{"id":2625,"date":"2018-06-22T17:11:39","date_gmt":"2018-06-23T01:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=2625"},"modified":"2018-06-22T17:11:39","modified_gmt":"2018-06-23T01:11:39","slug":"review-stranger-in-a-strange-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=2625","title":{"rendered":"Review: Stranger In A Strange Land"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hadn’t read Stranger<\/em> in years, though like all nerds there were ideas and vocabulary from it that were part of my worldview.\u00a0 Recent events incited me to have another look and refresh those old engrams.<\/p>\n

Coming back to Stranger<\/em> reminded me how much it challenges assumptions about religion and culture.\u00a0 I found ideas in there that rewarded some thought and dissection.\u00a0 My dissection was encouraged by their oblique presentation.\u00a0 I’m confident that some of that was a stylistic decision to mimic the oblique writing style of so many religious texts.\u00a0 Forcing readers to interpret vague text\u00a0 draws them into the ideas and invests the interpreter in the meanings they form by dint of expended energy.\u00a0 Noticing that aspect of inspirational writing was probably worth the reread.<\/p>\n

I think of Heinlein as an idea generator – I often claim that he produces an interesting idea every hundred pages – and Stranger<\/em> supports that.\u00a0 It is speculative fiction in the best sense of that term.\u00a0 Neither prediction nor prescription, but a reflection on humanity framed to encourage new thinking.\u00a0 Ideas about the human condition, feminism, marketing inspiration, and carnival history are reverberating nicely in my skull now, which is great fun.<\/p>\n

If Stranger <\/em>is trying to sell its ideas on societal values, its literary constructions intrigue me.\u00a0 Though there are nods to various underrepresented groups – e.g., women and a sympathetic Muslim character – it never felt inclusive to me.\u00a0 I mean inclusive in a more broad sense than a purveyor of “Political Correctness” might construct it.\u00a0 I don’t think Heinlein is failing to represent women, or people of color, or first nations citizens, or your favorite hot button name well; I think he isn’t representing humans well.\u00a0 All of these characters feel like glib, educated, science fiction writers to me.\u00a0 Even his allegedly charismatic Messiah is easily forgettable.\u00a0 The only character I remember distinctly is Mary Sue<\/a>, er, Jubal Harshaw.\u00a0 And I don’t like him much, but he did evoke an emotion.<\/p>\n

It’s possible that Heinlein intentionally kept his characters sketchy to act as symbols or manifestations of various counter points to his philosophical ideas.\u00a0 I don’t see a lot of Bible characters as fully realized, either, so I believe this is a possibility rather than an excuse. That illuminates how I think about Stranger<\/em> – I look at the ideas and presentation as parts of a manifesto that Heinlein tossed into the world.<\/p>\n

There are ideas I find compelling in Stranger<\/em>. There are ideas I disagree with. Any work with that density of ideas served up with a modicum of entertainment is worth my time.<\/p>\n

Strongly Recommended.\u00a0 If you want to punch Harshaw after 3 pages, you’re not alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hadn’t read Stranger in years, though like all nerds there were ideas and vocabulary from it that were part of my worldview.\u00a0 Recent events incited me to have another look and refresh those old engrams. Coming back to Stranger reminded me how much it challenges assumptions about religion and culture.\u00a0 I found ideas in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2625"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2631,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625\/revisions\/2631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}