One of  Robert A. Heinlein‘s most influential novels.

The book that coined the term grok. I use it all the time.

Jubal Harshaw, a famous author, physician and lawyer, is the most entertaining character.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein (1961)

Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians, brings light to all the silly, stupid conventions of Earth.

Heinlein named his main character “Smith” because he was disappointed in the unpronounceable names assigned to extraterrestrials in most science fiction.

The given names of the chief characters have great importance to the plot. They were carefully selected: Jubal means ‘the father of all, ‘ Michael stands for ‘Who is like God?’

It’s a philosophical and thought providing read.

Plenty of sex to keep the teenage male audience absorbed.

Stranger is one of many books which pose provocative situations, challenging conventional social mores.

The importance of individual liberty and self-reliance, the nature of sexual relationships, the obligation individuals owe to their societies, the influence of organized religion on culture and government.

The free love and commune living aspects led to the book’s exclusion from school reading lists in the USA.

I still like the book — though this review is not wrong:

 The New York Times, Orville Prescott received the novel caustically, describing it as a “disastrous mishmash of science fiction, laborious humor, dreary social satire, and cheap eroticism”; he characterized Stranger in a Strange Land as “puerile and ludicrous”, saying “when a non-stop orgy is combined with a lot of preposterous chatter, it becomes unendurable, an affront to the patience and intelligence of readers”.

Bill Gates liked it too,

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.