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anunusedmoniker 's review for:
Stranger in a Strange Land
by Robert A. Heinlein
If Robert Heinlein were still alive, I'd mail this dog to him and demand a refund. I'm stuck trying to figure out exactly why though.
Is it because the book reeks of free-love-as-a-solution-to-world-issues, but does so through dialog that could have been lifted from the 60s equivalent of Friends, complete with all the racism, sexism, and homophobia that entails?
Is it because the rest of the book is filled with a "super intelligent narrator" and a "naive" counterpart, like a socratic dialog?
It is because somewhere between a Ménage à trois with an elderly woman and group mental possession of lady doing squat thrusts in the cucumber patch (read:bonin'), Heinlein's characteristic fascination with with weird and incestuous sex is impossible to ignore?
Or is it because the guy name drops Rodin sculptures and completely irrelevant book titles (Sick Nietzsche reference, bro) but can't actually engage the reader with the philosophical/linguistic material that is the core of the book's speculative sci-fi-ness?
I donno, but I'm not reading anymore of his stuff. He might be foundational to scifi, but I almost bailed halfway through what the cover calls "The most famous science fiction novel ever written" because it's pedantic, the dialog is pedestrian at best, and it's not fun.
Spoiler
Is it because reading Heinlein means that you have to try and fit his books into his lifelong shift from socialism to libertarianism to authoritarianism?Is it because the book reeks of free-love-as-a-solution-to-world-issues, but does so through dialog that could have been lifted from the 60s equivalent of Friends, complete with all the racism, sexism, and homophobia that entails?
Is it because the rest of the book is filled with a "super intelligent narrator" and a "naive" counterpart, like a socratic dialog?
It is because somewhere between a Ménage à trois with an elderly woman and group mental possession of lady doing squat thrusts in the cucumber patch (read:bonin'), Heinlein's characteristic fascination with with weird and incestuous sex is impossible to ignore?
Or is it because the guy name drops Rodin sculptures and completely irrelevant book titles (Sick Nietzsche reference, bro) but can't actually engage the reader with the philosophical/linguistic material that is the core of the book's speculative sci-fi-ness?
I donno, but I'm not reading anymore of his stuff. He might be foundational to scifi, but I almost bailed halfway through what the cover calls "The most famous science fiction novel ever written" because it's pedantic, the dialog is pedestrian at best, and it's not fun.