Waldo & Magic, Inc.

De: Robert A. Heinlein

Narrado por: MacLeod Andrews

Don't count out the underdog... Two classic short novels by Robert A. Heinlein, science fiction’s Grand Master.

Waldo

North Power Air is in trouble. Their aircraft are crashing at an alarming rate and no one can figure out the cause. Desperate for an answer, they turn to Waldo, a crippled misanthropic genius who lives in a home in orbit around Earth, where the absence of gravity means that his feeble muscle strength does not confine him helplessly in a wheelchair. But Waldo has little reason to want to help the rest of humanity - until he learns that the solution to Earth’s problems also holds the key to his own.

Magic, Inc.

In a world where almost everything is done by magic spells, Magic, Inc., under the guise of an agency for magicians, is systematically squeezing the small independent magicians out of business. Then one businessman stood firm. And with the help of an Oxford-educated African shaman and a little old lady adept at black magic, he was willing to take on all the demons of Hell to resolve the problem - once and for all.

©1940, 1942, 1950 Robert A. Heinlein, © 2003 by The Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust. Introduction © 2014 by Bill Patterson. Afterword © 2014 by Tim Powers. (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Three by Heinlein was my first SciFi book

Waldo and Magic Inc gave me new worlds to explore at 11 years old. My Gateway Drug into what became my favorite genre.

Fun Stories

What can you say, it’s classic Heinlein at his best. Both are a lot of fun.

Audible will not allow it to play

What disappointed you about Waldo & Magic, Inc.?

Audible not letting it play

What was one of the most memorable moments of Waldo & Magic, Inc.?

When I bought it.

What didn’t you like about MacLeod Andrews’s performance?

Do not know have yet to hear him.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Waldo & Magic, Inc.?

The part when audible sends an email to me.

Any additional comments?

I searched Audible's site and found that they limit burning the book to just once. I haven't even been able to listen to the two books that were down loaded.

Imaginative and Pioneering

I was somewhat hesitant to get this book due to the subjects, but I'm a Heinlein fan and Waldo came with high recommendations from friends who'd read it.

It's amazing that these stories were written in the early 1940s. They seem modern, and with just a very few exceptions, stories that might appear in a movie or TV show today.

I found the analysis at the end very interesting and insightful. If you are a Heinlein fan, give these stories a try. You'll see just how far ahead he was of his time.

Maybe some spoilers ahead.

My 1st impression of the book "Waldo and Magic, Inc." is though it was written in 1942, it does not appear to be dated in a way that jumps out at me. I'd say it's great science fiction.


"Waldo" is delightful! This is one of Heinlein's earliest books. In future Novels, where Heinlein mentions the moon, he refers to the moon as "Luna" almost every time. His writing also refers to other planets with the mythological name. One example is when he was writing of Jupiter, he refered to it as being "Jovian". I always found that to be delightful. This book refers to "Lunopolis". Nice to see his writing when it evolves.

Heinlein got some of the details of weightlessness or micro gravity correct, but he also got some details very, very wrong. In particular, I find it quite unbelievable that Waldo could go from being an invalid to living in a space station for 17 years and then to come back to Earth and be able to lift himself on one elbow. We know that when astronauts spend only a few months in space, they can barely walk when they first return to Earth.

Oh well, I'm being a perfectionist about a book written 20 years before the first man flew in space. It's still plenty thought provoking, like Heinlein always does!


"Magic, Inc." was even better! Enjoy 😉

very different

For an RAH story but just as enjoyable as all of his others. It made me smile and think more than once

It was better when I was younger *sigh*

I LOVED this in the 1970s when I was a kid but it was a struggle to get through as an adult. I thought I would rediscover Heinlein afresh after 40 years but what I discover is that the same strong and (to me) mildly offensive attitudes (political, social, sexual) that infused his later work so strongly and made me uncomfortable as a young adult woman are here too in the older stuff, just more subtly. They say you can't go home- too bad...

A young teen might really like these though- Heinlein is endless inventive.

Delightful combo

These are great stories in their own right, the introduction takes it to another level.

The complex world's of science,

Using superstition and magic to create an even reading field for 2 short stories.

I always believe a wise man should glance over his sholder before changing lanes. Glance back in history before making the same mistakes or repeating them.

Heinlien removes science of the 1950s, to tell a good story of science fiction, but needed to remove science fact (still too new in a time line and in scope) and uses magic to replace science fact in electrigal grids, electronics of heated plates in picture tubes, voice coils, amplification, circuit boards, etc… Way, way too new in history to make the magic believable back then. But, he took a gamble with his story (1st of it's kind) and got published - won!

Write a story like that today, it would suck big time! He took a gamble, won!

great presentation of a classic

Imagine if Tesla had finished his power distribution ideas, or ancient magic practice were real and lose in today's world. wonderful material and every bit as fantastic today as when he wrote it.