Book

Author:	Robert A. Heinlein
Title:	Stranger In A Strange Land
Publisher:	Avon
Country:	USA
Date:	Jun 1962
Format:	Paperback
Genre:	Fiction, Science Fiction
Cat#:	V-2056
Total Editions:	10
Rating:	9.0 Rate
Collection:	I Own It I Want It
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Comments and Reviews


Magic Marmalade 4th Jan 2023		Rated 9/10 Bit of a monster this book! I have the 1992 restored text version, that runs at over 600 and some pages... ...But this is a monster in more ways than one, as, in taking it's central premise of a "Man from mars" (frequently referred to this throughout the book), who is in fact, the illegitimate human child of a couple of expeditionary astronauts sent to Mars to engage "diplomatically" with native Martians (No other, underlying exploitative agenda, of course - ahem - (Avatar vibes?!), who is brought back to Earth, having been raised as a Martian, according to their ways, and as such, is a Human, who is also an alien on this planet, and viewing earthmen, and their ways through the un-prejudiced lens of a visitor to this planet... ...And how very strange we are, in our ways! But here's he crux: This book is basically an protracted excuse for Robert Heinlein to critique human society (as he fond it then, and as it, in many ways, remains) by looking at as an outsider would... so the Man from Mars acts as a device through which he can do this, having a perfectly naïve figure who can ask the kind of uncomfortable questions usually forthcoming from human children to their uneasy parents (chuckle) and at the same time, adopt the persona of the Man from Mars' mentor, adviser, and guide, in the shape of Jubal Harshaw, a world weary old professor type, and cipher for Heinlein to set the world to rights and hold forth on every aspect of human strangeness with lecturers, monologues, acerbic asides and biting cynicism, having had the Man From Mars provide the excuse to do so, through the posing of these questions. As such, it's more of a "talky" science fiction book, or like the philosophy of Plato and such, who used this basic device of fictional meetings of functional characters, leading to dialogues in which the philosophy is found. (If Plato were alive today... he'd be writing Science Fiction! - for these are our modern philosophers) For this reason, I can see why a lot of it was originally cut out, in order to cut the book down a bit, as there is, perhaps a lot of "banging on" here, but none of what may have been cut (I haven't read the cut version, so don't know what they did remove) is necessarily flabby, excessive, or superfluous... there's just a lot of it! But of course, the other (Perhaps, main) reason to cut a load out of this, is that it is extremely radical in it's thinking, beyond what any would dare today, much less, at time of publication, in questioning every moral construct, idea, institution, faith and religion, social convention, basis of human relationships and moral boundary you can think of... ...There is free love, polygamy of sorts, atheism, pantheism, cannibalism as a notion of an accepted normal social and "religious" practice (on Mars), the formation of a cult, or commune, and it savagely represents a deeply cynical view of politics, organised religions, media, and individuals in their habits and conventions, as they all scrabble to get a piece of the visitor for their own ends, or to make him go away... (So as not to call into question their own positions - don't want the ordinary folk thinking too deeply about stuff, do we now?) ...And so, if you are not the kind of person who would find this funny, enjoyable, and eliciting a kind of cheerleading response to what it has to say, you would most likely fall into the category of "everyone else", who will find this almost universally offensive on every point, even (especially?) today. You could not publish this today, I feel, as a new book, as the angry villagers, and worse, would be on your doorstep the very next day! (As, funnily enough, happens in the book itself :) And for all these reasons, it's well worth reading. ((Just maintain perspective, and don't get too carried away with it, or else you may take it as a cue to start your own cult, or "religion", and thank goodness that hasn't happened yet! (...er.....)) But then, what do I know, for in the words of the man from Mars himself: "I Am Only An Egg." (You Grok?) 3 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?



ppint. 28th Apr 2020		hi, oldmod67; it's so far undefined: given there's a barcode - and presumably, a barcode number - upon your copy, as well as a different uk cover price (and possibly other currencies), and an isbn, rather than an sbn, i'd suggest you'd be perfectly correct to add it as a new item; - but if you preferred to simply add its details in a comment upon this page, including all the however many (or few) different currencies cover prices are on it in the comment, i'd say that'd be equally correct. - at some point in time roundabout the late 70s-early 80s, which yr hmbl srppnt. doesn't have burned into the cranial sawdust, new english library ltd. was bought by hodder & stoughton ltd, and subsumed into that publishing house. "nel" eventually became an imprint of hodder & stoughton, and "new english library" ceased to be used by hodder & stoughton ltd: - so the ultimate publisher given in the book's indica should, i think, be noted°, whichever you choose. (° - hodder & stoughton ltd. were in turn bought by w. h. smith ltd. or plc, amalgamated with headline books, then sold off as hodder-headline plc, and yr hmbl srppnt. started getting rather dizzy from the rate of change in the global monopoly game of exceedingly rich publishing megacorpses buying one-another up, selling bits of themselves back off, and rather lost track: hodder-headline still (or again) seems to operate as a publishing house, but is probably one wing of random penguin, which is in turn a part of hachette group uk, part of hachette livres - which was in turn largely owned by lagadère last time i looked up the ultimate controlling entity...) (- so i'd stop with noting whatever the highest-level owning corporation is, that's stated on the book's indica and title pages) (this comment is from another edition of this book)



OldMod67 28th Apr 2020		Unable to scan the cover at present, but with this ISBN in use for quite a while, I have a later copy of this (cover illustration by Tim White) stating New Edition 1978, nineteenth impression 1989. It includes a barcode, but wondered if I should enter here as whilst it does belong with the book number (albeit with its 0 prefix) the barcode clearly doesn't belong in 1970..... (this comment is from another edition of this book)



ppint. 18th Jul 2019		near-identical 7/1970 reprint differs in bearing new cat# 2844 sbn 450 00403 1 cover price believed to be 10/- or 12/- (or 12/6?) (confirmation sought) ''four square'' should have been dropped from cover and title page (confirmation sought) in favour of ''new english library'' and/or ''nel'' (front cover gives ''nel 2844 new english library science fiction'') all previous p/b printings are now credited to nel in the indica publishing history - and their months as well as years given (this comment is from another edition of this book)



ppint. 18th Jul 2019		near-identical 11/1969 reprint bears different cat# 2659, drops ''books'' from ''four square books'' after cat# and prepends ''nel'' in transition from the four square imprint being retired to the new english library (or variously, nel) imprint, giving ''nel 2659 four square''. cover price believed to be increased to 10/- or 12/- (or 12/6?) (confirmation sought) (this comment is from another edition of this book)



ppint. 18th Jul 2019		cover art by bruce pennington (uncredited, unsigned; attribution from his website) cover price 7/6 408pp? including titles, indica etc, end pp. advertising indica publishing history gives year of this four square imprint p/b printing only; month of publication taken from publishing history in 8/1971 new english library imprint printing (this comment is from another edition of this book)



ppint. 16th Apr 2018		37.5% longer than previous uk p/b editions, following restoration by virginia heinlein of cuts made by robert heinlein at the behest of putnam's editor prior to the novel's original publication. includes a preface by virginia heinlein. (all post-1990 english-language editions should follow this restored text; i don't know how or when translations into other languages are affected.) (this comment is from another edition of this book)

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Other Editions

Book

Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger In A Strange Land - Berkley - Paperback - USA - 0425046885 (1981)

Book

Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger In A Strange Land - Avon - Paperback - USA (1967)

Book

Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger In A Strange Land - Berkley - Paperback - USA (1968)

Book

Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger In A Strange Land - Four Square - Paperback - UK (1965)

Book

Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger In A Strange Land - New English Library - Paperback - UK - 450004031 (1970)

Book

Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger In A Strange Land - Four Square - Paperback - UK (1968)

Book

Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger In A Strange Land - New English Library - Paperback - UK - 0450547426 (1992)

Book

Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger In A Strange Land - Ace Science Fiction - Paperback - USA - 0441790348 (1987)

Book

Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger In A Strange Land - Berkley Medallion - Paperback - USA