"—All You Zombies—"

"—All You Zombies—" (the title includes the quotation marks) is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein that was first published in Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine in 1959. The story involves a number of paradoxes involving time travel. It can be considered an updated version of Heinlein's story "By His Bootstraps".

The plot of "—All You Zombies—" concerns a young man who is taken back in time and tricked into impregnating himself (before he had sexual reassignment surgery), resulting in the ultimate time-travel paradox: a man who is both his own father and mother.

The story involves an intricate series of time-travel jumps, beginning September 20, 1945 when the Bartender—who wears a ring depicting the Ouroboros—drops off baby Jane at an orphanage. Nearly 18 years later, the Bartender takes the man who calls himself "Unmarried Mother" to April 3, 1963 where the latter seduces the 17-year-old hermaphrodite Jane. Shortly thereafter, the Bartender brings the seducer to the Rockies base (at an undisclosed time).

After being seduced, Jane becomes pregnant. After giving birth, she is found to be a "true hermaphrodite" who has been severely damaged by the pregnancy and birth, and so she has a "sex change" which reassigns her sex to male. On March 10, 1964 the Bartender picks up the baby and brings it back in time to the orphanage.

On November 7, 1970 the Bartender meets Unmarried Mother and brings him back in time (1963) to "find" the man who got him pregnant.

Lastly, the Bartender, who is also Jane/mother/father, heads back to his base to think about his life.

The Red Dwarf episode "Ouroboros" has a suspiciously similar plot, and may have been inspired by Heinlein's story.

"All You Zombies" is also the title of a 1985 song by the rock group The Hooters. According to the Songfacts web page, the group came up with the title independently while working on the lyrics. One of them had read the story as a teenager, but the song wasn't meant to refer to it.

See also

• The Man Who Folded Himself
• Predestination paradox

External links

• Timeline explanation for "—All You Zombies—"