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geeklet 's review for:
Stranger in a Strange Land
by Robert A. Heinlein
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
TL; DR: Uhhh....I hate it but I fully respect it. The star rating is nothing but my personal enjoyment of the book, which was very low. However, if I was using the star rating for the book’s significance, it would be a lot higher.
I was doing just fine and dandy with my read of SFF award winners until this doozy landed in my lap. Heinlein, what a character. He's the kind of guy who could only exist in real life because a thousand fiction creators working for a thousand years couldn't make a person like him up.
Long story short, our boy Valentine Michael Smith is a Martian. He was born to a group of scientists who travelled to the red planet. He's discovered by a later expedition and brought back to Earth. Now Mike doesn't really understand this whole being human thing. He was, after all, raised by Martians. Thankfully for him, he quickly makes some great friends who spring him out of the government's eye. He meets a grumpy old writer/lawyer/doctor/philosopher/smartest guy in the room who is absolutely a stand-in for Robert Heinlein himself. Then he goes to church, joins a circus, and creates a sex cult. As one tends to do when they're a stranger in a strange land I suppose.
There's a brilliance to this novel that is directly connected to the time and place that it was created in. Heinlein worked on this novel for years and it absolutely came out at the right time. If he had published this novel just five years before he did, I'm not sure if it would have catapulted to the heights that it achieved. Heinlein strikes out at the trappings that he finds in Western culture and absolutely challenges the reader to examine their own perception of the world around them. To accept that one is God, one must accept the responsibility of choices. It's more than a simple affirmation. It's a dedication to bear the weight of your decisions. It can be an appealing world view but it's a difficult way to live. Heinlein asks the reader to take full responsibility for themselves. I found his examination of religion to be the most fascinating of all of the topics he took a crack at in this story. In a book that's heralded as a book about sexual freedom, I didn't really expect to find such a critical look at religion institutions.
All of that being said, I did absolutely hate this book. For starters, it's just so dated. As someone born well after the 60's, the themes of this book just don't hit the same way. I really do think I have a strong stomach for sexism in books but sweet Mother of God, this book drove me directly to my breaking point. By the end, I was really missing older sci-fi books where women were just absent. Heinlein's characters are charismatic but rarely stand up to a sniff test. The women are all beautiful, smart, and are completely okay with the occasional sexual harassment. The men are witty and masters of all. I was probably about 150 pages into the book before I got to the point where I wasn't furious that I was reading it. I never really enjoyed myself. Maybe I'm more of a prude than I thought but man, I did not want to read about a sex cult for that long. Surely there are other ways to express happiness and fullness with others. Heinlein danced with the idea that the Martian language changed how one perceives the world. I wish we could have seen more of that. Speaking of language, Heinlein really loved gratuitously shoving himself into a story. His self-insert character of Jubal would just drone on and on. Jubal had thoughts and he was not afraid to let Jubal's thoughts take up pages and pages.
Even though I didn't care much for this story, it's most certainly one that I will think about for a very long time. Ever notice how that happens? Some of the books that I dislike the most are the ones that just sit in my brain. Even in my dislike, I (guess) I'm glad this book exists. I'm sure the world would have been a bit of a different place without it. I don't really grok you Heinlein but that's okay too. Science fiction wouldn't be the same without your wacky little culture shifting books.
I was doing just fine and dandy with my read of SFF award winners until this doozy landed in my lap. Heinlein, what a character. He's the kind of guy who could only exist in real life because a thousand fiction creators working for a thousand years couldn't make a person like him up.
Long story short, our boy Valentine Michael Smith is a Martian. He was born to a group of scientists who travelled to the red planet. He's discovered by a later expedition and brought back to Earth. Now Mike doesn't really understand this whole being human thing. He was, after all, raised by Martians. Thankfully for him, he quickly makes some great friends who spring him out of the government's eye. He meets a grumpy old writer/lawyer/doctor/philosopher/smartest guy in the room who is absolutely a stand-in for Robert Heinlein himself. Then he goes to church, joins a circus, and creates a sex cult. As one tends to do when they're a stranger in a strange land I suppose.
There's a brilliance to this novel that is directly connected to the time and place that it was created in. Heinlein worked on this novel for years and it absolutely came out at the right time. If he had published this novel just five years before he did, I'm not sure if it would have catapulted to the heights that it achieved. Heinlein strikes out at the trappings that he finds in Western culture and absolutely challenges the reader to examine their own perception of the world around them. To accept that one is God, one must accept the responsibility of choices. It's more than a simple affirmation. It's a dedication to bear the weight of your decisions. It can be an appealing world view but it's a difficult way to live. Heinlein asks the reader to take full responsibility for themselves. I found his examination of religion to be the most fascinating of all of the topics he took a crack at in this story. In a book that's heralded as a book about sexual freedom, I didn't really expect to find such a critical look at religion institutions.
All of that being said, I did absolutely hate this book. For starters, it's just so dated. As someone born well after the 60's, the themes of this book just don't hit the same way. I really do think I have a strong stomach for sexism in books but sweet Mother of God, this book drove me directly to my breaking point. By the end, I was really missing older sci-fi books where women were just absent. Heinlein's characters are charismatic but rarely stand up to a sniff test. The women are all beautiful, smart, and are completely okay with the occasional sexual harassment. The men are witty and masters of all. I was probably about 150 pages into the book before I got to the point where I wasn't furious that I was reading it. I never really enjoyed myself. Maybe I'm more of a prude than I thought but man, I did not want to read about a sex cult for that long. Surely there are other ways to express happiness and fullness with others. Heinlein danced with the idea that the Martian language changed how one perceives the world. I wish we could have seen more of that. Speaking of language, Heinlein really loved gratuitously shoving himself into a story. His self-insert character of Jubal would just drone on and on. Jubal had thoughts and he was not afraid to let Jubal's thoughts take up pages and pages.
Even though I didn't care much for this story, it's most certainly one that I will think about for a very long time. Ever notice how that happens? Some of the books that I dislike the most are the ones that just sit in my brain. Even in my dislike, I (guess) I'm glad this book exists. I'm sure the world would have been a bit of a different place without it. I don't really grok you Heinlein but that's okay too. Science fiction wouldn't be the same without your wacky little culture shifting books.