[Jack]

Years ago I was pushed by a friend of mine to read Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. I was turned off by the idea because I didn't respect this friend's opinions on books all that much and because I thought the title was pretty lame.

Years later I finally picked up a MMPB copy I'd had on my shelf for ages and read it, much to the delight of my then girlfriend who was a huge fan of the book, though she is not a fan of any other fantasy/sci-fi beyond Tolkien.

I read the entirely book slowly and carefully to make sure I got it all in, and the end result was that I really didn't enjoy it. I thought it was hokey. I found the hero worship of the lead to be slightly annoying. I didn't really understand why he needed to build or church or the entire point of having the church, and I didn't think it was neat-o when everyone started gaining these powers. I didn't like the fact that the lead had sex with everyone and that was a-okay for some reason because he was a martian.

Yet everytime I read a review for a new sci-fi book (in this case Old Man's War which is currently en route to my home) it always mentions Heinlein, Heinlein, Heinlein! So I'm willing to bet that the opinions of hundreds of critics and millions of readers just might be reason enough for me to give Heinlein another shot with a different book. Maybe "Stranger" was just not my kind of read, which brings me to my point: if I didn't like "Stranger", are there other Heinlein books I might enjoy? And if so, which ones? I've never seen Starship Troopers the movie, but I've heard the book is pretty spectacular.

Any opinions on the above, or any of your experiences with Heinlein would be greatly appreciated.

[microbes]

If the free love / liberated sex theme in a book is a turn off for you I would stay away from most of his later stories like "I will Fear no Evil", "Time Enough for Love", "The Cat Who Walks Though Walls", "Friday", and "To Sail beyond the Sunset". (I liked all these books, but they do have this thread running through them)

Try some of his earlier work like "The Man Who Sold the Moon" or "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" (Mistress touches on group marriage, but not in the way his later books do, and it's a very importaint part of the story).

Or some of the so called "juvenile" stories like Podkayne or Red Planet (Podkayne isn't really a juvenile, but it was first marketed as such).

Or some of his novellas like "If This Goes One" and "Coventry".

[Archren]

You know one of his that is often overlooked but was an early Hugo winner is Double Star. I really enjoyed it. I think of it as having a lot of the political attitudes of later Heinlein, but without all the gratuitous sex.

Oh, the female character is useless & horribly stereotyped, but it *was* 1956, so you can't totally hold it against him.

[Ward]

Double Star and the Moon is a Harsh Mistress are my favorties, some of the Lazarus stuff is OK (Methusalah's Children), any collection of short stories and some of the juvenilles are good too. I was pretty turned off by the 'dirty old man' era books myself.

[Mojo is me]

Heinlein wrote for many many years. If you did not like Stranger, then read his earleir works. His "juveniles" were originally marketed to a teen audicne but can definitely be enjoyed by adults. The Star Beast; Time for the Stars; Starman Jones and others.

Also, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is quite good. His short stories are also quite good.

[Randy M.]

I've read only three of RAH's novels -- Podkayne of Mars, Starship Troopers, and Friday -- and was not impressed. The first was fun but slight (which, I take it, is it's reputation among RAH fans), and the last, supposedly a return to form, I found objectionable in a couple of ways: First, Friday ends up marrying her rapist -- not a thing most women are likely to do in a world not created by RAH. Second, Heinlein elides issues of personal identity, setting up her insecurity as a strawman for one of his wise old man figures to knock down and kick around with no real effort. I believe I had other objections, but they've faded with time.

ST, just annoyed the hell out of me with an almost rabid pro-military stance that I didn't think it earned -- the reasons for the stance were stated or assumed, as I recall, rather than dramatized -- and which certainly didn't ring authoratively when I read it at about the height of the Watergate hearings. It's possible I could not appreciate the story given my politics at the time, but I also thought the story staggered, never caught fire, was slow and boring, and some of his effects had been handled better by others, like Alfred Bester.

BUT I do enjoy his short stories, most of which were written in the '40s. Find a collection of those and enjoy yourself. I particularly like someof his fantasies: "--And He Built a Crooked House," "They," "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag," etc.


Randy M.

[Ouroboros]

A lot's been written about Heinlein on the board in the past, you might enjoy digging through some of the older threads, Jack.

My suggestion would be that if want to try more Heinlein then try 'Starship Troopers' and 'The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress'. Both have their advocates, both have their detractors. Whether you like them or not at least you'll know one way or the other whether Heinlein is for you or not. 'Troopers' is peerless military SF, although paradoxically the battle scenes are thin on the ground. TMIAHM (!) is a little lighter, a little funnier, but also quite involving.

His young adult novels were and are tremendously popular. I guess I discovered them a little too late, because although I can enjoy them on one level, they don't delight me in the same way as his maturer stuff. I do look forward to eventually inflicting them on some poor niece or nephew, though, at the right time.

Some of his short stories actually have a grittier, harder edge. I picked up a second hand copy of a collection of his writings called 'The Expanded Universe' yesterday. A mixture of short fiction with some non-fiction articles. The non-fiction is of its time, but while Heinlein got some stuff wrong with his political forecasts, what still shines through is his innate intelligence.

[Janos]

I read the entirely book slowly and carefully to make sure I got it all in, and the end result was that I really didn't enjoy it. I thought it was hokey. I found the hero worship of the lead to be slightly annoying. I didn't really understand why he needed to build or church or the entire point of having the church, and I didn't think it was neat-o when everyone started gaining these powers. I didn't like the fact that the lead had sex with everyone and that was a-okay for some reason because he was a martian.

The only reason I can see why Heinlen added that entire part of the book was so he could write a lot of stuff about what was wrong with Religion. Since Mike (the lead) started the Church, that allowed Heinlen - specifically the character Jubal - to launch into a big diatribe about what's wrong with religion and what's wrong with the way society views sex. But as far as a church is important to the actual story, a church would be a good way to bring a message to lots of people and have everyone believe it. However, when the message the characters want to give gets overridden by the message the author wants to give (not always the same), the whole premise of a church feels like it's on shaky ground

On any account, it really seemed like (as opposed to Friday, the only other "sexually liberated" book of Heinlen's that I've read) this was Heinlen's way of laying his belief system out. In Friday, it seemed like it was just an accepted fact that everyone was sexually promiscuous, and that's just the way it was. But in Stranger, he had an unfettered chance to tell you just exactly what was on his mind.

[ArthurFrayn]

I read Farmer in the Sky and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress just within the past two years, and thought they were both terrific.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345324382/qid=1144505060/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-4493124-1828856?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312863551/qid=1144505102/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-4493124-1828856?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

TMIAHM could be argued to be genre defining, if that's a valid motivation for reading anything. ;)

[Jack]

Thank you all for your replies!

Sounds like I at least owe it to myself to read Starship Troopers and TMIAHM, since they are "peerless" and "genre-defining" respectively :D.

But I'm willing to bet its not going to be for me. I don't simply give up on a book because it's filled with promiscous sex (heck, I read all three books of the Wraeththu trilogy, didn't I?), but it's like this: if I was watching a movie and every 3 scenes they cut to a graphic sex scene, what would I call it? A porno flick. I have no objection to this porno flick, but I'm not going to spend much time considering its artistic merits.