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J.O.B.: A Comedy of Justice is one of the very late Heinlein novels, with the title nodding to both the Bible and James Branch Cabell's 1922 fantasy. The premise is wonderfully Heinleinian: Alex, a Christian fundamentalist political candidate, walks across an island in the Pacific during a fire-walk ceremony and finds himself in a slightly different version of his own reality. Then a slightly different one again. Then another. He is being switched between universes, and the cosmology behind the switching turns out to be exactly as theological as the title suggests.
The book is at its best when Heinlein lets his satirical voice run. The various American fundamentalisms get treated with the kind of weary contempt that Heinlein had been developing for thirty years, and the cosmic apparatus that the back half of the book reveals is one of his more entertaining late-period creations.
The book is uneven. The first half is fast and funny. The middle drags through some Heinlein habits that have not aged well (the gender politics in particular). The closing chapters earn themselves.
Three stars. Recommended only to readers already comfortable with late Heinlein. New readers should start with Stranger in a Strange Land or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
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