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 60's 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, provocative as he always loved to be. Can you grok it? --Brooks Peck


From Library Journal
In 1939 Heinlein published his first sf short story and became one of the most prolific and influential authors in the genre. Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) is an international best seller and a landmark in more ways than one: it opened the trade best sellers lists to sf writers, breaking down longstanding barriers that will never be seen again. At the same time Stranger became an emblem of the 1960s generation in its iconoclasm and free-love themes. Telling the story of an Earth baby raised by an existing, ancient Martian civilization, the novel often reads as if it were the "Playboy Philosophy" in dialog form. The man/ Martian comes to Earth and broadcasts his ideas by forming his own Church. Heinlein has been rightly criticized for presenting as facts his opinions, which state that organized religion is a sham, authority is generally stupid, young women are all the same, and the common individual is alternately an independent, Ayn Randian-producing genius and the dull-witted part of an ignorant and will-less mob. Yet the book is hard to put down; in its early pages it is a truly masterful sf story. Every library with a fiction collection should have it. Christopher Hurt reads with authority, nicely drawing the characters via barely perceptible changes in intonation, harshness, and pacing. Highly recommended.?Don Wismer, Office of the Secretary of State, Augusta, Me.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Heinlein's cult classic about a man raised by Martians who teaches humanity to make love, not war, doesn't read aloud very well. The narrative is heavy, the dialogue contrived and unnatural. The tone is dated. Competent, but no miracle worker, Christopher Hurt tries gamely to keep things moving and believable. His performance will satisfy the nostalgic and uncritical but won't win new converts. J.N. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

FROM THE PUBLISHER

An enormous number of readers have found this book a brilliant mind-bender. . . .[the book is] a wonderfully humanizing artifact for those who can enjoy thinking about the place of human beings not at a dinner table but in the universe.

SYNOPSIS

In the 1960s, the first science-fiction title to appear on The New York Times Book Review 's best-seller list.

Valentine Michael Smith is the stranger. A young human, reared by Martians on Mars, he is brought to Earth where he must adapt not only to the planet's social injustices and its population's foibles, but to its strong gravitational field and rich atmosphere.

FROM THE CRITICS

Gale Research

Stranger in a Strange Land was, David N. Samuelson wrote inCritical Encounters: Writers and Themes in Science Fiction, "in some ways emblematic of the Sixties. . . . It fit the iconoclastic mood of the time, attacking human folly under several guises, especially in the person or persons of the Establishment: government, the military, organized religion. By many of its readers, too, it was taken to advocate a religion of love, and of incalculable power, which could revolutionize human affairs and bring about an apocalyptic change, presumably for the better." Robert Scholes and Eric S. Rabkin wrote in their Science Fiction: History, Science, Vision that "the values of the sixties could hardly have found a more congenial expression."

AudioFile - John Niessink