Stranger in a Strange Land
Robert A. Heinlein · 1961
Valentine Michael Smith, raised by Martians, arrives on Earth and becomes a messiah. Heinlein's 1961 counterculture novel gave the language "grok" and gave SF free love, communal living, water-sharing. For all its problems, it rewired how a generation thought about religion and society.
The case against
Jubal Harshaw will not stop talking, and the second half is a sermon with stage directions. Heinlein's free love runs one direction (the women cook, worship, and agree), and a single line about rape victims is vile enough to have its own afterlife. After the church gets founded, the novel preaches you flat for a hundred pages.
Science Fiction & Fantasy · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
