All You Zombies—
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- For the song by The Hooters, see All You Zombies
| "All You Zombies—" | |
| Author | Robert A. Heinlein |
|---|---|
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Published in | Fantasy and Science Fiction |
| Publication date | 1959 |
"All You Zombies—" is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein, written in a single day, July 11, 1958, and first published in the March 1959 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine. (Heinlein originally submitted it to Playboy, but it was rejected.)
The story develops the themes begun in the author's previous story "By His Bootstraps", published some 18 years previous, and involves a number of paradoxes caused by time travel. Since its publication, "All You Zombies—" has become one of the most famous science fiction stories about time travelling. In 1980 it was nominated for the Balrog Award for short fiction.[1]
Some of the themes of this story appear later in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, including the Circle of Ouroboros and the Temporal Corps.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
"All You Zombies—" chronicles a young man (later revealed to be intersexed) taken back in time and tricked into impregnating his younger, female self (before he underwent a sex change); he thus turns out to be the offspring of that union, with the paradoxical result that he is both his own mother and father. As the story unfolds, all the major characters are revealed to be the same person, at different stages of her/his life.
[edit] Narrative Order of Events
The story involves an intricate series of time-travel journeys, making it difficult to describe the exact sequence of events. It begins with a young man speaking to an older one, the Bartender (and narrator), in 1970. The younger is called the Unmarried Mother, because he writes "True Confessions" pieces for magazines about unmarried mothers.
Cajoled by the Bartender, Unmarried Mother explains how well he understands the female viewpoint. He was born a girl, in 1945, and raised in an orphanage. While a fairly ugly teenager in 1963, he (that is, she) was seduced, impregnated, and abandoned by an older man. During the delivery of her child, doctors discovered she had an intersex condition: internally, she had both male and female sex organs. Complications during delivery forced them to give her a sex change. The baby was later kidnapped and not seen again. The now-former girl had to adjust to being a man and surviving as such, despite being unprepared for any job. As a girl he/she had preferred etiquette lessons, hoping to join an organization dedicated to providing "comfort and companionship" to astronauts, known at various times by the elaborate acronyms "W.E.N.C.H.E.S" (Women's Emergency National Corps, Hospitality & Entertainment Section), "A.N.G.E.L.S." (Auxiliary Nursing Group, Extraterrestrial Legions), and "W.H.O.R.E.S" (Women's Hospitality Order Refortifying & Encouraging Spacemen). Handicapped by the physical after-effects of childbirth, he used his secretarial skills to type manuscripts, and eventually began writing.
Professing sympathy, the Bartender offers to top his story. He guides him into a back room, and casts a net over the two of them. This is part of a time-machine. The young man is set loose in 1963 where he dates, falls for, seduces, impregnates, and leaves a young girl; at the same time the Bartender goes forward nine months, kidnaps a baby and takes it to an orphanage in 1945. He then returns to 1963, and picks up the Unmarried Mother, who is just beginning to realize what has happened. As the Bartender tells him, "Now you know who he is—and after you think it over you'll know who you are . . . and if you think hard enough, you'll figure out who the baby is . . . and who I am."
The Bartender then drops the Unmarried Mother, actually his younger self, at an outpost of the Temporal Bureau, a time-traveling secret police force that fixes events in history, such as making sure that a nuclear war is so bungled that it does not destroy humanity. He has just recruited himself.
Finally the Bartender returns to 1970, arriving a short time after he left the bar. He yells at a customer playing "I'm My Own Grandpa" on the jukebox. Closing the bar he time-travels again to his home base. As he beds down for a much-deserved rest, he contemplates the scar left over from the Caesarean section performed when he gave birth to his daughter, father, mother and entire history. He thinks "I know where I came from—but where did all you zombies come from?", possibly referring to his other selves, whose actions he observed and directed, or to his audience - the readers.
[edit] Chronological Order of Events
- On September 20, 1945, the Bartender drops off baby Jane at an orphanage. She grows up there. She dreams of joining one of the "comfort organizations" dedicated to providing R&R for spacemen.
- Nearly 18 years later, the man who calls himself "Unmarried Mother" is dropped off at April 3, 1963, by the Bartender. He meets and after some weeks of dating seduces the 17-year-old Jane, who has an intersex condition. From Jane's point of view, he then disappears.
- Jane becomes pregnant. After giving birth by C-section, she is found to be a "true hermaphrodite" who has been severely damaged by the pregnancy and birth; on waking she learns that she has been subjected (without her consent) to a "sex change" which reassigns her sex to male.
- On March 10, 1964 the Bartender steals the baby and takes it back in time to the orphanage. Jane, now male, becomes a stenographer, and then a writer. When asked his occupation, he replies, somewhat truculently, "I'm an Unmarried Mother. At four cents a word. I write 'True Confessions' stories." He becomes a regular at the bar where the narrator, the Bartender, works.
- On November 7, 1970 the Bartender meets Unmarried Mother, conducts him into the back office, and takes him back in time (1963) to "find" the man who got him pregnant. He returns to the bar, seconds after going into the back room, and yells at the customer playing "I'm My Own Grandpa". From his own point of view he has carried out his mission of ensuring his existence.
- On August 12, 1985 the Bartender brings the Unmarried Mother to the Rockies base and enlists him in the Temporal Bureau.
- On January 12, 1993, the Bartender, who is also Jane/mother/father, arrives back at his base from 1970 to think about his life.
- I know where I came from—but where did all you zombies come from?
- I felt a headache coming on, but a headache powder is one thing I do not take. I did once—and you all went away.
- So I crawled into bed and whistled out the light.
- You aren’t really there at all. There isn’t anybody but me—Jane—here alone in the dark.
- I miss you dreadfully!
[edit] Outside references
- "All You Zombies" is the title of a chapter in the John Varley novel Millennium, a time-travel story which uses the titles of famous time-travel stories as chapter titles.
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Robert A. Heinlein. Grumbles from the Grave. Del Rey, 1980.
- James Gifford. "The New Heinlein Opus List" from Robert A. Heinlein: A Reader's Companion
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- All You Zombies— Full text at UCSD
- Timeline explanation for "All You Zombies—"
- "All You Zombies..." publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
