This book is part of my effort to read a few books in the science fiction genre, and while I loved Ursula LeGuin’s The Left Side of Darkness, Stranger in a Strange Land left me bored and disappointed. Yes, this book is over fifty years old and the imagined future is not the present, yet it seems so incredibly dated. It felt very black and white, bouffant hair-dos, white lab coats intermingled with flying taxis and space travel.
The story begins with a human mission to Mars that failed over some period of time. At least twenty years later humans return to Mars and bring back a young man, Michael Smith, who was raised by Martians. He is kept in a hospital and guarded by the government. Powerful interests are concerned because under some interpretations of Earthly law, Smith could “own” Mars. There’s a beat reporter, an attractive nurse, a wacky professor and his harem of smart women, who inexplicably also do the housework and cooking. It all seems so cliché.
I had a hard time getting past the female characters who are all very sexy, smart, and yet they’re all very good assistants to the male protagonists. Humans are portrayed as flawed, narrow-minded, greedy and self-interested. Yes, but there’s nothing in this book makes these facts particularly interesting.
This book is also the source of the word “grok” which I didn’t know when I first heard it at a business strategy meeting and thought WTF does that mean? Grokking is at the heart of this book, it’s a description of how Martians understand the meaning of a thing or act intuitively. Not sure why, but it just made me laugh, it sounded so “counter-culture” hippyish. I’m not surprised the word worked its way into corporate lingo, where it seemed particularly fatuous.
Overall this is a book that hasn’t aged well.
Yeah, I can’t stomach reading more than one Heinlein book a year or so because man, so fucking sexist. I do remember liking parts of Stranger in a Strange Land when I read it, but I was ~16 and therefore clearly also a moron, so what do I know? I’m unwilling to resubject myself to the bad parts for good parts I might not even like now.
Mr. Beth Ellen loooooves Heinlein. He’s lucky if I can get through one every couple of years. I’ve been reading Friday for well over a year because it’s awful and rapey. But I try. If only that appeased him. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is definitely better, and less icky, than a lot of them!
Ugh, Friday. Yeah, that was the last Heinlein book I read, about three years ago. I haven’t been able to read another one since, because it left such a bad taste in my mouth. I’m honestly not even sure why my instinct is to keep trying?
I had no instinct to try, and zero instinct to keep going, and yet out of sheer love I do. He has no clue how much of a lucky bastard he is. This years attempt is Time Enough for Love. I prefer when he gives me Asimov, now there’s some classic sci fi to get behind!
Time Enough For Love is, um… definitely a book I am glad to have read. Once. The Moon is A Harsh Mistress is his best adult book I think. The junior stuff is much better.
Sci-fi is like hairstyles, they rarely age well and you’re left feeling embarrassed of something you loved bAck in the day. May I recommend something more modern? Red Rising was fantastic.
Man, I agree with you SO. HARD. I love sci-fi conceptually, but a lot of the “classics” now read as shockingly regressive. I have this pet theory that classic sci-fi is a picture perfect encapsulation of male privilege. When men like Heinlein or Asimov imagine the future, they imagine space travel and water brothers and psychohistory (none of which are uncool concepts, lest I’m accused of being a hater); when women like LeGuin , Butler, and Atwood imagine the future, they imagine all that AND tend to re-configure social dynamics. Whether or not those tweaks are optimistic in their treatment of women and/or minorities, social im/mobility of certain classes tends to be a strong recurring theme — whereas the dudes tend to take for granted that existing power structures persist into the future.
Interesting observation about the difference between women and men writing science fiction. Thanks!