Product of its times, sure: just not at all futuristic. This is not a time when women have the vote." (p382) Granted, they ignored him and did what they wanted anyway, but there're a lot of these flippant, dismissive remarks all through the book. To hear this come out of Jill's mouth makes it especially awful.Īnother example is Jubal saying: "Pipe down, Anne. It does make it hard to read, though, when you come across lines like this, as spoken by Jill very matter-of-factly: "Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault." (p304) While today the statistics are more like "nine of ten times, a woman's rapist is someone she knows", the idea that it's "partly her fault" is still considered true by way too many people. There's also an affectionate insult for a Muslim character who's nicknamed "Stinky" that I couldn't help but be offended by. Which is ironic, really, considering Mike's free love cult. Not as far-sighted as it would like to be! It's especially noticeable in the relations between men and women, which have that faintly liberated tinge that's all really lip service, and a great deal of sexist language. It reads very 60s and 70s, though it was written before then. Yet, as a story, it's also bogged down with sermons, with Heinlein's opinions, and a very out-of-date mentality. With Mike set up as a new Messiah, a prophet, there's only one logical conclusion for this story.Īs a story, Stranger in a Strange Land is enjoyable and original. It leads him to start his own "church", though it's more of a way of life open to people of all religious denominations, with free love and open mindedness, and abilities gained through mastery of the Martian language. He doesn't understand religions and he has never laughed.Īfter months on the road with just Jill, learning and "grokking", he finally knows why humans laugh and how to do it himself, and gets the human condition. He's completely ignorant of human ways, of human concepts - things like jealousy, possessiveness etc. All of this can be done with understanding of the Martian language, which Jill starts to learn. Mike's particular talents slowly reveal: he can vanish things, including people, if he recognises there is a "wrongness" in them he can withdraw from his own body and shut down his body so there is no heartbeat he can teleport and think telepathically he can absorb books in minutes and regulate his own body, making it muscular and mature at will and so on. She rescues him from the politicians with the help of her journalist friend Ben and takes him to the home of a grumpy, reclusive man, Dr Jubal Harshaw, who lives with three young women who serve as secretaries - Anne, Miriam and Dorcas - and two men who take care of the property - Duke and Larry. A nurse at the hospital where he is first kept, Jill, offers him a glass of water and in that one action becomes a "water brother" - the highest accolade for Mike. Heir to a shitload of money care of his parents' heritage, it's unsurprising that the bigshots on Earth are wanting to keep him locked up tight. He is more Martian than human, especially in his thinking and outlook and philosophy, when he is brought back to Earth. Stranger in a Strange Land is about Michael "Mike" Smith, the "Man from Mars", offspring of two of scientists on board the original mission to Mars, who was raised by Martians. With a mix of very daggy technology like "stereo tanks" (TVs) and large, clumsy listening devices, alongside hover crafts and spaceships to Mars, the scope of the setting is hampered by a 50s' imagination. This is one of those books that tells us more about the period it was written in than anything else, so it's important to note that it was first published in 1961 and later again in 1968 - when moon fever was running high and people seemed to have high expectations for human achievement.Įvents are set in an undisclosed future but the older characters seem to remember the first moon landing, so I wouldn't be surprised if Heinlein was thinking of it being set around about now. It took me a long time to read only because of lack of time, and a rather annoying trait the author has that I'll go into later. Apparently a classic of the sci-fi cannon, I'd never heard of this book until it came up on a book club here.
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