Stranger in a Strange Land

By: Robert A. Heinlein

Narrated by: Christopher Hurt

Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

Stranger in a Strange Land is the epic saga of an earthling, Valentine Michael Smith, born and educated on Mars, who arrives on our planet with “psi” powers—telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, telekinesis, teleportation, pyrolysis, and the ability to take control of the minds of others—and complete innocence regarding the mores of man.

After his tutelage under a surrogate father figure, Valentine begins his transformation into a kind of messiah. His exceptional abilities lead him to become many things to many people: freak, scam artist, media commodity, searcher, free love pioneer, neon evangelist, and martyr.

Heinlein won his second Hugo Award for this novel, sometimes called his “divine comedy” and often called his masterpiece. This Blackstone audiobook is the “as published” version, read from an Ace paperback published in 1987. The full, uncut text was not made available until 1991.

©1961 by Robert A. Heinlein (P)1996 by Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

• Hugo Award, 1962

Awesome Characters, Plot Felt Lost At Times

I love Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress." I admire his amazing writing yet again in this book, but from the halfway point to the end, the book seems to get a bit lost in the depth of ideas that Heinlein undoubtedly wanted to entertain throughout the novel.

The way the book progresses almost feels like this should have been 2 separate books. The first half and last half of the story feel like distant relatives.The anarchist, unconventional, and anti-traditional themes are indeed thought-provoking, and sometimes eye-opening. But these themes begin to feel forced into the narrative somewhere along the way. Instead of a nice flow of happenstance and dialogue, Heinlein's mission statement seems to be injected into each scene to dominate the narrative.

Speaking of narrative, the narrator is amazing - 10/10. I will give extra consideration to any book narrated by Christopher Hurt.

Grok it as a Classic

I would echo the review titled “ We live in the world this book made ”, which captured my experience of this book. I want so much to like Heinlein because I was a child in the 1960s and his work sets the foundation and tone for so much Sci-Fi over the decades. However, while the concepts in this book may have blown peoples minds at the time it was published, it is primarily a treatise on racism, religion and society and the concepts illustrated in this story are old hat now. I will continue to plow through Heinlein stories for the nostalgia, but this was not the masterwork people made it out to be, even if it did have an impact on culture and peoples thinking then. In fact, it seemed even a bit trite and boring in spots. The narration was excellent, though, and I truly enjoyed the portrayal of the character Jubal Harshaw, which captivated my imagination. With all that said, this probably needs to be on a must-read list to help us understand the changes in our culture in the past 5-6 decades.

this book teaches

this is one of those rare books that teaches something deep, which you'll hopefully... grok.

Timeless message but dated attitudes

If you could sum up Stranger in a Strange Land in three words, what would they be?

Iconic, critical, timeless

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

The book that charged the 60's with the energy of change.

Any additional comments?

Heinlein has oft been criticized for pontificating, and he does, but he does it so well. Stranger has been a favorite of mine since the 60's when I first read it. It was my introduction to Heinlein as well as my entry into modern science fiction. In the years since, I have read all of Heinlein's work and indulged in the imaginations of of thousands of other "what if" writers. Yet, in all of those millions of words I've read, none have affected me in the way Heinlein's Stranger did.

Interesting

Any additional comments?

I found the book interesting. When it comes down to it, I don't see why its such a celebrated book. I guess because of the age its an older book. It was fairly revolutionary for its time.

In the end, it was interesting to read, but I would give it only a 3 stars.

Great book, good voice actor

The voice actor was good, and I enjoyed listening to him and the individual voicework for each character. This greatly enhanced the telling of the story.

Geeat Story

I just started to listen to Sci Fi and this was the best so far. I read this book when I was a kid many years ago. I must not have got it then. After listening again in my mid fifties I understand it now. And I must say that it effected me in someway I can't explain. I guess that is what Great Writing is supposed to do.

Excellent story

And it was read and performed SUPERBLY. Yes very g o o d. Yes yes

There is a reason why people recommend this book

Themes run deep, like water. Sharing of such water might just bring us close enough.
Thought provoking.

A classic SciFi well done

Where does Stranger in a Strange Land rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

One of the best I heard, I had trouble putting it down.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Stranger in a Strange Land?

When the lawyer/doctor gives into the young girl.

What about Christopher Hurt’s performance did you like?

He was excellent. I'm going to look for other works by Christopher.