5 ms·

"Stranger in a Strange Land" is probably the best sci-fi novel I've ever read. It must have been very daring at the time to discuss the topics he touches on the

by m0zg 8y ago

"Stranger in a Strange Land" is probably the best sci-fi novel I've ever read. It must have been very daring at the time to discuss the topics he touches on there (religion, polygamy, homosexuality, cannibalism), the ending especially. He's no stranger to controversy, though. Another great novel by him, "Time enough for love" likewise ventures into such a taboo subject as incest. "Ventures" isn't quite the word, actually, more like "jumps into it headlong". "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" explores families in which there are multiple wives and husbands, and as a result the familial relationships get very complicated, and the family can exist for hundreds of years. What's more, families are dominated by women, because they're in short supply on the moon. Pretty thought provoking stuff, I like that in sci-fi.

ggm 8y ago
The problem of writers whose words you loved, but as you get older their views of world and society start to grate. It's not confined to sci-fi.
- crooked-v 8y ago
  Though, I think it's worth noting when writers do move with the times. One example is the Sector General series, which was written over several decades real time starting in the 60s. If you read them in sequence, you can see where the author started with the assumption of 1960s social standards but then actively rewrote parts of the setting piece by piece to modernize it.
crooked-v 8y ago
Just don't read Number of the Beast (except, perhaps, ironically). It includes some bizarre self-fanfic riffs that take "Da Capo" to an even more absurdist extreme.
- bigiain 8y ago
  I can't remember who said it, but I'll never forget that book being described as "from his later, post talented phase"...
mcguire 8y ago
Is it really incest, or just masturbation, if it's with your clones?
dsr_ 8y ago
Women can only be "in short supply" as long as the Earth is using Luna as a prison colony and mostly shipping up males; as soon as native Lunarians dominate, it will be 50/50 or so as per usual.
- mcguire 8y ago
  That's one of the issues with it; history has seen several instances of high-proportion male societies, and "women in charge" has never been the stable result.
  - BurningFrog 8y ago
    OP said "families are dominated by women", not "women in charge".
  - sfRattan 8y ago
    My recollection from the book was that, as the sibling comment states, the moon was previously 2:1 men-to-women. It was no longer so by the time of the novel's start, but social norms established during that tumultuous backstory had persisted: mostly the men enforcing good behavior on each other because it was so ridiculously easy to die on the moon and the men were essentially interchangeable to the women and not scarce.
- m0zg 8y ago
  And that's exactly what the Moon was used as in the book, so men outnumbered women 2:1. Another prediction in the book is it's very easy to do heavy bombardment of the Earth from there, using the Earth's gravity well, rail guns on the Moon, and lunar rocks. Next time I saw the Moon mentioned in a military context was in George Friedman's "The Next 100 Years", where he tries to predict what will happen throughout the rest of this century. The books gets very sci-fi towards the end, but it's a fun read. I wonder if Friedman has read Heinlein.

by m0zg 8y ago

ggm 8y ago

The problem of writers whose words you loved, but as you get older their views of world and society start to grate. It's not confined to sci-fi.

crooked-v 8y ago
Though, I think it's worth noting when writers do move with the times. One example is the Sector General series, which was written over several decades real time starting in the 60s. If you read them in sequence, you can see where the author started with the assumption of 1960s social standards but then actively rewrote parts of the setting piece by piece to modernize it.

crooked-v 8y ago

Just don't read Number of the Beast (except, perhaps, ironically). It includes some bizarre self-fanfic riffs that take "Da Capo" to an even more absurdist extreme.

bigiain 8y ago
I can't remember who said it, but I'll never forget that book being described as "from his later, post talented phase"...

mcguire 8y ago

Is it really incest, or just masturbation, if it's with your clones?

dsr_ 8y ago

Women can only be "in short supply" as long as the Earth is using Luna as a prison colony and mostly shipping up males; as soon as native Lunarians dominate, it will be 50/50 or so as per usual.

mcguire 8y ago
That's one of the issues with it; history has seen several instances of high-proportion male societies, and "women in charge" has never been the stable result.
- BurningFrog 8y ago
  OP said "families are dominated by women", not "women in charge".
- sfRattan 8y ago
  My recollection from the book was that, as the sibling comment states, the moon was previously 2:1 men-to-women. It was no longer so by the time of the novel's start, but social norms established during that tumultuous backstory had persisted: mostly the men enforcing good behavior on each other because it was so ridiculously easy to die on the moon and the men were essentially interchangeable to the women and not scarce.
m0zg 8y ago
And that's exactly what the Moon was used as in the book, so men outnumbered women 2:1. Another prediction in the book is it's very easy to do heavy bombardment of the Earth from there, using the Earth's gravity well, rail guns on the Moon, and lunar rocks. Next time I saw the Moon mentioned in a military context was in George Friedman's "The Next 100 Years", where he tries to predict what will happen throughout the rest of this century. The books gets very sci-fi towards the end, but it's a fun read. I wonder if Friedman has read Heinlein.