by some of his descendants, Lazarus has now moved to a new planet and established a polyamorous family consisting of three men, three women, and a larger number of children, two of whom are female clones of Lazarus himself. In the concluding tale, Lazarus, in a quest to experience something "new", attempts to travel backward in time to 1919 in order to experience it as an adult; but an error in calculation places Lazarus in 1916 on the eve of America's involvement in World War I. An unintentional result is that Lazarus falls in love with his own mother. In order to retain her esteem and that of his grandfather, Lazarus enlists in the army. Eventually Lazarus and his mother, Maureen, consummate their mutual attraction before Lazarus leaves for France. While in France, he is mortally wounded in the trenches of the Western Front, but rescued by those with whom he appears in Boondock and returned to his own time. There are also two "Intermission" sections, each some six or eight pages long, taking the form of lists of provocative phrases and aphorisms not directly related to the main narrative. These were later published independently, with illustrations, as The Notebooks of Lazarus Long.