Stranger In a Strange Land - finished

To truly grok man is to become man and lose that which makes you Martian. 

That is the sum total of my experience with “Stranger in a Strange Land.”

438 pages that left me thinking “I’m so glad Superman didn’t get into religion that really wouldn’t have been much fun at all.” 

Heinlein had an enjoyable vocabulary and a very keen sense of human nature, it's nastier intricacies and it's more lascivious ones; I'm certain many were put into a prude and/or religious tizzy by his writings when this was published considering some of the tensions the 60s procured.  I fully intend to integrate "grok" into my vocabulary and use it to feel out a room for other book nerds. 

I do understand why so many people put this book on the mantle of their science fiction collection and why some may still herald it as the best/most famous/most inspiring etc. piece of scifi pressed to paper pulp. Obviously those people won’t agree with what I’m about to say which was my immediate gut reaction after finally dragging myself through the last hundred pages, “meh, it’s alright, a bit predictable but enjoyable enough.”

If you find that lackluster response offensive and think this book beats the invention of the toaster well… I’ll trade you, my toaster sucks.

Classic Books

"'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read."
-Mark Twain 

There is a large amount of unfortunate truth in this quote, perhaps more so today than ever before in the history of word consumption. If you ask someone to name a book about a whale they can say Moby Dick but cannot actually cite anymore than that, place the author in a lineup, or tell you the name of the Captain's first mate in spite of that name now branding the most popular coffee chain in the world.

We all fall into this classics trap though and I myself am certainly not innocent of it so in addition to amping up my reading this year, I'll be trying to integrate some "classics" as well; though the definition of such can vary depending on the reader.

The first classic I'll be thumbing is perhaps not one in the traditional sense but certainly in a more contemporary one, Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. This book is touted by many in the Sci Fi community as the grand-daddy of science fiction novels, one of the best and most thought provoking ever written. Somehow I have missed this entirely and only added it to my shelves a few weeks ago because I was told I needed to read it. Even though I learned how to spell "pause" because my parents were recording the newest episode of "Star Trek" each week and needed me to work the VCR I hadn't even heard the title. Despite being tucked in the back of a station wagon and driven to every major science fiction convention on the West Coast for the first 15 years of my life and the resulting exposure various RPGs and their followers... I have not read this book. I was essentially raised navel deep amongst nerds and trekkies and I feel like a piece of my science fiction learning is now lacking, as though I skipped arithmetic entirely and so cannot fully comprehend the variations of two and two. 

So far I'm a few chapters in, we'll see if it holds as much impact and fanfare for me as it has others.