A story that starts out fairly interesting, with a reasonably good science fiction and futuristic conceit, quickly turns into a rather sloppy, chaotic narrative that doesn’t really do all that much. At best it devolves into a meditation on libertarianism and new age theology - in far more words than it needs. In a word, disappointing.

The first third or so of the book was interesting, although its rather lawyerly exposition on inheritance and national sovereignty sounded at times more like a legal brief than a novel. Plot twists built slowly and progressed logically, one from the other, and characters again changed gradually and in endearing ways. But what was a sort of interesting puzzle of a problem (the relationship between two planets) was quickly zapped of any substance during a key scene, and the rest of the book sort of fell apart. It started to read like a really bizarre and coy fantasy that featured no real conflict, fueled by the discovery of more and more super-powers that were just over the top. The plot jerked rapidly to and fro, characters seemed to have no consistency from one scene to the next, and the whole notion of distinct personality seemed to have gone out the window.

More largely - I think science fiction at its best tells us something interesting about our real world, and I think the first third was heading in that direction; but the larger part of the book was just tiring and silly, and didn’t say anything to me except “if all of the fundamental rules of life were different, then everything about society would be different”. Well, obviously. I know this book is supposed to be a sci-fi classic, but maybe I just don’t get it.

One other comment - I usually imagine science fiction to be a vaguely progressive genre that has some inkling of avant garde social mores and changes in attitude. Naturally no one is perfect at this sort of thing, but even writing in the early 60’s I would think Heinlein would have had some idea that women’s rights would be a thing; which makes his stalwart misogyny that much more surprising and distasteful. Certainly every work of art is a product of its times - but I’ve read plenty of novels from that time that were nowhere nearly as sexist. It made the book even less enjoyable than the storytelling flaws.