1962 Hugo Award Winner
Probably Heinlein's most famous novel
Stranger, one of Heinlein's most seminal works and possibly his best written and best developed, is widely considered a milestone in American science fiction--one of the key books that turned the genre into a forum for something more than light entertainment. Reviews at the time decried the book's frank social criticism, impious metaphorical religious deconstruction, and satirical analysis of sex, gender relationships, and the human condition as heretical, if not pornographic. Even the publishers mandated removal of about 70,000 words to make the book shorter and less socially dangerous. Some histories credit Stranger with spawning the "free love" movements of the 1960s; others consider it the veritable bible of the counterculture.
Fun Fact: Stranger contains an early description of the water bed, an invention which made its real-world debut a few years later in 1968. Charles Hall, who brought a water bed design to the United States Patent Office, was refused a patent on the grounds that Heinlein's descriptions in Stranger and another novel, Double Star, constituted prior art.
Our Scores
Regina - 3
Victoria - Did not read because she is a lame-o
Julie - 3
Stacy - 3
Jennifer - 4
Cristen - 2 got thru most of it
