Robert A. Heinlein's 1961 novel, "Stranger In A Strange Land," was his magnum opus, his most well-known and most popular work as well as one of the most brilliant novels ever published in the science fiction genre. It is also often misunderstood. It is a novel that was twelve years in the making and designed to challenge our notions about money, religion, marriage, friendship, death, and many other things. Although often considered to be a blueprint for the counterculture of the sixties in that it features communal living, shared money within groups or cults, and differing understandings of relationships, the book does not advocate communal living, pantheism, free love, the end of money, or any such things any more than it could be said to advocate cannibalism or murder. Rather, the book, as all great books, makes the reader think and question standard conceptions.

Many science fiction books going all the way back to the time of Edgar Rice Burroughs have posed the question of what it would be like for someone to be teleported to another planet and how would that person manage to co-exist among strange beings with different morals, different customs, different language, and different history. Heinlein in "Stranger in a Strange Land" turns that concept on its head and poses the question of what it would be like for a creature from another planet or at least raised on another planet to come here and try to decipher our strange ways of speaking and living.

Just as Mowgli in "Jungle Book" or "Tarzan of the Apes" had trouble understanding some things about our civilization, Valentine Michael Smith, the Man from Mars (or at least raised on Mars) came to Earth with no understanding or our language, customs, history, or religion. He came from a planet of scarce resources, particularly water, where, because of the scarcity of physical resources, the community came first and allegiance to one's nest was of the utmost importance. In his world, there was not necessarily a sharp distinction between physical and metaphysical or between life and death. Death did not necessarily end life there, but the "old ones" existed on a metaphysical plane.

The first part of the book is all about how Smith came to Earth and how he was introduced to our customs and practices. For instance, growing up among Martians, he had never seen a woman before. He had never seen an ocean and couldn't imagine putting one's whole body in the water. He had no understanding of our concepts of marriage, family, brotherhood. As Smith matures and his understanding grows, he finds our concepts fascinating, but starts teaching his new family (his cult you might say) about the Martian language, Martian concepts, Martian culture. In the process, he founds a new religion and a new cult in which they experiment with the Martian concepts of communal living. Later in the book, this new cult is persecuted and attacked by existing groups. Heinlein, in writing this book, doesn't ask the reader to chose Martian concepts over human concepts, but merely explores them.

The book is told with great humor and great characterizations. There are bits that are hysterically funny as Smith starts opening his fan mail and trying to decipher the odd things that people wanted from him from marriage proposals from strangers to people wanting him to endorse odd products. There are humorous satirical diatribes about politics and law and religion. In the end, "Stranger" is one of the richest and deepest books written and one of the most enjoyable. Whether you read the originally published 1961 version or the 1991 uncut version, I highly recommend this book to all, but encourage reading it with the idea of exploring fascinating ideas just as Orwell's "1984" or Smith's "Gulliver's Travels" explored various ideas and concepts without necessarily advocating them.

This book is one of those that anyone interested in science-fiction is told they must read. It's on all the lists. It's supposed to be ground-breaking, years ahead of its time. And whilst it may have been in 1961 I don't think it has weathered the years well and those reading it for the first time now and singing nothing but high praises really need to read it more carefully.

The first half of the book is the better half for me. The intrigue and conspiracy around the government trying to hide Michael from the world. The introduction of Ben and Jill and then Jubal. But even then there were some issues that I initially brushed off as showing what the world of the time looked like. By that I'm referring to the blatant sexism. Heinlein makes it clear that Jill has slept with almost every male staff member in the hospital. From there it just gets worse.

Jubal is one of the most interesting characters in the book but is still heavily flawed. He'd be one of those people who is extremely sexist but then tries to pass it off by just saying he is joking around. That's always a poor excuse for ones behaviour and attitude. Then came a section where I had to put the book down and almost didn't pick it up again. On the topic of homosexuals Jill hopes that Mike never meets any as he "would grok a "wrongness" in the poor in-betweeners". She then goes on to say that "Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's at least partly her own fault." Ahead of it's time? Hell no, that attitude shows this book is very much a product of the age it was written in.

The rest of the book continues in this fashion. It's supposed to be about liberating oneself from sexual conventions that apparently are the underlying cause of humanities downfall but only in a way in which men are in the higher position, where women are used and homosexuals banned. I'd like to think the future of humanity is better than that.

The religious aspects of this book I found interesting too but still lacking. Mike seemed to only borrow from Judeo-Christian religions with barely a mention of any others except Islam which wasn't really treated well. I'm glad to have read this book as it is widely considered a classic of sci-fi literature but I'm left wondering why?

“Nine times out of ten, if a woman is raped it’s partially her fault.”

This one sentence, given to a female character by a male author in 1961, basically sums up the icky feeling this book gave me the entire time I read it.

Don’t get me wrong, when not being blasphemous or misogynistic, Heinlein has an AMAZING turn of phrase, but I just CAN’T with his anti-female and anti-religious views that he feels compelled to shove down the reader’s throat.

I hated this book and hope my next buddy read is a better choice than this one. Read three books by Heinlein so far and of them, I hated this one and The Cat Who Walked Through Walls and liked Starship Troopers. I’m planning to re-read the one I liked to see if I was wrong or right in my initial assessment of it. I REALLY hesitate to read any more by him. If anyone has any suggestions of the next Heinlein I should try, let me know. He will get one more book and if it stinks too, I write him off completely.

1, I wish I could go lower, stars. Not recommended AT ALL.