Books2Movies Club discussion

All You Zombies by Robert A. Heinlein is a science fiction story about time travel paradoxes, that came to my attention only after the movie based on the story, named Predestination, was released.

I saw only the movie - the story I hope to read in the next few days - and I found it rather bizarre and at times unpleasant, especially part concerning the true relation between the character(s)... I guess one should read the story in order to understand the movie, and vice versa.

What are your thoughts of the story, and/or the movie?

An interesting story but one thing that I was confused about was the Unwed Mother and the Bar Tender somehow supposed to be the same person?

Silver wrote: "An interesting story but one thing that I was confused about was the Unwed Mother and the Bar Tender somehow supposed to be the same person?"

Yes, that was the yikes! part - when I read the words, you can't resist seducing yourself.. Yes, you can!! When I saw the movie, I thought it was absolutely mad idea. And after having read the story, I still think so. I simply cannot believe someone would be that crazy. I do not buy all that thing you wouldn't recognize oneself.

I still do not quite get those words, all you zombies - they were mentioned in the movie too, but the reference wasn't clear. Are all the rest of the humankind zombies?

Ps. I absolutely loved Starship Troopers, I had read them I think thrice when I was..er.. younger. But I do not remember, was that book so sexist as this story is? And it was written, what, in late 50s?

In regards to the idea of someone seducing themselves I don't necessarily find it that difficult to believe it could happen if it were somehow made possible. Consider the story of Narcissus is Greek Mythology, he falls desperately in love with his own reflection.

If a person somehow met themselves as the opposite gender I think they could become infatuated with themselves and even deny to themselves that they are one in the same person.

I didn't quite get the zombie line. It was just mentioned in passing as like the last sentence in the story and I wasn't entirely sure what was intended by it. I suppose it is meant to imply that everyone does just go along oblivious to the truth and exist in a zombified state of only considering thier most basic primal needs.

Silver wrote: "I suppose it is meant to imply that everyone does just go along oblivious to the truth and exist in a zombified state of only considering thier most basic primal needs..."

Silver wrote: "Consider the story of Narcissus is Greek Mythology, he falls desperately in love with his own reflection..."

I like your reasoning. Quite plausible ideas. I might dislike that idea of falling in love with oneself, that sounds so weird, but of course, in such circumstances as set in the story, it is possible. The story is all the more tragic for that twist.

Heinlein had a penchant for solipsism as a theme, so I interpreted the ending as Jane being the one and only self-aware being. Everyone else -- the other characters in the story, the rest of humankind, including the reader -- are zombies because they do not know the origin of their existence.

"You really aren't there at all. There isn't anybody but me -- Jane -- alone in the dark."

That's why she misses having the "other" people in the world once s/he realized they are all different manifestations of herself.

As for seducing the opposite gender of yourself, I think it all depends on whether you're attracted to someone similar to yourself, or someone opposite to your own personality...but if we are supposedly all versions of Jane, I guess we would be attracted to ourselves...I need headache powder!

Eve wrote: "Heinlein had a penchant for solipsism as a theme, so I interpreted the ending as Jane being the one and only self-aware being. Everyone else -- the other characters in the story, the rest of human..."

Wow Eve, your take on the story completely makes sense. I would even add, that the question, where do all zombies come from, are her wonderment to the idea, if she came to be so many persons at once, where do all other people come from - are they all manifestations of herself, or of somebody else also incarnated in so many levels... And they are all oblivious of that. Yeah, headache inducing questions :))

For such a short story, this one left my head spinning! I was listening to it (a mistake) and I had to go back and carefully read through the time jumps to even follow the story. The whole thing is a paradox, of recruiting her/himself, creating him/herself in the first place, then ending with him/herself. I barely followed it in the story, I can't imagine trying to follow the movie! Is it worth watching, by the way? I've never seen it.

Just a side note: I hate reading one story out of a collection of them, because I never feel like I have the full feel of it without the rest of the collection (like Stephen King's Different Seasons for example). Now, it appears this story wasn't written as part of a collection but I did find a book of collected short stories of Heinlein's (The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein) and read through the rest of the stories, since he was such a prolific sci-fi writer and I was rather ashamed I'd never read anything by him before. There were certainly some interesting ones in this collection! They are all very different, some more full of realistic science than others, some better than others, but I definitely have to give Heinlein credit for a broad scope of sci-fi imagination. If you get a chance, check out more of his stories!

I'll be writing my review of the whole collection shortly, so I'll post that here, if anyone's interested.

That's why I love this group...we check out stuff I would never even think of reading otherwise :)

Here's the link to the review of The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein in case you're curious about more of his stories:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...