Rating: 
Summary: One of the most eye opening books ever written!
Review: This book was one of the mosy rivetting books I have ever read.It showed me many things I would have missed in life. If I were to take one book to a dsert island with me, it would be Stranger in a Strange Land. Read it!
Rating: 
Summary: I just don't agree with him
Review: I didn't care about the characters. This was apparently the messiah story altered and perverted. I struggled through simply because this is supposed to be one of the great SF novels of all time. I can suspend my beliefs for just about anything until it hits me square in the middle of my Christian faith. I cannot accept corrupt, adulterous TV preachers being transformed into angels. Humans do not become angels, well in SF they can, even if they are evil. Is Heinleins' God so impotent that He has no standards of behavior and faith? RAH is caught were so many find themselves, thinking that if they can imagine a God who does not care about His creation then it must be truth. Speaking of truth, everything cannot be true, which seems to be Heinleins view. I found great difficulty reading this book. It was not any fun. I found myself disagreeing with RAH at every turn. I cannot recommend this book. The writing was fine and had some interesting parts. This is only my second RAH book; I read FRIDAY just before this one and am now reading THE CAT WHO WALKED THROUGH WALLS. I guess I enjoy RAH's style I just can't agree with the premise of this book. Does he always preach this much? One other item; in his future, technology changes, democracy changes but the women are treated like it was 1769. "This is man talk" what was that all about?
Rating:
Summary: Life changing.
Review: Read it. It will change your perspective. Can we say "collective mind"?
Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking and amusing ...
Review: I read this book when I was 15 and now, four year later, I find that I still sometimes think about it. The dialogue was exquisite and the ideas, perhaps because of their deviation from most of anything I knew about at the time, made me think a lot more than any other book. This is definitely a classic that must be read, making you re-examine everything from religion, to morals, ethics, and everything in between. But since a life not examined is not a life lived, this is the perfect book to think about those things many of us take for granted.
Rating: 
Summary: good start, but deteriorates into nuisance
Review: Life on Mars is discovered. A human - the sole survivor of the expedition - comes to earth, after being born and raised in the completely different martian society. Regrettably, almost none is told about the Martians themselves; the story focuses solely on the adventures of Smith, the martian-minded human, on earth. The story has a promising start with an interesting concept. Unfortunately it fails to deliver on that promise and deteriorates later; the old but always interesting theme of completely ignorant outsider coming into our society with its cultural oddities turns into a self-contradictory and partly boring pseudo-jesus story. But that is not the worst; the most annoying thing is Heinleins personal attitude, here much worse than in e.g. Starship Troopers. If published today, it would surely be torn apart by gay activists and women's rights groups, and although I am member of neither, they might for once be right in their critique. I don't know in what stage of his life Heinlein wrote this, but it evokes in me the impression of some sort of auto-biography in the role of Jubal Hershaw. He probably represents how Heinlein would have liked to see himself, sort of: detached, very wise, outwardly rude but goodnatured, likeable and stunningly intelligent, his girls liking him for this and his seniority. Strike my last sentence if I am wrong and Heinlein did NOT write it in the later part of his life. Concrete points of criticism, illustrated by examples: The absolute superiority of the angloamerican culture in Heinleins view: not only are all places the martian and therefore we as readers encounter, for all practical purposes the whole world, the earth is located within the continental U.S.; Heinleins arrogance goes even further, calling "English the largest human tongue; its variety, subtlety ... make it possible to say things in English which cannot be said in any other language" (p.212/213). He forgets that English has been so successful just because of its almost unrivaled *s! implicity*. I don't know too many languages that good but let's just try to translate the German "durch krypto-faschistoide Weltanschauung hervorgerufener Zeitgeist" into English. let's face it: English is probably one of the least sophisticated languages of the world, the smallest common denominator of the world's cultures, so to speak. And I don't mean this negative. But Heinlein's attitude shows here: he is as infatuated with himself and his own view of the world as with his cultural background. Even worse is his attitude towards women: his ultra-patriarchal ideas must've been outdated or at least dusty already in his days and are surely appalling today: throughout the whole book women are only good for a) serving the men, as in cooking, massaging etc., and b) intercourse, but certainly they are too dumb to be decision-makers or even rational, full equals to men. p.214 is typical and sums up his idea of a women's role: "it pleased him that these women did not chatter, did not intrude into sober talk of men, but were quick with food and drink in warm hospitality." His archaic view of women gets so far as to „nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault."(p.304) !!! When Heinlein sets up the idea of a water-sharing brotherhood it is a society that would make the 70ies „free love" look catholic; it is an interesting, original idea at first, having sort of a human Bonobo - society. However, this common love-making as the basis for a society with its absolute promiscuity is reserved to the fact that women are available to the men all the time; no homosexual tendecies are tolerated, unlike with the bonobos, which makes the concept of physical love as a basis for a society questionable in its workability. Gays are a „wrongness" (p.303), just like violence or greed are wrongnesses; lesbian tendencies would be too much for a tidy girl to cope with (p.307), stripping and voyerism, on the other hand, are things that women have to accept as good and natu! ral, and pornographics are a „goodness" (p.307). His concept of the undescribably different martian culture starts with its inexplicable language. But the oh-so-mysterious, unintelligible and intranslatable „to grok" can actually simply be substituted by the words „to get" or „to fully understand" in the sense of all-encompassing comprehension for the convenience of reading. Only rarely is it used with the more interesting sense of „being one with / part of". The story erodes exponentially towards the end. It often gets self-contradictory and therefore loses credibility. For example, the innocent Mike is completely honest and can't lie by default, but he deceives Patty over his true opinion on the quality of the book she gave him and on his opinion of her church. And although Heinlein tries to develop an interesting brotherhood-love-society and an god-is-in-everybody and -thing theory he also includes a heaven model that is more childish than that of a preschooler: angels sitting up there, watching and taking care of the developments on earth. The two concepts, one rather advanced and intriguing, the other annoyingly naive, crash at each other. I hope that I was able to convey to you that this book is not as good as one might be led to believe by general opinion. Honestly I almost found it difficult to finish, I got unnerved at the book towards the end. But that was perhaps because I had a wrong expectation towards it. The first part of the book is okay, but the second part has hardly any credibility or point. As I haven't read any other SF books of this kind to compare it with I can't tell if it is a relatively good book by mean standards or if it is bad even then. Therefore, take my rating of 4 with caution. And by the way: no, it is not life-changing, nor is it eye-opening if you are not overly mentally dull in the first place.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written - a classic forever
Review: This has to be the most intellectual and evocotive science fiction novels ever written. People have argued that Heinlein's views on religion are untrue and unfair. I thought he covered the topics well and varied view on the subjects were expressed. I've read other science-fiction/religion novels and nothing come close to this. The characters were portrayed with such detail; by the end of the book I thought I'd knew them all my lives. "Stranger in a Strange Land" is the kind of book which people talk about once theyve finished. It really makes you think. It's simply magical. A definite must-read.
Rating:
Summary: Heinlein blows your mind and then puts it back together!
Review: I ADORED THIS BOOK...It takes a LONG time to "grok" the ideas, but they are WELL worth it. I love the dialogue- Heinlein uses a form of the Socratic mehod to let you follow along. This is the PERFECT book for everyone- be they philosopher or malcontent. I especially appreciated the portion devoted to Mike's search for religion- the highest irony, considering that his "subversive" searches make more sense than any system in place. To anyone who reads this review: READ THIS BOOK-READ IT NOW AND READ IT MANY TIMES. IT WILL CHANGE YOU AND YOUR LIFE!
Rating:
Summary: MORK AND MINDY MEETS JESUS CHRIST SUPER STAR.
Review: IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THIS BOOK, YOU DO NOT GROK WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A SF FAN.
Rating:
Summary: This book should be read every ten years.
Review: It gives the reader a lot to think about for many hours long after the book has been closed. Grok on it.
Rating:
Summary: Liberal, Libertarian or Conservative?
Review: A previous reviewer said: 'I once made a joke to my English teacher regarding this book. Looking through a catalog of books while my teacher was deciding what to order for her students to read next year, my eyes alighted on Stranger in a Strange Land. "Get this for the summer reading" I told her, "and come September you'll have an entire class of liberals!"' Au contrare, Heinlein was very conservative in many ways. The fruit of his influence may be seen in all the reconstituted former hippies, who have become the very thing they once protested: the establishment.
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