Stranger in a Strange Land

In context, it's an amazing work

First published in 1961, this book has been accused of being a product of the 60's, but what we think of as 'the 60's' didn't begin until mid-decade. Amazingly, it sprang forth from the late 50's, where the American mind-set was neo-Puritanical, and women's and men's roles were well defined. If anything, it helped shape the 60's, not the other way around. Sure, the language is a bit stilted by today's standards, and the allegory of the 'Man from Mars' is a bit heavy-handed. But several of the book's themes, including the concept of strong, intelligent, sexually liberated women, were quite radical at the time. Don't expect hard science fiction. The science is secondary to the human drama and the social commentary, which borders at times on satire. And yet the Fosterites, which I had thought were quite absurd when I first read this, are shockingly similar to many personality-cult religious movements that have enjoyed wide popularity since then. This book successfully mixes biting satire with a positive, even naive, view of how humans might live together in peace if they can learn to 'grok in fullness', to be freed from the slavery of their petty jealousies and narrow, ugly world views. While shining a glaring spotlight on some of humanity's less pleasant characteristics, it still manages to leave you with a hopeful vision of how things might truly be.

10 out of 10 people found this review helpful.

Heinlein and that IBM typer

I just reread this after many years absence from Heinlein. I must have read everything he wrote by the time I was 20, so now that I'm...not 20...I thought I'd see whether he was actually the storytelling virtuoso I remembered, and also how the science-fiction elements of this particular story had held up. He scored on both counts. In regard to the second, he was just vague enough about the details of things like flying vehicles and various electronic devices that they could fit just as easily into the future as the past. But finally on page 401, while Miriam is describing the effort to produce a Martian dictionary, Heinlein slips: "[we] worked out a phonetic script for Martian, eighty-one characters. So we had an I.B.M. type worked over, using both upper and lower case...I type touch system in Martian now." But though there's that mechanical typewriter at large in this otherwise future-sounding time isn't so bad given all of the other things he manages to work into the story without making it sound dated. Looking for stuff like that, though, was just fun on the side. The story itself, and the telling, is as fresh now as it was way back when. He does what a good writer should do by making an implausible situation and not a few implausible characters, sound everyday real, and interesting enough to keep turning those pages (or thumbing that touch screen). And that's why, almost 40 years after this was first published, and 22 years after Heinlein's death, this is still around, and being read by yet another generation. With many more to come.

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

great book

Stranger in a strange land is a fantastic work of sf about a man raised in an culture incomprehensibly different than any known human culture, who must learn the ways of humanity.

And in my opinion that person who said it was utterly boring is most likely nearly illiterate.

4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

Utterly boring

This first couple parts of the book were okay, not page turners, but interesting enough to keep me plodding through. But by the 3rd part, the book got unbelievably and utterly dull. I do not recommend this book at all. The book is not so much sci-fi as it deals with politics & religion & sexuality.

3 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

Grok Heinlein's Greatness. . . .

I bought this book at a library's used-book sale for fifty cents, thinking it looked a bit interesting. I figured even if I didn't like it, oh well, no harm done, since I could just donate it back to the libary and they'd sell it again to someone else. Now, I wouldn't dream of giving it away or even selling it it's one of my favorites and has a permanent place in my book collection. I loved the mixture of science, religion, politics, and humanity. Valentine Michael Smith is a human who grew up on Mars. (He was the child of two of the people who went on a mission to explore the planet.) The other humans on the mission were killed and he was brought up by the Martians. On another mission to Mars, Valentine (now an adult) is brought back. He knows nothing about Earth or about humans, so he teaches them the way Martians do things. From him, his friends (who he calls 'water brothers') learn about love and 'grokking.' Heinlein usues the book and Michael's journey to express his views on religion, politics, and humanity. As we see humanity through Michael's eyes, we see it in a different way than we did before. I enjoyed it so much that I recently purchased the uncut version, based on Heinlein's original manuscript, which was cut down drastically for the first edition. This is a great book and I would definitely recommend it. Even if you don't like science fiction and don't agree with some of the things in the book, you'll still enjoy this book. Just come to it with an open mind and you'll 'grok' the greatness of Heinlein's 'Stranger in a Strange Land.'

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

It was an epiphany

I am in awe of this book. It challenges every belief known to man and is still invigorating. The imagery is surreal. Love the character of Jubal Harshaw kind of a stablizer.

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

Understanding

Stranger in a Strange land was a good book that I could not close until I finished it. It was interesting, and I can't remember a time in the book that was dry. There was a lot happening, in a little bit of time. Smith was new to everything, and as much as he learned, he taught everyone a lot more. If you want to be a person, you should be someone like Smith.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Raised by Martians

You've heard the stories where a child is raised by a different family, or even by wolves, well, this child is raised by Martians, and what an interesting story it is.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

An Absolute Classic

This book is fantastic. As the headline states, an absolute classic! The first 80 pages or so are kind of boring, but then it gets really good. If you like books with a lot of witty, smart-assy (yay my own word!) and well written dialogue, you'll love this book. Or if you just like cool science fiction novels, you'll like it. It does, however, have quite a few weird concepts, so if you are really conservative you might not like it.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Heinlein at his best

I've no doubt that Starship Troopers is Heinlein's best novel, but Stranger in a Strange Land is almost as good. And if you thought Heinlein had a lot to say in Starship, wait to you hear what all he has to say in Stranger. It's the story of a man, Valentine Michael Smith, who was born on Mars, grew up among the Martians, and then came back to Earth. This is the story of how he learns and what he does. And it is Heinlein's theological treatise. I found I liked parts 1 and 2 better, where Mike learns about humans and their culture. After that the book goes real heavy into the religion Smith creates. There it bogs down a little, feels a bit dated, and has the tendancy to be somewhat hypocritical of itself. But those are just a few minor flaws. This book is well-written, and one of my favorites.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Overrated

This book was awful! The premise is actually pretty interesting: how a man raised by an alien species can integrate himself back into human society. And the first part of the book deals with that. But pretty soon it becomes a meandering preachy rant about religion and free love; it's almost unreadable.

It's not hard science fiction either, which is what I was expecting. The man from mars somehow acquires psychic powers, all religions are apparently correct and there's an actual afterlife, etc. Obviously all science fiction is fiction, but this is some other genre: weird-religious-fantasy fiction or something.

It's not just the story that's bad, the language is annoying too. The characters all talk with what I guess seemed in the 60's to be futuristic slang. But it just sounds awkward and frankly stupid today. Apparently the word 'grok' became famous based on this book, but all it means is understand. So why not just use the word 'understand'? It's this sort of thing that makes the book tedious to read.

The story is bad, it's poorly written, and I can't not recommend this book strongly enough.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

One of mine and my father' favorite books of all time

If you read this book and find that you don't like it or perhaps just don't get the point of it all... think less of yourself for this failing and read it again!
The chacters are immortal
The story is timeless
And the message transcendant

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Disappointing

After hearing so many people discuss Stranger in a Strange Land as a science fiction classic, I was understandably eager to experience this remarkable piece of literature for myself. And no one was more disappointed than me to discover it was impossible to finish. Perhaps it's because I attempted the author's uncut version, I'm not sure, but I got about halfway through and decided I had never been so bored by science fiction in my life. Certainly there were some interesting ideas in the book---I will be forever grateful I had the chance to discover "grok" and the Fair Witness---but the book seemed such a string of endless, maybe-going-somewhere? events that I gave up. Perhaps I'll try again in a few decades....

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Stranger in a Strange Land

This book is can both be seen as a good story or not too interesting by a reader for the same reason. Some people like myself can only handle enough of the impossible or unrealisticness. This book can be interesting while the main character Valentine Michael Smith, also known as Mike, is forced to learn how to live in an earthly environment after being brought to the world from the planet Mars where he was discovered. But the fact the a man was raised on a different planet by martians is far too unrealistic to consistantly keep my interest. The book did progress and become more interesting as i read through. I was interested how the government was out to find Mike throughout alot of the story. Also, we come to find out that Valentine Michael Smith is actually like the chosen one. This information also threw me off. The fact Mike was pretty much god and was able to levitate objects and people, and could even evaporate people from mid air. The novel was far too unrealistic for my liking, but i do recomend it for people with great imaginations.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

A Sad Disappointment

As a rule, I do my best to steer clear from giving negative reviews. With that said though, I could not bring myself to find much enjoyment or substantial and positive comments in support of this book. The characters were very shallow. The consistent slandering of homosexuality YET the endorsement of CONSTANT free will sex with anything and anyone..don't forget though, homosexuality is frowned on and you are reminded of it almost every chapter. The book was horrible. It tried to redeem itself with a soft porn edge and that is what really made the book failing. I could have enjoyed the politics and plot more if every chapter didn't deal with someone trying to have intercourse with someone else. DO NOT BELIEVE THE HYPE on this book. I am shocked still it received awards.

1 out of 11 people found this review helpful.

Would give it a 4 star, but no

This book is just too weird. The beginning is kinda interesting tho, with the conspiracies and all involving the man from Mars. The end gets sidetracked a lot, and I was surprised how the plot shifts all too suddenly: The man from Mars became a prophet, and he teaches sexual freedom yadiyadiyada....who cares? I felt giddy and excited about this book before thinking it would thrust me into somekind of adventure, but it all felt too much like lecture on group sex. Sorta disappointed.

1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

Outstanding

This book was amazing. This book helps put a new perspective on life and the way we live as humans. All the pain and distruction we cause for power and other useless materialistic junk. Everyone should read this book atleast once. It's another way to look at everything, not just religion or government, but everything. My hat is off to Mr. Robert A. Heinlein and I plan to read the rest of your books.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Interesting premise, poorly executed

I was interested in the story at the beginning, despite the comic conversations that took place. Then the book simply degraded into a series of pedantic lessons, usually in a preachy tone to the women in the book. Not highly recommended, except as a lesson in poor writing.

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Overrated. A stange essay disguised as a sci-fi novel.

'The most famous sci-fi novel ever written,' it said on the cover. Arguable. In any case, even if the book were that famous, I don't think it was very good. Accuse me of expecting something else when I heard such an awesome claim. Guilty. Still, I found the book utterly disappointing. The sci-fi part of it was minimal and gave way to the long dialogues in which that Jubal character displayed all his points of view, which are probably shared by the author. In general, I thought the book could have easily been limited to a short essay on how sex makes people grow closer, and little would have been lost. Quite disappointing.

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Awesome

Love this book