Rating: 
Summary: Why is this a classic?
Review: This is the first Heinlein book I have read, so maybe I don't know know enough to judge, but after reading this I will not pick up another Heinlein book.The first three hundred pages are wonderful. I was totally into it and found it very interesting. Then... it completely fell apart and got stupid. He completely lost track of the story and started preaching. I am not one that is easily offended at all, but Heinlein's views on women and gays (as voiced in this book) I found very offensive and insulting. It goes that one step beyond being cute and funny and witty. There's no problem with voicing opinions and views, I'm all for that (and a good laugh at someone's expense isn't a bad thing). The man can believe and write anything he wants. But what I had a problem with is that the offensive views have NOTHING to do with the story. So why are they there??? If they had been important to the story, then I would have had no problem at all. The reason this book is a classic is beyond me. Is it a landmark book? Sure. For the time. It's terribly dated. And I think is best left as a curiosity for those interested in the history of science fiction. I picked it up because I was curious as to why this book has been called the greatest science fiction book ever written. It doesn't compare to Dune, which deserves that distinction.
Rating:
Summary: A blueprint for left-wing religious cults
Review: The underlying message of this novel is that life is too awful to deal with logically. To be happy, a person has to invent a more pleasing reality and evade any contradictions or aspects of it that can't be reconciled. Lacking the imagination and intellectual discipline to devise such an alternate reality, many early readers sought a place within left-wing religious cults, most infamously the Charles Manson family. Stranger in a Strange Land was the Manson family's blueprint and bible. So influential was Heinlein's work to the cult's development that one of its members adopted the peculiar nickname of one of the novel's main characters.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best books I have read
Review: This is a great read! I picked it up out of boredom and was pretty sure I wouldn't like it (being that I am not a big sci-fi reader.) But I was pleasantly pleased with this book. The sci-fi is really just the background of a very thought provoking book. It may not change your life, but it will definitely give you food for thought. It is a very easy read, with lots of dialog. I have read this book 3 times now and have enjoyed it every time...(although I will admit on the third read I was getting a wee bit tired of Jubal's long speeches...which are really just Heinlein's way of telling you his opinion about varying subjects.) But, still I would reccomend this book to anyone who wanted a really enjoyable book. I would not, however, reccomend this book to someone who wanted a sci-fi book to read, because it is really a philosophical book.
Rating:
Summary: New Classic
Review: There is a lot of hype around this book, but don't let that change your initial opinion (for the better or the worse). This book has managed to worm its way into the list of literary classics and with good reason. The book itself is an easy read, written in a style that holds your attention. It is funny, touching, smart, and carries a message. Although there are chauvanistic overtones to the book, don't let it bother you. I took it to be more of a parody of chauvanism than anything else. Overall, it is a wonderful book, well worth your "$" a few hours. My theories about the people who did not like this book are:
A) Did not understand it or its humor. Even if you did understand it and think the message in the book wasn't deep enough, you can't deny that the book is very funny.
B) Are females(or possibly males) that found the many degrading remarks about women offensive. There is nothing I can really say to change your mind about this topic. My tip: if you are one who is offended easily, you might wanna stay away. If you have a pretty decent sense of humor then check it out. There is nothing too offensive in here, but it does express the views of many people during the time it was written.
C) Read too much into the hype. This is always a bad idea for any form of art. If you hear that something is so great, over and over again, when you actually see it, there is a good chance it will be less than your expetations. Don't listen to what other people say, just read it!
Rating:
Summary: Stranger in a Strange Land (Grok?)
Review: Stranger in a Strange land is a good book, to those who say the dialogue is contrived, I say,"You have the abridged edition don't you?"
::reads other's reviews:: No, it had nothing to do with the Manson Murders, thank you very much, who ever said that. I'm doing research for a paper on that matter, and Manson could barely read, couldn't write, and SiaSL wasn't mentioned ANYWHERE in his statements. ::shudders:: I went over his statements for myself, the man was insane, and had a grasp (a weak one mind you) of some of the ideas put forward in the book, but he could not have read it himself, nor was it used to his defense.
::thinks:: was there anything else?
OH, yeah, I myself found the novel ingrossing, the first time I read it, I read the abridged version and couldn't put it down, when I found out there was an Unabridged I flipped, and went on a quest for it, found it, bought it at a FAR too high a price and read it all that same night. If/When you read it you might do the same, but remember you CAN buy the unabridged used ^_^
Later Sci Fi Fans, I'm off to read Number of the Beast and laugh my hind end off.
Rating: 
Summary: I've read better science fiction
Review: Well to start this was not a bad book but I didn't think it measured up to many other science fiction books I have read by other authurs.The plot was very perdictable and the characters rather bland. ...This was the first book I have read by Heinlein and I was not impressed.It seemed like the Heinlein was trying to tell me something and I guess I just was not getting it.I cannot reccomend this book.
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Summary: Prometheus Unfounded
Review: Since the time of the Greeks the figure of a tortured benefactor to Man has occupied the imagination. First, there was Prometheus who by "stealing in a hollow fennel stalk the gleam of weariless fire [. . .]" and bestowing it upon man was gifted by being driven upon a shaft, his liver being eaten out anew every day. Then, Man created a monotheistic religion because of an individual's painful crucifixion. This image was revived in story when Robert A. Heinlein created a novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, where the main protagonist Michael was cast in the image of the stealer of fire.
Intrinsically this is a powerful theme that never loses its appeal, but in application, Heinlein failed to recreate the particular affect that the story deserves. The keys to understanding Prometheus were knowing he had an intimate tie to humanity, a keen ingenuity - almost an idealized asceticism - which was purposefully benevolent, and a personal conviction that knew no restraints: all of which was tempered by his agonizing nature. It was a complex mix that produced a dynamic character. Unfortunately, what Heinlein actually did was to try and employ a unique anthropological viewpoint (the Martians idealized severity) to Michael and create a similar figure. However, because of his isolated Martian nature Michael never came across as being intimately tied to humanity, nor did he evidence an ingenuity - he was too similar to a savant; he only had a bare glimmer of Prometheus' passion, and the sincerity that was the hallmark of the tortured character was non-existent: the reason, he was never vulnerable. In short, Michael was like an egg - which he was so fond saying - that had nothing on the inside.
Admittedly, presenting a character of Prometheus' capability is difficult, but not outside the realm of possibility. To clarify how Heinlein went wrong we need only to look to Percy Bysshe Shelley's, Prometheus Unbound where the mercurial traits of this protagonist were captured. By enumerating "Grief for awhile is blind, and so was mine / [and] I wish no living thing to suffer pain" the reader felt tangibly tied to the ingenious Titan. It was something that Heinlein was never able to accomplish with Michael because of his invulnerability: he was too remote and consequentially, never a part of humanity. He always stayed just on the edge, ill defined in his position.
Also enshrouded in Michael was a vast intelligence. This just served to reinforce how independent a character he was. So, the ingenuity that was designed to be beneficial to mankind actually turned into a means of competition, defining the different levels of supposed civilized sophistication. Heinlein completely missed the point: ingenuity was not a characteristic to be admired in its own right but a trait that underscored benevolence and sympathy. When Shelley evokes empathy in Prometheus over the words of a Fury, " Many are strong and rich, -and would be just, - / But live among their suffering fellow men, [. . .]" he accentuates that intelligence should not separate characters - especially idealized ones. Michael, on the other hand, is purely conservative. There is little desire in him to ennoble the society around him such that he cares little about the how culture creates unfortunates: he discorporates those that don't please him.
Finally, passion is not a characteristic of capability, nor one automatically gained through dedicated study, it seems a product united with pain - one produces and cumulates in the other. In this one area Michael appears real. Until the end of the story he is a docile individual. Only when he feels that he has been used does he elicit commitment. Again, the reason that we can criticize Michael is because he is invulnerable. He never creates sympathy in the reader that is convincing or authentic. When Shelley's Prometheus says "The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears / Of their moon-freezing chrystals; the bright chains / Eat with their burning cold into my bones," the reader is undeniably sympathetic. Language is not the only thing that makes feeling apparent: Prometheus is vulnerable. Thus, paradoxically, weakness can be strength, and without it the tortured persona cannot be provoked.
Producing an Ideal is what Heinlein tried to create when he wrote his novel. It was admirable that he tried to create a character that evidenced an alien viewpoint. Yet, he erred in trying to make that unique mask fit the face of an icon. Further, I believe that when Heinlein wrote, "Mike is our Prometheus - but that's all," he diminished the dynamics involved. The giver of civilization has been used over and over again in literature and in religion. Along the way he has gained an extensive background. In not applying the fundamentals of the character decisively to his own, it is my belief that he merely ignored the depth of past Prometheus' personas and concentrated on coming up with individualistic ideas. The result: this book is a bare whisper of the edifice that it should have been.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, classic, Heinlein, but read the original version.
Review: The original, "cut" version is my preference in this classic Heinlein, rather than the re-issued version released after his death. Some important concepts in the book are changed substantially with the addition of the originally-cut material, in my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Not just classic sci-fi, but classic literature as well
Review: Given the nature of the story with Valentine Michael Smith being raised on Mars yet born a human, the novel fits easily into the sci-fi category. Yet the story is more a study of humanity than anything else. The dissections of simple human interactions, my favorite when Mike tries to understand why humans laugh and he does not, are some of the best still to this day. The story does lull in places althought that can be forgiven as the characters bring the book to life, Jubal, Mike and Patty in particular. Like many great novels, the books makes you think while reading the novel and after reading it. It is commented that this book is new-age preaching before the sixties, but if you have ever read Heinlein's other masterpiece "Starship Troopers", one would hardly label him as a novelist prone to ultra-idealism. The greatest thing to say about this novel is that you will learn much about your own humanity and the simple actions taken for granted each day. I would reccommend this novel to a curious reader who is not afraid of a different reading experience.
Rating:
Summary: It just keeps getting better, and better and . . .
Review: I read Stranger in the 60's, again in the 70's and once again in 2002. (I just finished it tonight). Heinlein's characters always hold one's interest. He's one of my top three favorite writers of SF. This is one of his best. I recommended it to my children. One of them read it last week and enjoyed it very much. The book has so much going for it - a human raised by other-worldly beings (so unlike humans it can't be described, in our language, how differest they really are), returning to earth at age twenty-five, the special powers he possesses, the clash of cultures which ensues and liberal doses of sex (left up to the reader's imagination of what great sex is, if you grok). The way the book flows you just don't want to put it aside until you've finished it. I grok (understand) most of this book. I'll probably read it again in five or ten years.
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