The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

Book cover

The Cat Who Walks Through Walls is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein published in 1985. Like several of his novels, it features Lazarus Long as a character, though Long is confined to a supporting role.

A writer seated at the best restaurant on a space station is approached by a man who desperately but cryptically urges him that "Tolliver must die" — and is then himself shot before the writer's eyes. The writer — Colonel Colin Campbell, living under the alias (and nom de plume) "Richard Ames" — is joined by a beautiful and sophisticated lady, Gwen Novak, who helps him flee with a bonsai and a would-be murdering bum to Luna. (Note that like the protagonist, Heinlein was a writer retired from the military with the initials R.A. and the initials G.N. remind us of his wife Virginia who was sometimes known as Ginny.)

The Cat Who Walks Through Walls may be regarded as part of Heinlein's multiverse series, or as a sequel to both The Number of the Beast and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

The title of the book refers to a cat by the name of Pixel, who has an inexplicable tendency to be wherever the narrator happens to be (see Schrödinger's cat).

Gwen Novak is eventually revealed to be Hazel Stone, a character previously featured in Heinlein's The Rolling Stones and who had played a small but important role in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Col. Campbell is also eventually revealed to be a son of Lazarus Long, a Heinlein character originally introduced in Methuselah's Children and who reappeared in Time Enough for Love, The Number of the Beast, and To Sail Beyond the Sunset. Also appearing is Jubal Harshaw, a major character in Stranger in a Strange Land.