时间足够你爱 (1973)

《时间足够你爱》（英语：Time Enough For Love）是美国科幻作家罗伯特·海因莱因于1973年首次出版的长篇科幻小说，获得1973年星云奖最佳长篇小说提名和1974年雨果奖最佳长篇小说提名、轨迹奖最佳长篇小说提名。

故事简介

故事从霍华德家族的“老祖”、人类最古老的成员拉撒路·龙于大散居后的2053年（公元4272年）到达塞昆德斯星球新罗马市的霍华德回春诊所开始，讲述了他在两千多年的漫长一生中诸多往事，包括在布莱斯德买下身为奴隶的“镜子双胞胎”乔和丽塔并帮助他们在瓦尔哈拉成家立业、与养女多拉在幸福谷开荒种田但最终因多拉逝世而分离等。在故事的尾声中，他为体验生活穿越时空却错误穿越到了1916年，然后在第一次世界大战的西线身负重伤并最终被他的未来后代们救回。

故事中穿插了两块名为“拉撒路·龙的笔记本内容摘录”的“幕间休息”部分，内容为分条的语录。

评价

《时间足够你爱》被认为是罗伯特·海因莱因后期最重要的作品，获得了星云奖、雨果奖、轨迹奖等科幻大奖的提名但均未获奖。也有读者认为小说浓重的说教味和冗长繁复的故事令人感到疲倦。

Time Enough for Love is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, first published in 1973. The book made the shortlist for the Nebula, Hugo and Locus awards for best science fiction novel of that year, although it did not win. It did win a retrospective Libertarian Futurist Society award: the Prometheus Hall of Fame award of 1988.

Plot

The book covers several periods from the life of Lazarus Long (born Woodrow Wilson Smith), an early beneficiary of a breeding experiment designed to increase mankind's natural lifespan. The experiment is known as the Howard Families, after the program's initiator. Lazarus is more the result of a mutation than the breeding experiment, and he is the oldest living human at more than two thousand years old.

The first half of the book takes the form of several novellas connected by Lazarus's retrospective narrative. In the framing story, Lazarus has decided that life is no longer worth living, but, in what is described as a reverse Arabian Nights scenario, agrees not to end his life for as long as his companion and descendant, chief executive of the Howard Families Ira Weatheral, will listen to his stories.

"The Tale of the Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail"

This story concerns a 20th-century United States Navy seaman, midshipman, and officer David Lamb, who receives multiple promotions while minimizing any semblance of real work or combat by applying himself enthusiastically to the principle of "constructive laziness".

"The Tale of the Twins Who Weren't"

Lazarus tells of his visit as an interplanetary cargo trader to a planet, where he bought a pair of slaves, brother and sister, and immediately manumitted them. Because they had no knowledge of independent living or any education, Lazarus teaches them "how to be human" during the voyage.

The two were the result of an experiment in genetic recombination in which two parent cells were separated into complementary haploid gametes and recombined into two embryos. The resulting zygotes were implanted in a woman and gestated by her, with the result that although both have the same surrogate mother and genetic parents, they are no more closely related genetically than any two people taken at random. They have been prevented from sexual relations by a chastity belt. However, having confirmed that there is no risk of genetic disease in their offspring (described as the only valid argument against incest), Lazarus solemnizes their marriage and later establishes them as the owners and operators of a thriving business. At the end of the story, he reveals that the twins looked the same age decades later and expresses his belief that they were his own descendants, from an earlier time when he had been a slave on the same planet.

"The Tale of the Adopted Daughter"

A short scene-setter introduces a planet on which Lazarus has led a group of pioneering colonists.

Lazarus, now working as a banker and shopkeeper on the frontier planet and keeping his true age secret, saves a young girl, Dora, from a burning house and becomes her guardian. When she becomes an adult, he leaves the area but returns as a younger man and marries her, and the two move away to start a new settlement, where Lazarus' long life is less likely to be noticed. They eventually manage to build a thriving community. Because Dora is not a descendant of the Howard Families, the source of his longevity, she eventually dies of old age, leaving Lazarus to mourn.

"Boondock"

At the beginning of this story, Lazarus has regained his enthusiasm for life, and the remainder of the book is told in a conventional linear manner. Accompanied by some of his descendants, Lazarus has now moved to a new planet and established a polyamorous family, with three men, three women, and a larger number of children, two of whom are female clones of Lazarus.