Try free for 30 days

Preview

1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Number of the Beast

By: Robert A. Heinlein
Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne, Emily Durante, Malcolm Hillgartner, Sean Runnette, Richard Powers, Tom Weiner
Try Premium Plus free

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $33.99

Buy Now for $33.99

Pay using voucher balance (if applicable) then card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Privacy Notice and authorise Audible to charge your designated credit card or another available credit card on file.

Publisher's Summary

The wickedest, most wonderful science-fiction story ever created in our - or any - time. Anything can begin at a party in California - and everything does in this bold masterwork by a grand master of science fiction.

When four supremely sensual and unspeakably cerebral humans - two male, two female - find themselves under attack from aliens who want their awesome quantum breakthrough, they take to the skies - and zoom into the cosmos on a rocket roller-coaster ride of adventure, danger, ecstasy, and peril.

Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) was the dominant science-fiction writer of the modern era, a writer whose influence on the field was immense. He won science fiction's Hugo Award for best novel four times.

©1980 Robert A. Heinlein (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic Reviews

“One of the grand masters of science fiction.” (Wall Street Journal)

“The most influential science fiction writer of all time!” (Locus)

“[A story] about two men and two women in a time-machine safari through this and other universes. But describing The Number of the Beast thus is like saying Moby-Dick is about a one-legged guy trying to catch a fish.” (National Review)

What listeners say about The Number of the Beast

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    13
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    13
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    14
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    2

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful

I'm a sucker for sci fi adventures and this encapsulates everything I enjoy! Was a delight to listen too

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

A bit too clever

I found all the calculations to pilot Gaye Deceiver too distracting and the final chapter annoying.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Hard on the ear

while the story is excellent, the use of multiple readers makes it a little difficult to follow at times. Male readers pretending to be female and females pretending to be male giving different voices for the same characters was tedious.

Overall I did enjoy the book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Heinlein’s Worst.

I have loved this authors work since I was a teenager. This is probably the first one of his books that I have really disliked. It was bitty and boring and really hard to follow. The readers of the novel were amateurish. Their accents were forced and very poor especially the English accents of the colony on Mars

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

That just went on and on

Weird story. Couldn't always follow it properly, especially at the end. What the hell was that last chapter?! The voice actor/ narrator of the last chapter was terrible, attempting some accents that he wasn't competent with and there were so many characters and it was all voice dialogue so it was hard to follow. Some parts of the story were good.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Why Narrated By A Person With A Lisp ?

Love the book, the lisp, or what seems to be a lisp, made it impossible to enjoy. I gave up after 30 mins, and if anything else I puchase turns out like this, I will give audible the flick

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Slow and Messy

The story wanders and the pacing is all over the place. While the premis is good the execution is poor

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

great book not sure about naration

couldn't get into it because of naration. oh my god it was bad bad bad

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.