I was not planning to review this book. I have read it countless times. Recently, when my grandson asked me to name my favorite book, I named two: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (to give him a more-accessible reference, as I suspected that my answer was going to make it back to a teacher who was not born when Robert Heinlein died) and The Number of the Beast.

“It is not Heinlein’s best work!” is the most generous thing most readers say about it. I don’t claim that it is. I can’t begin to dev...