Reddit mentions of Stranger in a Strange Land

I would love to see a discussion on "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Heinlan.


"...the epic saga of an earthling, Valentine Michael Smith, born and educated on Mars, who arrives on our planet with psi powers—telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, telekinesis, teleportation, pyrolysis, and the ability to take control of the minds of others—and complete innocence regarding the mores of man."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0441790348/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

Edit: link, plus everyone should get the chance to meet Jubal Harshaw.

It's in Stranger in a Strange Land, if you read that. For the most common "thank you" - arigatou (Mr. Roboto) - the idea has to do with one of the characters also meaning "difficult," as in "it's difficult for me to live with how awesome you are for [doing whatever you did for me]."

Sci-fi and around 500 pages narrows the options a bit, but!

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein may fit the bill?

True polygamy is hard to argue the immorality against unless it appears to be coercing children. But usually the word polygamy is applied to Mormons incorrectly. They actually practice polygyny which is much more objectionable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygyny

The practical real world problem with Mormon polygyny is the fact that it ends up coercing very young women to "consent" to marry an older man. It's not exactly consent when they're children. Also, its overtly patriarchal and a form of female oppression which is both bad for women and another kind of coercion rather than consent.

If you were to, however, argue in favor of polygamy as a true plural marriage with various combinations of genders it would be harder to argue that is was patriarchal or oppressive or immoral. It may be unhealthy still, but I'm not sure we have enough real world evidence to arrive at that conclusion yet. Very few people engage in this kind of polygamy as far as I know.

If you would like to read some fiction dealing with the concepts of Group Marriage you should check out Robert A. Heinlein:

• The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
  
• Stranger in a Strange Land
  
• Time Enough for Love
  
  And many of his other books.

It all depends on where you get books. This is one of my favorite science fiction books of all time, it's $.01.

Now that you've mentioned Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land - some interesting playing around with pseudo-religious/atheist themes. Considered one of the classics of science fiction for breadth, vision, social commentary, whatever.

Good one - I'd suggest Stranger in a Strange Land as a starting point.

I completely agree with Otaking. My writing, and even my conversation suffers if I take a break from reading for too long.

Since you're already on reddit, you should stop by here: /r/books, flurry of suggestions there.

This is probably a great place to start though.

Cheers :)

My favorite author, and this is his most fun book even if he has a couple better received books

Bukowski is an amazing author regardless of what succs say.

Great book. Brought the term grok into existence

Really cool graphic novel series

David sedaris is probably the best comedic novelist i've ever read/heard. I recommend audio though because he has great delivery, which is what made him such a popular guest on NPR


selfish gene by dawkins. I know Dawkins is a meme, but this book is actually really good along with a lot of his earlier books.

Here's a small list of easily accessible sci-fi that had me hooked to the genre. They are, in my humble opinion, some of the greatest books/authors of the genre.

Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert Heinlein)

A Deepness in the Sky

Rainbows End (both by Vernor Vinge)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick)

They also all appear to be available for your Kindle.

Theory of Continuous Groups by Loewner. This book is based on lecture notes which Loewner was planning to turn into a larger book. Unfortunately he passed away before getting much done so some of his colleagues edited and compiled the notes into this book. I'm only quarter of the way in but so far it's given me a really unique perspective into group actions. I'm loving it but it doesn't hold my attention for long spans of time.

Geometry of Polynomials by Marden. Marden is my idol, and I plan to devote my life to studying the zeros of functions. That said, this book is the hardest goddamn book I have ever read. Hell, some of the exercises he gives were actual topics of published research 60 years ago. That seems a little mean to me. Anyway I still love this shit.

Mr. Tompkins in Paperback by Gamow. Alternates between stories about a character transplanted into hypothetical worlds where particular laws of physics are exaggerated and semi-rigorous lectures about the physics itself. The section on gravity as curvature of space was especially enlightening. The author uses the idea of a merry-go-round spinning at relativistic speed, so that straight lines on the surface (i.e. geodesics) are in fact curved to outside observers. You can then imagine that the merry-go-round is walled off from the outside, so that on the inside the centrifugal force can be thought of as gravity toward the edge. This is the concept of acceleration of reference frame being equivalent to gravity. For a non-physicist this kind of explanation is AWESOME.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein. My first Heinlein, just started it but I'm enjoying it so far. I honestly confused him with Haldeman... I loved The Forever War and I wanted to get another book by the author. Oh well.

Yeah so what I'm a nerd.

I used to buy Illusions by Richard Bach for people. The subtitle is "The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah." Very good. Might go well with Ishmael, which others have mentioned.

In the same vein -- it could have the exact same subtitle, in fact -- is Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein. If he likes that you could follow it up with other late-career Heinlein, such as Job or Time Enough For Love. All are excellent. Others have mentioned Starship Troopers, and it is also excellent. But his earlier stuff is very adventure-oriented, while his later stuff probably has more potential for life-changing.

Lastly, if he's up for a little ancient philosophy that gives you a different way to look at life, try Marcus Aurelius, which is free on the internet. Tell him not to get too hung up on what goes on in book one. It's almost like an acknowledgements page, but there is some good stuff in there. But once book two gets rolling the life-changing stuff really begins. Tell him it's how to focus on what matters and let go of what doesn't. If people could learn that they'd definitely change their lives.

And good for him. I'm 53 and I started reading philosophy at 50. Learning new things activates the old brain cells and will keep him mentally sharp longer.

At some point in this beautiful thread you mentioned that you are not well read. What books have you read that you've really enjoyed?

If you haven't read these, they're worth a glance at the description:

• Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein. The perfect read for any martian
  
• Hyperion, by Dan Simmons. This is a scifi novel based around the poet John Keats and his epic poem, Hyperion. It is masterful.
  
• Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon. Mind-boggling prose with a vocabulary to match.
  
  Thanks for your time on this thread. You are awesome sir

This Alien Shore is one of those single books that actually make me want to read more in that universe.

Stranger in a Strange Land is controversial, thought provoking, and while a couple of characters will show up in later Heinlein books, it isn't part of a series.

+1 Anathem (2008) by Neal Stephenson

+1 The Speed of Dark (2002) by Elizabeth Moon

There are other books that the users found interesting. Stranger in a Strange Land was one of them. I've read a few others but the titles escape me.

Basically everybody wanted to try acid. They'd try acid and feel really free. You have to keep in mind that this was a relatively new experience so there were as many hangups. Meaning you could be on acid in public places with others and you wouldn't have to be paranoid.

The effects of the acid caused revelations to happen based on the sensory experience of the user. I imagine anybody who hallucinated recreationally could attest to this effect. It made small things seem more significant. I guess you could say it reset perspectives.

So people would try this drug, experience things, start to think differently (it's important to note that the Merry Pranksters and Timothy Leary were promoting philosophy via the drug), and eventually the number of people who bought into these different ways of looking at the world became large enough to where the movement could reinforce itself. So basically you could go take acid and watch a bunch of bands and when it was over there many people that shared the experience and as a whole they were able to provide positive reinforcement for that experience.

Once that started to snowball it spread and suddenly the bands and movements were no longer local. And then they were no longer regional. And then they were no longer national. There were several places having similar revolutions of the mind. This meant several variations on the culture that was growing. Eventually it would homogenize and you have the 60's scene that everybody talks about today.

That book was specifically about the Merry Pranksters traveling around and meeting people and making things happen.

I'm not the kind of person who would be able to summarize that coherently. Read this if you haven't. I'm sure there are other places to find information about it. Project MKULTRA was kinda interesting as well but it isn't really the happy fun time you are looking to write about.

Moving to the city is a start. But I suggest finding employment in a target-rich environment, like waitressing. I would avoid anonymous sex parties as a novice, just on general principles. Date a bunch of different guys, find a FWB, just remember, you can be sexually adventurous in a lot of ways, just never lose your dignity. If if feels wrong, don't do it. And that includes letting a guy into your apartment if you get a bad vibe. IOW, trust your instincts, don't let a smile and some talk override your gut.

Take your time. There is a tendency to want everything to happen at once, but it's not the way things work. Got a book for you, OP. Stranger In A Strange Land.

Stranger in a Strange Land

edit I somehow spelled "land" as "place"