Science Fiction Review - "If This Goes On-" by Robert Heinlein

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Anyone reads a fair amount of science fiction has at least heard of Robert Heinlein, one of the top SF authors of the 20th Century. This is a quick review of "If This Goes On-", his first published novel-lenghth story. It was originally published in two parts in the magazine "Astounding Science Fiction", in 1940. Later on, in 1953, Heinlein revised and expanded the story for publicion in his collection "Revolt in 2100." This is a review of that later, revised version. The background to the story is that in the early 21st Century - round about now - an American fire and brimstone-type preacher called Nehemiah Scudder, with a lot of money, his own TV station and the right political connections ran for President of the USA and won. There were no more elections after that. As soon as Scudder had a firm grip on the levers of power, he declared himself to be the First Prophet of God, scrapped the constitution and instituted a theocratic political system. Three generations later, America is still in the grip of this theocracy, with an absolute dictator known as the Prophet Incarnate - the latest in a series of dictators claiming heavenly authority via the spirit of the First Prophet (Scudder). The established church not only controls the government, it is the government. All other denominations, whether Christian or not, are banned and suppressed. The schools and news media promote nothing but government propaganda, and no dissenting opinions are allowed. There's also a persecuted minority group called the "Pariahs", who are kept in ghettoes and sometimes lynched when it suits the government. The Pariah's aren't explicitly identified, but it's likely that they're Jews. Bear in mind when the first version of this story was written. Although it's a totalitarian state, the government isn't all-powerful, and opposing them is a shadowy underground organisation called the Cabal, who we find out more about as the story progresses. The story is told in the first person, from the persepctive of John Lyle, Legate in the Angels of the Lord - an "elite" regiment of the US Army tasked with guarding the Prophet Incarnate and his headquarters in the city of New Jerusalem. By his own account, Lyle isn't the best soldier in the world - he got the position due to his "piety" at officers' training school - "piety" in this society means political orthodoxy. Lyle is the product of a lifetime of indoctrination, believing every thing the church/state has told him all his life, without ever developing any critical faculties. Crucially, he has no experience with women, and the religious indoctrination he has received makes him think that sexual feelings are somehow sinful. At the start of the story, Lyle has only been posted to New Jerusalem for a few months, but he's already starting to feel slightly disillusioned, as he's notice that the place is full of government officials who are involved in petty corruption and power games. He still thinks the Prophet Incarnate himself is a holy man, though. By chance, Lyle forms a friendship with Sister Judith, a newly-ordained "Virgin". The Virgins are a group of women who have been chosen to be personal attendants of the Prophet Incarnate. Judith is just as naive as Lyle at the start, and doesn't understand what her new duties will entail. And when she's called on to serve the Prophet for the first time, she panics when she finds that she's expected to serve him sexually. The Prophet is a sexual preditor and the "Virgins" are his conscripted harem. Judith is confined to her room for displeasing the Prophet, and Lyle - who has developed a full-blown crush on her and imagines that he's in love - enlists the help of his more experienced friend Zeb to try to help her. Things go wrong, and they kill a spy who discovers them, triggering an investigation. Taking advice from Judith's friend (and Zeb's lover) Sister Magdaline ("Maggie"), who turns out to be a Cabal agent, they make contact with the Cabal. Lyle and Zeb are inducted into the Cabal, who make plans to rescue Judith and get her away from the Palace. It turns out that the Cabal is run by the Freemasons, who have become an extremely secretive political organisation since the theocracy was established. The Freemasons aren't actually mentioned by name, but the rituals and terminology are clearly Masonic. The Cabal is so well-organised that they have a functioning Lodge in a hidden room in the Palace's basement, and Lyle finds that there are Cabal agents even among the security staff there. Before the rescue plan can be put into operation, Lyle is arrested and brutally tortured for days before the Cabal is able to rescue him. Lyle is transported to a Cabal base located in the cellar of a department store, and while he is recovering from his wounds he has the chance to start his political education, reading banned books written by political thinkers of the past. He's also assigned light duties proof-reading a legal political magazine which is secretly run by the Cabal - although the articles in the magazine are loyal to the government line on the surface, they are phrased in such a way as to subtly raise doubts in the readers' minds. This is important, because in this future society, applied psychology has become much more of a science than it is now. The regime uses it to maintain control, and the opposition use it to undermine the regime. They even teach "mob psychology" to Army officers. Another thing we learn about the Cabal is that they organise political assassinations, but they're very selective about it. It's so dangerous for their assassins - each one is only expected to survive two or three missions - that assassination is only used against the most competent government officials, slowly degrading the regime by leaving the less competent in charge. Having recovered from his wounds, Lyle is transferred to the Cabal's secret headquarters, and hypnotically fed a set of messages to carry with him. In order to accomplish his mission, he is give a new identity as a travelling salesman and told to carry out his rounds until they take him to a contact who will arrange for him to be taken to headquarters. His first taste of a civilian job, Lyle actually enjoys the life of a salesman while it lasts, but it soons become clear that government agents are following him. Evading capture, he engages in a dangerous journey across America until he meets his contact and is sent to GHQ. General Headquarters for the Cabal turns out to be an extensive cave system, which has been made into a base for the Cabal's military arm, the Free United States Army. There, Lyle is reunited with his friends Zeb and Maggie, Judith having been smuggled out of the country. Although the FUSA is organised as a military force, it lacks trained officers, so Lyle is rapidly promoted to the position of aide to the General, despite his lack of experience. As the story draws near its conclusion, the Cabal decide that the FUSA is now ready to seize power militarily. But there is one problem - although they have been making progress at undermining the regime with their propaganda efforts, the Cabal will not have the majority of the population on their side if they do overthrow the government - and how can you prepare a country for a return to secular, liberal, democratic government if the population is still convinced that the self-styled Prophet Incarnate has the right to rule? Should the Cabal delay the military uprising until the political moment arrives, which is expected to take several more years, or should they seize the chance to take over then work out the political side later? There are two stories in parallel in this short novel. On the one hand, there is the story of the Cabal and how it organises a counter-revolution against what is essentially a fascist regime. But this is also the story of how John Lyle progresses from a thoroughly indoctrinated polital soldier who accepts everything the government tells him, to gradually becoming a free-thining fully human being as the Cabal allows him to be exposed to other viewpoints for the first time in his life, and he's influenced by his wiser friends Jeb and Maggie - although it's made clear that he still hasn't shaken himself of all of his prejudices by the end of the story. The story ends abruptly with some things unresolved - it's not clear whether two major characters are alive or dead, and the political side of the revolution is still being worked out in the background. The first time I read this, I thought it was a flaw, but now I think it's a deliberate artistic decision. Wars don't end neatly, there's always a ragged edge, and unpredictable consequences. This is not generally considered one of Heinlein's major works, but I consider it an intelligent adventure story that makes the reader think. Even though it's expanded from the original version, I personally think it could have been twice the length and still been interesting. I'd like to have seen more about how things work and what daily life is like in this twisted near future Christian Nationalist version of America. 8/10.