Bruce Franklin put it, “The narrator is the ultimate self-made man, the logical end point of the epoch based on the belief that ‘ I think, therefore I am.'” Where John Connor in The Terminatorand Marty McFly in Back to the Future ended up using time travel to make sure they were born, Heinlein tended to go further, making sure that he conceived himself-sometimes, with himself.

“Zombies” is not only about the paradoxes time travel might introduce into our histories, but the cosmic aloneness that comes with just maybe being the only thing in the whole universe-a common theme in Heinlein’s writing and interestingly enough, one frequently at the center of Heinlein’s time loop stories. You might find, however, that putting all the pieces together yourself can be the source of a lot of the fun (this certainly seemed to be what interested my students most when I used the story in my classes), and in any case, that dizzying intricacy imparts to the story much of its appealingly zany quality-though as is so often the case with stories that go this far over the top, there is a Big Idea here. While in the interest of keeping this review as spoiler-free as possible, I will not go into the details, those who would like a little help keeping it all straight in their heads can find an excellent aid in this chart. “Zombies” is notable for introducing the Time Corps that would figure into many of Heinlein’s stories (and which is an obvious forerunner to the time police who have been staples of science fiction ever since), but what truly distinguishes it is the density and dizzying intricacy of its plotting. As it turns out, he already knows the Unmarried Mother’s story only too well because, much as in Heinlein’s earlier story, “By His Bootstraps,” what follows the curious meeting of the opening scene is a classic time loop story. “Zombies” starts with the character we know only as the Unmarried Mother walking into a bar and telling the barkeep his sad story.

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