Rating: 
Summary: Mindless Proselytizing...
Review: I am a fan of Heinlein. Really. I loved some of his other works. But I purchased the audio version of Stranger in a Strange land and found it to be tedious in the extreme. Endless preaching about the glories of "Foster," free-love and sex with many, many, available, willing young women (its amazing how these nubile women seem to fall all over the male characters. And the women are all completely unjealous of each other. Where are the harems of men for the female characters?) This novel read like a Gor book. Where is the action? And I don't mean that sort!I also really hated the narration and the monotonous voice the narrator used for Michael Smith. He sounded like a little boy. Overall, some of his other sci-fi is better than this. This book was nothing more than a soapbox for Heinlein to preach his personal life philosophy. I might be able to overlook this, if there was an actual plot as well. Unfortunately, no such luck. Ech.
Rating: 
Summary: Grok it
Review: This story is as relavent today as it was when it was published. We live in a society where moral values are dictated by authority. We are told that things are bad or evil, even if they are unharmful to others. Like much of Heinlein's work, this story is very strong in the first 75% and loses some steam in the end, where he injects the plot with bizarre developments and handwaving. However, the anti-establishment theme resounds many years after putting the book down. Pick up this book, and read it, and keep reading it until you grok it.
Rating:
Summary: Vivid and thought provoking
Review: I've read 4 of RAH's books, 3 of them fiction. In order from best to worst, I would rank them:
1. Starship Troopers 2. Stranger in a Strange Land 3. Farnham's Freehold I thought RAH did a great job in describing the culture shock awaiting Smith....after all, he was coming from a clairvoyant, telekinetic, asexual society apparently communal in nature to a society of individualists, polarized between men and women with no telepathic powers. It made me wonder how I would get along if I was sent to an Amazonian or Papua New Guinean tribe with no written language or advanced arithmetic. Smith's mentor of sorts is Jubal Harshaw, a sort of poorer Hugh Hefner who has a fenced in compound, a couple handymen and 3 beautiful secretaries living with him. (Being a red-blooded American male, RAH seems to have a rakish, chauvinistic streak running through his writings) As time goes by, Smith goes from a student of human nature to a teacher. As Smith learns more of human nature and becomes comfortable in society, he starts his own church, sort of a more communal/libertarian pantheism as opposed to authoritarian Christianity. Mention is made of pre-Christian Eskimo wife-swapping, and Christian mores in general are written off as uptight, outmoded or just burdensome. I can see where hippie communes, and free-love types took cues from this book. RAH's use of language and attempts to describe the sheer difference between humanity and Martian society are very successful, I think the protagonists' pontificating on free love and the beliefs of the Church of All Worlds is more workable on paper than in the real world.
Rating:
Summary: Unfortunately, Heinlein's Most Famous Work
Review: If you read "Grumbles from the Grave," you'll realize that Heinlein wanted to write this book for a long time. The way he tells it, he "had to wait for the public morals to change" before he could write it. I beg to differ. I just don't think RAH could carry it off well, which is why it sat on the shelf for so long. SIASL is a story about cultural mores, and how they are subject to change. That aspect of the story, however, does not appear until the fourth and fifth parts. The first three sections describe the experiences of a human being, Valentine Michael Smith, who was raised by Martians and now finds himself in contact with other humans. Eventually, he "figures out" humanity and sets off to change us all for the better by using a mix of Martian and human beliefs. Along the way, Heinlein (as narrator or through his characters) takes pot shots at organized religion, politics, art, academic degrees, astrology, and just about any other topic you'd care to name. His primary mouthpiece is Jubal Harshaw, a sybaritic lawyer-doctor(?) who manages to also write fiction, own a luxurious armed compound, and have three beautiful secretaries on staff. One would guess that this is how RAH would have loved to spend his retirement. The sections of the book where Harshaw appears are probably the most fun, but seem to be a long detour to get the reader where they are supposed to go. Smith's commune became the basis for many later aspects of the hippie movement, including Charles Manson's "family," which shared water like good Martians should. That association might have tarnished the book's reputation. I am in agreement with Brian Aldiss' assessment that Smith's cult would be completely useless and degenerate without the Man from Mars' powers. Much of the history of 1960s bears this opinion out. There are so many other books by Heinlein that can be read and savored. It's unfortunate that this is the one the that gets the most attention. It changes tone several times, becomes needlessly preachy, and tries to do too many things at once. It is not as unified as most Heinlein works. Therefore, this one gets a "thumbs down" from an otherwise devoted fan.
Rating: 
Summary: Look with your nose and see with your toes
Review: More than a dozen years have passed since I found a worn paperback copy in the Staurt, Florida library, but I can clearly remember the vivid characters and ideas. This is a book at allows you to think outside the box. Anyone who doesn't understand should treat themselves to a read. I'm no sci-fi fanatic. I've never watched a complete episode of any version of Star Trek, I've never seen any of the Star Wars movies, and I quickly lost interest in two of Heinlein's other books. This is not a little-green-come-to-earth story. It is, instead, a medium that allows you to look with your nose and see with your toes. Conventional thinkers will be bored and confused. I've read it twice and will listen to the audible.com version when I get my monthly credits
Rating:
Summary: Stranger in a Strange Land
Review: Stranger in a Strange Land is a compelling novel by Robert A. Heinlein. Although the story itself may not be as interesting as possible, it's captivating descriptions make it a must read for every Science Fiction lover. For example, instead of simply stating the grass is green, Heinlein describes how the grass feels, what texture it is, and what fragrance it gives off. This type of description, using all five senses, allows the reader to feel as if they could enter the plot and experience the feelings of each character.
Heinlein's interesting choice of characters, a nurse, martin and lawyer to name some, make it difficult to grasp the storyline at times, but the enthralling portrayal of events allows the reader to understand what is happening and what each character feels about it. Stranger in a Strange Land is different from many of Heinlein's other novels in the sense that it focus's on many controversial issues, free love for example. The innocence portrayed in the characters, especially the Martian, enlightens us about how we interact with each other today.
Stranger in a Strange Land is truly a one of a kind book and I guarantee you'll be enthralled after the first page. It's fascinating characters and captivating storyline will keep you turning page after page. Once you've read this book you'll never be the same again. Get your copy today!
- Laura Hecht-Felella
Rating:
Summary: A facinating view into history
Review: One of science fictions often overlooked values is the mirror it offers into not the future but the past. Looking at how authors write the future tells us a great deal, perhaps more, about the time that they lived then the time they are trying to create. Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" is a case in point. Ostensively about the 21st century it offers a facinating view into the 1960's, the era in which it was first published. The fact many tarred it as scandolous at its first appearence while at the same time the book was widely read gives us powerful insights into the counter culture revolution and the radical changes in values that we feel down to this very day. Moreover, "Stranger" opened the way for serious science fiction as social comentary, a debt for which all current writers in the genre owe Heinlein mightily. Using as his voice Michael, the sole survivor of a mars mission on which he was born, Heinlein presents powerful if somewhat data critiques of western culture, from art, to religion, to sex, to government. Raised by martians, Michael is a stranger to earth's culture and therefore an outsider. Readers with an interest in Heinlein's evolution would enjoy comparing Michael with the author's other favorite voice, the undying Lazurus Long of Methusalah's Children as well as all his later works. The difference in tone is striking, as is the fact that the ultimate cynic and the ultimate innocent come to almost all of the same conclusions, though the former has a better sense of humor. Readers may choose between two versions of the book, the one released in 1961 and a longer (an additional 50,000+) words that was released much later. Heinlein cut the material at his editors request and in my opinion the editor was right as the longer version drags and interfers with what is already ocassionally a slow story. Still, for those who like Heinlein this work cannot be missed.
Rating:
Summary: Absouletly fascinating... Nothing less than perfect!
Review: I could write a million words on this book, all passionate, emotional, deep, and highly in admiration. A book that can provoke such controversy, such cristism, such love and such passion, is nothing less than incredible and fascinating. This is a powerful novel. A must-read for everyone to interpret it themselves and be fascinated by Heinlein's thought-provoking ideas... Heinlein does not try and convert everyone to his ideas and beliefs but merely encourages thought and a more open-minded and understaing approach to life and to the human race. He is without a doubt a master story teller, an incredible writer, and an intelligent thinker. And I greatly disagree with the critism to his "over-simplification" to the problems on Earth. What Heinlein points out, and what I believe, is that the solutions are quite simply. Love. Understanding. Peace. Open-mindedness. However, humans try to find complex solutions where none need exist. Are these simple solutions simply too COMPLICATED for humans, or is critiszing them an accuse that we find to console ourselfves about the fact that we haven't solved anything yet? It is thoughts and ideas and beliefs as these that are shaped by Heinleins amazing and intelligent novel!
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing and thought-provoking!
Review: I read the author's cut of this book and would highly recommend it to most anyone. An escape to higher thinking and the ability to analyze so much of what is still relevant today; the author and his ideas were quite ahead of his time. Thank his wife for getting things straight with the proper text being included...
Rating: 
Summary: A fine yarn, but dated and self-indulgent.
Review: -----------------------------------------------------------
Heinlein conceived STRANGER in 1948, but didn't finish it until
1960. His editor asked him to cut it from 220,000 to 150,000 words; as
published it was 160,087. It was reissued from the original
manuscript in 1991, and I just got around to reading this "uncut"
edition. I first read STRANGER in the early sixties -- it's the only
"major" Heinlein I'd never reread (unless you count _To Sail the
Sunset Sea_ as major). STRANGER hasn't aged well. Ostensibly set in the 21st century, it
reads like the 1950's. News commentators are "winchells" and
"lippmans" -- I recognize the names, but remember nothing else
about the originals; do you? The bad guys and minor characters are
purest cardboard. Women ("bims") have the "liberty permitted cats
and favorite children"; homosexuals are "poor in-betweeners". The
world beyond the USA is almost invisible. Jubal Harshaw, the writer, patriarch and "father of all", is a self-
indulgent know-it-all given to long, hectoring speeches. The
women are quick to shed clothing and inhibitions, and couple with
any water-brother. They grow younger, more beautiful -- and more
exhibitionist -- as they learn Martian mind-control. Feh. And yet, and yet .... STRANGER still works as a novel -- I reread it
pretty much at one go. The idea of a child raised from infancy by an
alien race ... Valentine Michael Smith's journey from innocence to
full humanity to New Messiah ... the cheerfully crass
commercialism of the Church of Foster ... the silly-but-serious
mysticism ... Heinlein, whatever his flaws, was a master story-
teller. STRANGER was Heinlein's first crossover bestseller, becoming
something of a Sixties icon -- peace & love, y'know. Bits and pieces
were taken up in pop music and culture: "Discorporate, and you'll
be free", urged the Mothers of Invention. Grace Slick of the
Jefferson Airplane sang of "sister-lovers, water-brothers". The
ability to grok was briefly important, if mostly forgotten now. Should you read, or reread, STRANGER? Mmmph. I don't regret
doing so, but the book stays pretty low in my mental ranking of
Heinlein novels. And if I were you, I'd hunt up the earlier edition --
the restored 70,000 words add little but bulk to the story.
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