Do sad sam od naučne fantastike čitao samo Solaris i Hard to be a god, obe su mi se dopale, pa sam uzeo da guglam "top 10 sci-fi classics" i slično, i Stranger in a strange land se pojavio na skoro svakoj listi pored Asimova, Dika, Herberta itd. Izabrao sam baš ovu jer Iron Maiden ima pesmu sa istim nazivom, pa sam računao da je to dodatni garant kvaliteta. Baš sam se zajebao.

Solaris i ova knjiga su izašle, valjda, iste godine, i možda pogrešno gledam na to kao razliku između kulture zapadnog i istočnog bloka. Ali u Solarisu imamo vanzemaljsko biće u formi okeana koji komunicira sa našom vrstom tako što manifestuje stvari iz naše podsvesti . Ovde imamo lika sa Marsa gde je glavna fora da ne zna da veže pertle.
Najdublje što se ide su rasprave tipa "eh, sve religije su iste, ljudi ratuju zbog njih", "ljudi lažu", ali se nikad ne ide u tome dalje od po koje komične scene gde neko pokušava našem Marsovcu da objasni nešto oko toga.
Da ne pominjem prikaz svih ženskih likova čija je funkcija isključivo da imaju duge noge i da kuvaju dok im matori guru objašnjava šta je smisao života dok ih gleda kako se prskaju u bazenu. Obično ovome ne pridajem veliki značaj kad je knjiga starija (1961.), ipak je tad bilo drugačije stanje svesti, (nisu znali da krave uništavaju ozonski omotač i da ne treba voziti dizelaše (mada bi im verovatno bilo ok da neko kao Jordan Peterson bude bitna osoba)), ali onda se opet vratim na Solaris gde nema ni trunke ovoga, i koji prevazilazi vreme u kome je napisana(što možda i ima smisla ako se odvija par hiljada godina u budućnosti) i shvatam da to nije opravdanje. Meni je cela poenta naučne fantastike postaviti društvo u nekom okruženju koje nije ograničeno trenutnim normama i načelima, a ne da je sve isto, samo vozimo leteće automobile.

Sad se malo plašim da probam sa čitanjem ovih ostalih "zapadnih" pisaca, pa ako neko ima predlog ko bi mi legao od ovih ostalih nabrojanih, biću zahvalan!

The summary tags this as "the most famous Science Fiction Novel ever written" and that's probably true, or close enough to true. Fittingly enough, it doesn't stretch for "greatest".

The initial premise is actually a good one: a human who has been raised by Martians come to Earth. It sounds like a good way to explore our society (rather, American society in the 1960s) using a fictional society to bring it into focus. And that's where the book starts out, and where it's the strongest, when the man from Mars is still getting used to this entirely different land he finds himself in.

The biggest problem the first half of the book has is exactly what kills the second half entirely: it's so preachy. In both halves, Heinlein wrote long speeches, lectures really, that one character (usually the older lawyer and probable Heinlein stand in Jubal Harshaw, later Valentine Michael Smith himself) will deliver to a particularly slow audience (however clever that character might seem in the rest of his or her interactions) who will only respond to a big chunk of speech with "Huh?" or "What?" This happens over and over again, through the whole course of the book, and frankly, it starts to drag. I just got sick of being lectured.

And maybe I wouldn't have minded being lectured quite so much if Heinlein weren't trying to sell me on a 60s free love fantasy. I have no doubt that this was much more progressive and revolutionary in the 60s. But as a modern reader, I can't help but notice how dependent this version of free love is on traditional gender roles. This reads less like the group marriage that Heinlein had intended and more like a shared harem. Women, despite being described as intelligent and capable, are essentially interchangeable here. They all talk and act in roughly the same manner. And then, late in the book, I find that one woman has changed her appearance to make herself look just like another woman. I guess to Heinlein, the fantasy here is that a group of beautiful, perfectly identical, perfectly interchangeable women would always be sexually available to the men in their lives. This is not my fantasy.

This probably goes without saying, but it's also entirely heteronormative, to the point of casual homophobia. Mike makes it abundantly clear that he's resolutely heterosexual, and so is his entire nest. I can deal with that. But earlier in the book, the worry that poor, innocent Mike would be seduced by (horrors!) another man are dismissed. Mike would sense a wrongness about an "in-betweener" and would never admit one that closely into his circle. Sigh.

That's a "product of its time" sort of issue. And while I'm considerably less enraged by finding that sort of thing in a book written in the 60s than in a book written today, I still intensely dislike and am disappointed by it. Heinlein could think ahead far enough to a world where travel between Mars and Earth could be relatively easy, but not far enough to a world where women could be something more than nurses, secretaries, or sexual partners. It's a shame, but he wasn't nearly as visionary as he thought he was being.

With an original publication date of 1961 there's some really outdated social context in this book. Such as a woman saying "90% of the time with rape victim's it the woman's fault everybody knows that" (paraphrasing) which really through me for a loop. In general there's a lot of things we view as outright wrong, or at least most of us do and all of us should.

On the other hand the book is very forward thinking in how things could and should be. It's an especially interesting look into religion and people's parochial views. It doesn't advocate for secularism but more inclusiveness across all denominations (not limited to Christianity).

The other thing that struck me was this truly was a precursor to the generation of love. Hippies, flower children, etc. must have loved this book. All of us being one in the universe and part of god and thus part of each other.

I'd be remiss for not mentioning that the characters in this book are sensational. Jubal in particular I loved.

Tremendous work. I only wish I had read this 30 years ago.

There is nothing conventional about Stranger in a Strange Land. Plot and narrative rhythm are all over the place, there is no consistency to the evolution of the characters--all of whom are stereotyped and cardboard-flat to begin with--and not a single fact or event or human reaction you'll find in here could be described as realistic. Thing is, I don't think any of it was supposed to make any kind of traditional sense in the first place.

Surely Heinlein put in this book more than a few political ideas with which he sympathized, and surely the book is full of racial and sexual stereotypes which fortunately today we all (?) agree are harmful and disgusting. I'm not going to argue we should excuse Heinlein for his bigotry because the times were what they were, either. What I think, instead, is that it's all so ridiculous, so patently improbable and written (self-awarely so, in my opinion) in the most absurd and un-serious way I can conceive, that I honestly can't believe Heinlein ever intended for Stranger to be straightforwardly 'preachy'. This novel has zero convincing power, and this is why I can't really get angry at it, not when I have in my mind a crystal-clear image of Heinlein cackling madly to himself as he was writing this.

I think it would require a more careful study of Heinlein's attitude to writing, his views on the ideological role/potential of SF, and his political credos than I am willing to do at this moment to determine with a semblance of accuracy how serious or not Stranger is or was meant to be, but ultimately, I would say that the author's intentions are not as important as what readers make of the text when they read it, and what the text is able to communicate in itself. So my suggestion to potential future readers is to not read this book as a political statement (which many seem to do) nor as a typical SF classic (which, as I mentioned, will leave you wanting due to the unconventionality of Heinlein's narration). In my opinion, you should let the text itself guide you towards the right 'frames' that will help you make as much sense of it as you can. In my case, I found that what worked best for me was to read Stranger as a "crack fic." (I learnt this term recently and I love it. English is amazing.) Try it, if you like, and let me know how that experiment goes. And remember, Thou Art God.

Another read of Robert A. Heinlein's probably most famous work. This time I went with the earlier 'abridged' version. I read it as a part of the monthly reading for January 2024 at Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels group, for it won Hugo in 1962. Below follows my review from 2018, but with some edits.

This is an unabridged edition of the novel that won the Hugo Award in 1961 and was one of the important books of hippie generation with ideas of sex without guilt, make love not war and broadening of the mind. It was very progressive in its day but now a lot of stuff can be considered offensive.

First of all: which version is better? Before reading this one I’ve read (25 years ago) a Russian translation of the abridged version. They are not very different, there are no hidden gems in the full version, so if you are not the fan of RAH, I’d say use the abridged one. Re-reading the book in 2024 I stay to this decision, for the story sags in the middle, where the most was cut. Editors done a good job.

The story follows Mowgli from Mars, the sole survivor of the first expedition, Valentine Michael Smith. He is unique not only in his upbringing, for he never has seen a human in the first twenty years of his life (so he is “a species of one”, a Martian in the human body. He has both earthly wealth and martian knowledge, which borders on magical. Too many forces want to have him in their paws. Will he overcome the challenges and finally become a human? What are the defining characteristics?

It is said that the novel was written in two periods and it is true that it starts extremely engagingly but bogs down in the middle. Maybe the problem was with introducing a classical ‘old wise man’, Dr. Jubal Harshaw, self-described as a "professional clown, amateur subversive, and parasite by choice" and by the omniscient narrator as "LL.B., M.D., Sc.D., bon vivant, gourmet, sybarite, popular author extraordinary, and neopessimist philosopher". Such men readers often see in Heinlein’s works (he is not exactly a 'competent man' as requested by Campbell) and who shifted the focus of the book. Maybe it was a preachy tone of that man. At the same time, I intentionally used the sentiment analysis on the book and found out that the middle part is the most positive in terms of the words used. Which maybe suggests that the current sentiment analysis tools are not very good.

If it was a new book I’d give it 3 stars max, but because it was a 5* read for me as a teen, I’ll average at 4*.

Holy shit. In my entire life I’ve never read anything like this. Brilliant.

The bookish equivalence of period cramps.

i grok this book in its fullness.

I'm a bit of a Heinlein fan, but for whatever reason only his most accessible stuff - Starship Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I'd never quite tackled this one. It was always kind of a bit intimidating for some reason. Without a doubt, this book has one of the most evocative titles of all time. It is quite literally biblical in nature. When you start there, you are setting the bar high. And this book delivers in spades.

Stranger in a Strange Land is the story of a man, Valentine Michael Smith, raised by Martians and then returned to Earth. He is roughly 30 years of age but doesn't know what it means to be human. Through Smith, we explore all sorts of social norms - relationships, conflict, friendship, religion, crime, politics, and more. The results are sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, but always intriguing.

I don't want to give away more other than to say the story's ending was both a little predictable and very satisfying. About 100 pages out I knew exactly where we were going, but I didn't care. I wanted to go there with Smith.

Five stars out of five. A great read and a classic of science fiction.

Side note: I've been a convert to digital books for about 5-6 years ever since I had to move. (Boxes of books are heavy!) At the urging of a close friend and the need to fill some empty bookshelves, I decided to pick up a nice hardcover version of this book. And, over the course of a trip, I read an actual physical book. What a pleasure! It is a very different experience than an ebook. I won't be giving up the ebooks anytime soon, but I'll definitely be reading more physical books again!

I try not to abandon books, but could not get through this one. Not even switching to audio helped.

What an absolute rambling mess. The early part of the book is somewhat interesting, although the ideas are handled typically for 1960s sci-fi (that is to say, poorly). There is a little bit of interesting commentary on science, politics, religion, and society, but the latter half of the book is a flat out rambling, pointless mess. The word "grok" is severely overused in this book and becomes irritating within a few pages - it is used possibly several hundred times in the book. Although there are parts of this that are OK, overall there is very little to recommend this book. This was a struggle to get through.

1960s science fiction pretty much rocks. That's really all I have to say.