Glory Road

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For the unrelated 2006 movie, see Glory Road.

Glory Road is a fantasy novel by Robert A. Heinlein published in 1963. Heinlein himself reported that this book only took several weeks to write and was a lot of fun, as opposed to some of his other works such as Stranger in a Strange Land, which took several years to write and was relatively difficult.

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Discharged from the Vietnam War, Oscar sits in a cafe in France hoping to win the Irish Sweepstakes. Into his life walks a beautiful woman (witch or empress?) who brings him on a quest to retrieve the Egg of the Phoenix. (When he objects that the phoenix does not lay eggs, she tells him that that is why it is uniquely valuable.) Assisted by Rufo (shameless rake or comparative culturologist), he treads the glory road in swashbuckling style.

Glory Road is Heinlein with no apologies for the nature of his characters and plot. It features a picaresque plot, monsters and villains, barons and empresses, and swords and hard science fiction served up together. These elements are commingled with other, technical elements conceived at a high level.

For example, the art of fencing is revealed in this book in some detail and quite accurately. Various social structures are explored, from that of a "medieval barony" to a "galactic empire." The psychology of how a hero may be motivated, or not motivated, is explored as well.

This book is widely considered a successor to books of the '30s about the legends of King Arthur's knights, in a science fiction context, for example, T.H. White's The Once and Future King or Hal Foster's Prince Valiant.

Editions

January 1963, Gregg Press, hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0839824483
January 1976, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0425028348
January 1976, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0425031349
November 1977, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0425037835
October 1979, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0425043495
April 1982, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0425048659
May 1983, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0425064387
February 1984, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0425073114
December 1984, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0425081567
August 1985, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0425088987
August 1986, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0425096661
August 1, 1991, Ace Books, paperback, ISBN 0441294014
May 1, 1993, Baen, hardcover, 304 pages, ISBN 0671721674
January 1, 1996, Baen, paperback, 304 pages, ISBN 0671877046
October 1, 1999, Sagebrush, library binding, ISBN 078571328X
October 1, 2004, Tor Books, hardcover, 320 pages, ISBN 0765312212

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