To Sail Beyond the Sunset is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, published in 1987. It was the last novel published before he died in 1988. The title is taken from the poem Ulysses, by Alfred Lord Tennyson. The stanza of which it is a part, quoted by a character in the novel, is as follows: ... my purpose holdsTo sail beyond the sunset, and the bathsOf all the western stars, until I die.