Glory Road

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the unrelated 2006 movie, see Glory Road. For an album by Gillan see Glory Road (album).

**Glory Road**

First Edition of Glory Road
Author	Robert A. Heinlein
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel
Publisher	G. P. Putnam's Sons
Released	1963
Media Type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
ISBN	NA

Glory Road is a fantasy novel by Robert A. Heinlein, originally serialized in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (July - September 1963) and published in hardcover later the same year. Heinlein himself reported that the book only took several weeks to write and was a lot of fun, as opposed to some of many other works such as Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, which took several years and were relatively difficult.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Oscar, the protagonist, has been recently discharged from an unnamed war in Southeast Asia. As he ponders what to do with his future, he sits in a cafe in France hoping to win the Irish Sweepstakes. Into his life walks a beautiful woman, Star, who convinces him to embark on a quest to retrieve the Egg of the Phoenix. Along with Rufo, her assistant, they tread the "Glory Road" in swashbuckling style, slaying oversized rats, dragons, and a foe known only as the "Never-Born".

Shortly before the final quest to retrieve the Egg, Oscar and Star get married. After sucessfully retrieving the Egg from a tower whose halls play tricks on the eyes and stairs that appear to go down actually go up and vice-versa, Oscar discovers that Star is actually the ruler of many worlds. Despite her youthful appearance, she is the mother of dozens of children and is also Rufo's grandmother. She has undergone special medical treatments that extend her lifespan many times longer than usual, and has Oscar unknowingly receive the same treatments.

Initially, Oscar enjoys his newfound prestige and luxurious life as the husband of the empress of worlds across the Twenty Dimensions. However, as time goes on, he grows bored and feels out of place and useless. Star tells him that it would be best for both of them that he go back to his own place and time. It will be decades before she completes the transfer of the knowledge held in the Egg, so he returns by himself. Nevertheless, he has difficulty readjusting to his own time despite having brought great wealth along with him. The story ends as he contacts Rufo to go back again to reunite with Star.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Genre and Setting

The novel is unique in that whereas the majority of Heinlein's work is generally classified as hard science fiction, Glory Road is a combination of fantasy and science fiction elements. This fact does not prevent Heinlein however, from infusing his story with the usual level of technical detail. For example, in one chapter the art of fencing is thoroughly described. (Heinlein had been a member of the fencing team at Annapolis [1]). The novel is also notable for its detailed characterization and psychological examination unusual for such a lighthearted novel.

Heinlein claimed to be inspired by the King Arthur stories of past generations such as T.H. White's The Once and Future King or Hal Foster's Prince Valiant. While their influences are apparent, many of the book's themes such as amoralistic heroes and focus on immediate action are highly reminiscent of Sword and Sorcery fiction. The novel also shares many similarities with planetary romances of E. R. Eddison.

Heinlein deliberately doesn't name the war Oscar Gordon was in. It is referred to as a war in Southeast Asia, giving some the impression it referred to the Korean War. However, on the first page, Oscar says "a background of beeping sputniks", which means it can only be 1957 or later, too late for the Korean war, which ended in 1954. Since the book was published in 1963, the conflict can only be the Vietnam War before it was called that, when it was still sometimes referred to as a "police action", or possibly one of a hypothesized sequence of generic SE Asian wars. Gordon actually says that they were "military advisers" in his war and that it wasn't even a "police action". Also, Oscar recounts at one point that he was living with his mother — and therefore presumably of high school age or younger — during the Korean War, a point reinforced on the second page when he say "write us all off as juvenile delinquents, a term rampant in the 1950s. On the first page, he says that it was an election year, and he "couldn't figure out which party to vote against", implying that it was a Presidential election year, i.e. 1960 or 1964 or possibly later. His father was in the Korean War.