I've taken ages to finish this novel.
Too bad because it seems to me that most of the so-called gems of fantasy and science fiction seem rather tedious and overly done.
I can compare what I'm feeling having read this novel, almost struggled through it, with Dune, which I read last year. Both novel started off very promising and got you hooked and then just tagged you along indefinitely.
Stranger in a strange land is the story about a human being born on Mars, living out his teens and early adulthood there and then being taken back to earth.
So, instead of a novel about a guy seeing and talking about a planet not earth, we get someone who hasn't developed in our society trying to get used to our whims.
It's difficult to write a novel from the perspective of not having lived on earth, the writer tries his best, but in the end accomplishes only a pamphlet of guilt free sex and the end of monogamy.
I've read other novel of him before, Friday, and in there this has been stretched to almost the laughable.
I don't mind being liberal, especially when it concerns our fantasy, but when it interferes with a novel that could've been better, it does sadden me.
I wonder why this novel earned such praise, because if something like this should see the light of day nowadays, I wonder if it would still be as succesful? (Who am I kidding? They'd probably sell like hotcakes, a movie would be made with terrible acting but with a great marketing team behind it and every fool would spend his or her money on it, hoping to see a bit of scandal)
I didn't like it. I'm not sure why I stuck by it? Maybe I wanted to see how it would end.. For those who have read this novel, I would definitely be someone throwing some of the rocks, yell at me if you don't like this, I'm just giving my honest opinion.
Although Mike, the stranger in this book, isn't to blame of having been portrayed by an artist too consumed with spreading his opinion on our sex life.
I'm sounding like a prude, I know, but I don't like sex being used in popular culture. It's a too easy strategy for selling, causing you to forget the true meaning.
