A Trip to the Metaphysical: Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein – Reactor

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A Trip to the Metaphysical: Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

Thoughts on rereading and reevaluating the novel over many years.

By Alan Brown, Published on September 30, 2025

In this bi-weekly series reviewing classic science fiction and fantasy books, Alan Brown looks at the front lines and frontiers of the field; books about soldiers and spacers, scientists and engineers, explorers and adventurers. Stories full of what Shakespeare used to refer to as “alarums and excursions”: battles, chases, clashes, and the stuff of excitement.

Stranger in a Strange Land is considered by many to be one of Robert Heinlein’s greatest works. I was a bit young for it when it first came out in 1961, but I read it in high school in the mid-1970s, and several times in my early twenties. The book was wildly successful, although the critical reaction was decidedly mixed. Its deconstruction of religious dogma hit a nerve in an era where the counterculture was looking for meaning from sources outside of traditional churches and mainstream society. Stranger in a Strange Land won science fiction’s Hugo Award in 1962, and was the first science fiction book to appear on The New York Times Book Review’s bestseller list. The last time I’d read it was in 1991, in my mid-thirties, when a longer, unedited version was issued. I put that edition on my shelf, and finally discarded the tattered paperback from my youth. But I later decided that the added words hadn’t improved the story, and found a used 1961 book club edition of the original version of the novel that feature a blue-green painting of the Rodin sculpture “Fallen Caryatid Carrying Her Stone,” a work much beloved by character Jubal Harshaw in the book.

While I’ve covered many Heinlein books in this column, I never reviewed Stranger in a Strange Land, feeling that its philosophical nature didn’t fit the action and adventure focus of the column. But that conviction wavered when I read the following quotation published on Facebook by the Heinlein Society a few years ago:

“If a person names as his three favorites of my books Stranger, Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers … then I believe that he has grokked what I meant. But if he likes one—but not the other two—I am certain that he has misunderstood me, he has picked out points—and misunderstood what he picked. If he picks 2 of 3, then there is hope, 1 of 3—no hope. All three books are on one subject: Freedom and Self-Responsibility.”

The quote is drawn from the book Robert A. Heinlein – In Dialogue with His Century Volume 2: The Man Who Learned Better by William H. Patterson, Jr. And since those happen to be my three favorites of Heinlein’s books written for adults, the quote connected with me. While I‘d never thought of the three books as having a common theme, I immediately saw the point Heinlein was making. (It has been pointed out that Heinlein made this statement long before his career was over, but I am among many who feel that nothing he wrote later dislodged those books from the top three.) So, even though the book is a bit more preachy than it is action-oriented, I decided to give it a look.

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