Stranger in a Strange Land

By: Robert A. Heinlein

Narrated by: Martin McDougall

Length: 23 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

Epic, entertaining, blasphemous, this is the most influential and controversial of Science Fiction novels.

Stranger in a Strange Land caused uproar when it was first published as it savaged conventional religious, sexual, and social ideals. Many years in the future, Valentine Michael Smith's upbringing is exceptional. Orphan child to two astronauts killed in space, he is raised on Mars. Twenty-five years later he is "rescued" and brought back to Earth. The initial enthusiasm of the administration in Smith's safe return is soon dampened by the realisation that they cannot control him. Possessed with superhuman skills and a unique philosophy he threatens their society - Smith must be contained.

Then a nurse helps him escape his hospital jail. Their flight becomes a journey of discovery, enlightenment and wonder. But danger is following fast behind, and there will be no escape from the final confrontation.

©1961 Robert A. Heinlein (P)2012 Hodder & Stoughton

Still relevant

Worryingly many of the threads of the book are still relevant today; of course, not all. It is remarkable how many things writers of that time, it was published in 1961, got predictions right - video phoning, mobile phones in cars, etc. But some of his notions are really out of date; his writing of women characters is very much the thinking of the 50s; although I can see him struggle with modern concepts of their place in changing times.

The reader does a good job with a long book. Sometimes the voices lose distinction and it is momentarily hard to work out who is speaking, but that is a minor issue. More difficult is the he uses whispering to indicate some of the "speech" which makes the dialogue un-hearable; good intentions, but doesn't work with an audiobook.

Some parts can drag on ... mainly because their novelty at the time doesn't translate to our modern times, but it's worth persevering. The original draft was 220,000 words, published in 1991, but the editors got him to cut it down to 160,067 words, 1961. I'm not sure which version this is. Received the Hugo Award for Best Novel (Wikipedia).

Exceptional

This is my new favourite book, an insightful journey through human interactions read by a talented narrator.

Good goes weird

I loved the moon is a harsh mistress and troopers, but this just takes an interesting concept and deraiils it by going on long after the climax into a weird religious direction.
Performance was incredible!

An "uncanny valley" of fiction

Firstly, I read this book when i was an early teen. I read a lot of Heinlein around that time.
I think SIASL deserved its Hugo award in 1962 and deserves to be treated as a key item of Sci Fi.
For me it is not so old and crusty and distant that i can forgive/cope with the aspects of story that have not aged well in 50 years.
If the book was deliberately provocative then it worked.
The trouble is that after 50 years it only half works. I expect it worked better in the 60's and may work better in an 100 years. I detect some sort of temporal uncanny valley thing going on.

I still like the parts of the critique of organised and politically powerful religion and the critique of the prudish part of US culture.
On the other hand the gender roles just don't scan well anymore and i suspect they were borderline even in the 60's. Big chunks of dialog between gendered characters just grate in 2019.

The narration works. I imagine this was a marathon effort for Martin McDougall.

In summary, I figured this would be an interesting experiment after 50 years. It was.

Maybe people should treat this as a literary cod liver oil. Listen despite the odd taste it leaves

Interesting

Very unusual and unpredictable. Loved it. Interesting characters and loved how the author imagined the future not too differently to what it actually turned out to be! Cool.