Paperback, 655 pages
English language
Published June 1, 2007 by Hodder & Stoughton, imusti.
Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians. The novel explores his interaction with—and eventual transformation of—terrestrial culture. The title is an allusion to the phrase in Exodus 2:22. According to Heinlein, the novel's working title was The Heretic. Several later editions of the book have promoted it as "The most famous Science Fiction Novel ever written".
4.5 stars rounded up because it left me feeling quietly happy
Stranger is one weird-ass book. Very good, but weird...
I am all that I grok.
Not having lived in the 60's, I can't tell how much of this reflects American culture then and how much it influenced that culture. Definitely seems like an inspiration for the free love movement, while seeming to propose that women embrace being treated as sexual objects. The sci-fi aspect is clearly used a tool to explore the culture of the times, and the usual "vision of the future" side of sci-fi is almost completely ignored. Completely different from Dune, which I recently reread and was also written in the 60's, this says more about what things were like then than what they are like now or in the future.
An outstanding book that will challenge your thoughts and opinions about purt'near everything.
