Product Description

Now stunningly repackaged the original uncut edition of Stranger in a Strange Land by Hugo Award winner Robert A Heinlein: the most generally celebrated science-fiction novel of all time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #277695 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 672 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Stranger in a Strange Land, winner of the 1962 Hugo Award, is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, born during, and the only survivor of, the first manned mission to Mars. Michael is raised by Martians, and he arrives on Earth as a true innocent: he has never seen a woman and has no knowledge of Earth's cultures or religions. But he brings turmoil with him, as he is the legal heir to an enormous financial empire, not to mention de facto owner of the planet Mars. With the irascible popular author Jubal Harshaw to protect him, Michael explores human morality and the meanings of love. He founds his own church, preaching free love and disseminating the psychic talents taught him by the Martians. Ultimately, he confronts the fate reserved for all messiahs. The impact of Stranger in a Strange Land was considerable, leading many children of the sixties to set up households based on Michael's water-brother nests. Heinlein loved to pontificate through the mouths of his characters, so modern readers must be willing to overlook the occasional sour note ("Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault."). That aside, Stranger in a Strange Land is one of the master's best entertainments, and provocative, as he always loved to be. Can you grok it? --Brooks Peck

About the Author
Robert A. Heinlein was one of the greatest science fiction writers of the century and won the coveted Hugo Award on several occasions. He died in 1989.

Customer Reviews

A piece of visonary exellence
Very odd how mixed the reviews
seem to be for this novel, but it
does seem to me that those that
have chosen to rate it drasticly
low have done so for the wrong reasons.
Therefore leaving me with the conclusion
they failed to grasp the books true genius.
Let us not forget the first designs for this
book came out in the early 1950's. The only
critiqe i have against this book is where
he dribbles on about those damn fosterite
idiots for to many chapters, but it is a
minor one and dosent stop me giving the
5 stars this book truly deserves, i guess
this is a little beyond the comprehension
of a lot of the yokels out there,
try a dose of pharmaceutical grade lsd,
squeege your third eye, read prometheus
rising by robert anton wilson, then reread
stranger...

Not worth the effort
Having abandoned sci-fi many years ago, on the basis that a large proportion of it does its best to meet the 'poor mans literature' stereotype, I decided to give 'Stranger In A Strange Land' a go on the basis that it is considered by many to be a classic.

Having read it, I can honestly say that I have *no* idea how this novel achieved 'classic' status. It is one of the most poorly written and unengaging books I have ever had the misfortune to pick up. If it was a kids' book I'd be less quick to criticize, but as far as I can tell it isn't.

The characters are two dimensional, the dialogue is like something out of a bad B-movie and the story line meanders aimlessly around, despite your continued hopes that some form of meaningful plot will form out of the tangle.

Really, I wouldn't bother.

Drivel
I read the original, uncut version - I think I would have been better with the bowdlerised edition. This novel is far too long - there are too many lectures on what is wrong with society & how we should live our lives. And it features an all too common sci-fi belief - that great sex will cure all.

It wasn't even good for its time - much better sci-fi novels have been produced since long before Heinlein's time.

Heinlein wrote some excellent juvenile sci-fi but his adult works are hackneyed, trite & self-indulgently wordy.