| A Review of Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein |
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The storyline of this book follows a man named Valentine Michael Smith, who was born on Mars, through his acquaintance with the humans of Earth. Heinlien does a good job of putting forward the alienness of a different way of viewing the world around us and the way we do things. The first three fifths of the book essentially consist of this, as our main character slowly becomes more acquainted with the world of humans. Toward the end of the book, our character figures out humans and also how we could do better. He ends up starting a religion to teach us how to live better. The way it is put across, you almost believe he's right by the time you're done. He addresses most of the interesting religious and philosophical points I can think of from a thoroughly unhuman point of view, making the reader see it very differently. If you're too horribly attached to the usual customs of our culture, you might well find this book highly insulting and/or even evil. People who are are religious unable to read read something while taking it with a grain of salt will not enjoy this book. I realize that I have put this across badly, but this is easily among the top ten books I have ever read. If you've never read it, I highly recommend it. I give this book a 10/10 |
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