{"id":127,"date":"2006-05-12T17:11:23","date_gmt":"2006-05-13T00:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/?p=127"},"modified":"2007-05-19T09:57:03","modified_gmt":"2007-05-19T16:57:03","slug":"robert-heinleins-stranger-in-a-strange-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2006\/05\/robert-heinleins-stranger-in-a-strange-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Heinlein\u2019s \u201cStranger in a Strange Land\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

The book\u00adclub decided to read Hein\u00adlein\u2019s mas\u00adter\u00adpiece \u2014 the bril\u00adliant spec\u00adtac\u00adu\u00adlar and incred\u00adibly pop\u00adu\u00adlar nov\u00adel<\/cite> (quote from the back cov\u00ader of the Ace Sci\u00adence Fic\u00adtion edi\u00adtion, pub\u00adlished in 1987). The book Stranger in a Strange Land<\/a> has\u00adn\u2019t quite stood the test of time (assum\u00ading it ever did match up to the breath\u00adless praise). War of the World\u2019s review<\/a> is decent and points out some of the strengths and weak\u00adnesses of the book.<\/p>\n

The book\u00adclub found the book worth read\u00ading for its his\u00adtor\u00adic\u00adal value, even though the sex\u00adist and racist tones are irrit\u00adat\u00ading, the dia\u00adlogues don\u2019t quite match up to the sup\u00adposed soph\u00adist\u00adic\u00ada\u00adtion of the char\u00adac\u00adters (par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlarly Jubal), and the bits about the archangels don\u2019t appear to serve any pur\u00adpose. The book could have done with a good edit\u00ading. A couple of inter\u00adest\u00ading ques\u00adtions came up \u2013 we spent some time dis\u00adcuss\u00ading pri\u00advacy in a tele\u00adpath\u00adic world, espe\u00adcially on how one would bring up chil\u00addren with a sense of who they are in such a com\u00admunity, and the implic\u00ada\u00adtions of a group where people take money as they need it and give money as they can (shades of the social\u00adist ideal from each accord\u00ading to his abil\u00adity, to each accord\u00ading to his needs<\/q> that nev\u00ader seems to work bey\u00adond a small circle of people, such as a family). <\/p>\n

In the end, we came to the con\u00adclu\u00adsion that there were good ideas in the book, and parts of it were reas\u00adon\u00adably well-writ\u00adten, but that there must be bet\u00adter sci\u00adence fic\u00adtion out there, with believ\u00adable dia\u00adlogues and char\u00adac\u00adters. Does any\u00adone have recommendations? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The book\u00adclub decided to read Hein\u00adlein\u2019s mas\u00adter\u00adpiece \u2014 the bril\u00adliant spec\u00adtac\u00adu\u00adlar and incred\u00adibly pop\u00adu\u00adlar nov\u00adel (quote from the back cov\u00ader of the Ace Sci\u00adence Fic\u00adtion edi\u00adtion, pub\u00adlished in 1987). The book Stranger in a Strange Land has\u00adn\u2019t quite stood the test of time (assum\u00ading it ever did match up to the breath\u00adless praise). War of \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cRobert Heinlein\u2019s \u201cStranger in a Strange Land\u201d\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":812,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions\/812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}