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Summary: Grok the Fullness of Understanding--Explore your Mind....
Review: Grok the Fullness of Understanding--Explore your Mind....with this Epic Tome of Literary Achievement! This book has inspired millions of minor philosophers and armchair psychologists, anthropologists and other trouble-makers. This wonderful novel is cram-packed with subtle innuendo and blatant facts about the human condition and our Struggle to Grasp reality, religion, science and sexuality. Oh, yes.... You will learn to Grok the fullness of your life potential, if you read the underlying story. I am a "Stranger in a Strange Land." You probably are, also, if you are reading these words. We are all outcasts and misfits, trying to find our place in the Universe...like the protagonist of this work of "fiction." If your favorite Sci-Fi/ Fantasy-lover, Egghead or "Trouble-Maker" finds this one under the tree, they will give you a full grokking of the state of being know as Happiness. This novel is a great way of subtly introducing Psychology, Anthropology and Sociology into your Teen-ager's life, as well. This book is a CLASSIC and should be given much respect, for it was way ahead of it's time...which is probably the reason for the release of "The Original Uncut" version, circa 1991.
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Summary: Not what I thought it was...
Review: I know it's one of the classics, and supposedly one of the best sci-fi novels of all time, but I actually got so bored at parts of this book that I started skimming somewhere in the middle it.The main problem for me was very simple: Michael Valentine Smith, the "Stranger" of the title, is not the main character of the book, and his experiences in the strange new land are not the focus of the book. While the plot certainly follows Valentine around, it is Jubal and his band of professional executive assistants that are the main characters, and Jubal's pontifications on religion, politics, etc., that seem to be the main focus. Unfortunately for me, I only found Valentine and his experiences interesting, and he, and they, only take center stage for about the last third of the novel. Jubal and his gang, and their lengthy discussions, on the other hand, I found to be very dull. Indeed it often seemed to me that Jubal and other members of his household, even the females, seemed to speak in exactly the same voice - which was exactly the same voice as the author's text that connects the dialogue - which leads to a very dull read. If Heinlein wished to write a series of essays on religion or politics, he should have done so. Instead he tried to make fictional characters get those ideas across without it sounding like essays, and it seems to me he failed, and ruined the characters in doing so. Also, for all the noise you've heard about this being the quintessential novel of the hippy generation, it's only about the last third of the book (the portion where Valentine does finally take center stage) where there's really any free love, alternative religion, communal type living, etc. The sex, if even described at all, is very tame, and homosexuality, while hinted at at various times in the novel, still seems to get the typical 50's taboo placed upon it. Another disturbing thing about the novel is the inferior, dependent status that the women are given. Even by present day standards it seems ridiculous, but since the novel is set even farther into the future (was it around 2050? - I must have skimmed that part), it seems all that much worse (remember the yeoman bringing Kirk his coffee on Star Trek?). Possibly this just isn't the visionary novel it was pumped up to be.
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Summary: Read It
Review: As you can tell from the reviews, this is a love it or hate it book. I'm not gonna tell you what the book is about, or whether or not I agree with the Heinlein sensibilities in this book, because that is for you to decide. Read this book. You'll either love it or you will hate it, but like other books of this type (the Bible, The Grapes of Wrath, Dianetics, 2001, etc.) it's one that you will just have to read yourself to find out. Obviously, I fall into the "love it" category, and as it is the first Heinlein book I have read I plan on reading some more of his. Hopefully you will do the same. Maybe not, but read it yourself and see.
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Summary: Simply Amazing
Review: It's simply a FINE book. A must-read, with lots of cultural messages for the modern reader...nuff said.
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Summary: Victim of a strange book
Review: For anyone who who admires and appreciates the great SF writer Robert Heinlein for his earlier books (written beofre this one), "Stranger In a Strange Land " will be at least unexpected, probably bewildering and quite possibly unenjoyable. The book is a thorough departure from classics such as Starship Troopers and represents a black line drawn across RH;s writing career.Before "Stranger," few if any of his books were anything but good; after "Stranger," few of his books were anything but bad, at least for fans of classic Heinlein. "Stranger's" free-love message did well with the '60s hippie culture, but if you're looking for another Starship Troopers or Glory Road, you're looking in the wrong place.
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Summary: really smart
Review: What i enjoyed most about this book is how much it's made me think about interpersonal relationships. It let me the reader see how our culture appears to alien eyes. I found it fascinating and very enteraining.
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Summary: dawggins
Review: i would just like to say that this book has no legs
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Summary: Another classic
Review: Another great Heinlein classic, along with Starship Troopers,The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Double-Star, all of which won Hugo Awards. It's interesting to note that this book was published only 3 years after Starship Troopers (1959), in which Heinlein seems to propose a government based upon a military oligarchy, since only veterans can vote. Heinlein was criticized for proposing such an apparently authoritarian society. Then he writes this novel, which is at least partly about rebelling against almost every conceivable kind of social authority, both secular and religious, and in which most of the legitimately constituted authorities appear corrupt. Of course, the theme of rebelling against a supposedly legitimate but corrupt or evil government is not uncommon in Heinlein's novels, and can be found in his Between Planets, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Farham's Freehold, If This Goes On, and other stories. But Stranger is mostly about Valentine Michael Smith and his followers, who form their own Utopian society. Their practices of free love and free sexuality, the development of psi powers through Smith's Martian mental discplines, and the promise of a higher, more evolved consciousness practically became a bible for the "free-love generation" of the 60's. It just goes to show you the broad range of themes Heinlein was capable of dealing with in his novels.
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Summary: Heinlein's best
Review: This is perhaps the greatest SF book ever written. After reading Space Cadets and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress i was a little skeptacal as to whether any book could be as good as those two. Somewhere around page 3 I was hooked. This is a must read for ANY Heinlein fan and everyone else. I pitty the person that neglects to read this book.
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Summary: A fun read with some deep thoughts thrown in the mix.
Review: Okay, I'll admit that to '90's sensibilities some of Stranger is kind of silly. Valentine Michael Smith, born on Mars and raised with Martian mind-over-matter powers, comes to earth to bring humans the enlightened truth: people should live in large communal groups, naked most of the time, swapping sexual partners willy-nilly. It's a very 60's thought and in the AIDS era, it seems downright dangerous. Fortunately, the swinging isn't the central point of the novel. Most importantly, Heinlein lets the characters drive the story instead of vice versa, taking us into Valentine's head and making him a sympathetic hero. Like Christ (a clear parallel), he just wants people to be nicer to each other and live in harmony with the world. Like Christ, he discovers that people prefer conflict and ecological pillaging. There are scathing riffs on popular religion (churches of the future feature bars and casinos), politics, and human nature. It's all wrapped up in a funny, easy read. You may not build yourself a nudist commune after reading this, but your consciousness will definitely be expanded.
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