Panki-Barsoom

In November 1977 Robert Heinlein finished his new book with the working title Panki-Barsoom. When his wife, Ginny, read the manuscript she was a bit disappointed, thinking it wasn’t up to his usual standards. They decided to table it for a while. A few months later on a trip to Tahiti Robert suffered a Transient Ischemic Attack, or TIA that paralyzed his right side. It turned out he needed carotid bypass brain surgery that was performed at the end of April. By the end of May he had recovered and was ready to work again. He decided to reread Panki-Barsoom. He told his friend Yoji Kondo, “it was worse than bad, it was mediocre!” He decided to keep roughly the first third of the book unchanged, but totally rewrote the final two thirds. The book was published in 1980 as The Number of the Beast.

Long after both Robert and Ginny had passed away, a copy of the original manuscript for Panki-Barsoom was uncovered. The Heinlein Prize Trust elected to have it published with the title of The Pursuit of the Pankera in 2020, forty years after The Number of the Beast.

Now for subjective opinion [from THS President Ken Walters], personally The Number of the Beast was never one of my favorites. I found it to be too experimental and in need of a serious edit. The bickering over who was in charge was tedious and the ending was just strange. I found The Pursuit of the Pankera to be more reminiscent of Heinlein’s earlier writing. Much more time is spent visiting Oz, Barsoom and The Grey Lensman worlds. Also, the ending was more straight forward. Of course, your mileage may vary! I welcome your comments and opinions.