Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein, was published in 1961 and won the 8th Hugo Award. Heinlein is one of my favorite authors, and I've read this book several times over the years. For this project, I read the originally published, shorter version of the book. Opinions, reviews, and summaries of this book abound, so I'll keep mine short.
Things I love about this book:
- The concept that humans are ultimately self-serving creatures, none of whom do anything they don't want to do for some reason of their own
- There are some laugh-out-loud lines as the title character learns about human civilization, such as "I have learned two ways to tie my shoes. One way is only good for lying down. The other way is good for walking."
- Most of the book consists of dialogue, and most of the characters are just as smart and interesting as Heinlein himself
- The "Fosterite" church, if it actually existed, would probably do very well in modern western civilization with its combination religion/bar/casino structure
- Early in part 3 of the book, Heinlein lays out a sensible system for sorting fan mail; using it would probably benefit any celebrity
- Heinlein tempers his typical chauvinism by making most of the female characters very smart, and putting them in charge (whether the male characters admit it or not)
- The overall message of the book is hopeful and positive
- Telepathy, when used to demonstrate the superiority of a character or race, has been overused and is losing any power to amaze that it might once have had
- The church created by the title character seems overly idealistic, even taken in context; I loved the ideas as a twenty-something, but now that I'm a suburbanite mom I see it a bit differently
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