Did you grok "Stranger in a Strange Land"? (Robert A Heinlein)

[Tabitha]

Did you grok "Stranger in a Strange Land"?

Amazon.co.uk Review
Stranger in a Strange Land, winner of the 1962 Hugo Award, is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, born during, and the only survivor of, the first manned mission to Mars. Michael is raised by Martians, and he arrives on Earth as a true innocent: he has never seen a woman and has no knowledge of Earth's cultures or religions. But he brings turmoil with him, as he is the legal heir to an enormous financial empire, not to mention de facto owner of the planet Mars. With the irascible popular author Jubal Harshaw to protect him, Michael explores human morality and the meanings of love. He founds his own church, preaching free love and disseminating the psychic talents taught him by the Martians. Ultimately, he confronts the fate reserved for all messiahs. The impact of Stranger in a Strange Land was considerable, leading many children of the sixties to set up households based on Michael's water-brother nests. Heinlein loved to pontificate through the mouths of his characters, so modern readers must be willing to overlook the occasional sour note ("Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault."). That aside, Stranger in a Strange Land is one of the master's best entertainments, and provocative, as he always loved to be. Can you grok it? --Brooks Peck

Synopsis
Valentine Michael Smith arrives from Mars, to visit Earth. His arrival sparks off all the things you'd imagine - excitement, horror and greed. A tremendous satire of human weaknesses, now expanded with up to 30,000 extra words. The author also wrote "Starman Jones" and "Time Enough for Love".

I just finished this book for the second time (originally read it when I was much younger) and I enjoyed it much better this time around. Heinlein has interesting things to say about human beings and their idiosynchroses, and this tale told mostly from the perspective of a human raised by martians says a lot.
I had just read "The Day After Tomorrow", and found that the two books go well together. Both investigate religion and how human beings relate to it.

Did anyone else find themselves thinking about using the word "grok" after reading this book? I ddn't actually use it in conversation or anything, but it popped into my head in the same way that I pick up new colloquialisms when I move into a new area. Weird....

On a related note - what exactly is the obsession SF writers have with sex? Almost every one I have ever read goes in for vivid descriptions of sexual acts - in this particular book it seems to be one of the Man from Mars' distinct personality traits

 

[greyhorse]

I'm going to college now and 2 people I met separately both use the term. Grok is also used by a number of members on the DIYaudio forum.

Someone on the Futurenoir forum mentioned this, but Stranger in a Strange Land is interesting because, while reading it, you always bump into someone who will tell you how much they enjoyed reading it. It's true! I was taking pulic transportation to school, and a complete stranger came up to me and started raving to me about the book. When I happened to have the book on my desk, a teacher came up to me and asked if I was enjoying it. There just seems to be a really devoted following to this book.

As for the sex thingy, this is my idea. Organisms do 4 main things; they ingest, digest, respirate and reproduce (as far as I remeber my HS bio anyway...)

Now a lack of food can make for an interesting story, but there's so many variations that you can make on the theme. As far as I know, there aren't many plots involving breathing that I can think of. Larry Niven does cover changes in human breathing in parts of Rainbow Mars however, and it even mentions food too.

Sex however is a topic that you CAN write a lot about. Sex and pregnancy can effect the plot-line of a story. You can extrapolate mating habits with how evolution is affected. Sexual habits change with history and this can be central to a story. In short, there's so much to say about sex. It's something that as adults is often on our minds and therefore worth disscussing.

With plentiful food and clean air, "getting some" is the only real thing you need to think about to keep a species going.