Day Eighty-Two

6/22

The Book: Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

ISBN: 978-0-441-79034-0

Suggested By: Te Norman

Where: Home

When: 8-8:30P

Music: None

Company: The Family

Pages: 1-55 (55)

The Lead In: As a whole, I gave up science fiction when I began college. It wasn’t a conscious decision, it just happened. I am a bit skeptical about reading any book from the sci-fi section at B&N, so we will see.

The 411 on the 55: An expedition was sent to Mars, never to be heard from again. 25 years later, another ship is sent, and a survivor of the first crew is found: Valentine Michael Smith. He is the son of one of the crew. He has been raised by martians and has no understanding of humanity.

Brought back to Earth, he is put under quarantine. Two people are interested in getting him out: a rough around the edges, former slut, nurse Jill and her kind-of boyfriend, newspaper reporter with a heart of gold Ben. Apparently, Val is worth a lot of money and owns the rights to Mars, making him extremely valuable and an irritation to future expeditions to the red planet.

Ben decides to crash the facility where he is at, but in the process gets kidnapped by the government. Jill actually meets Val (though contact with women isn’t allowed for him), and he seems to have developed a crush on her.

You can tell, dear reader, I dislike this book already. I hope my mind will change before this is over.

Line of the Day: “Being both a doctor of medicine and a lawyer he is three times as hard to shove. But most important, he is so rugged and individualist that he would fight the whole Federation with just a pocket knife if it suited him...” pg 42 [this is proof of the horrid writing of Ben’s dialogue. He’s a parody of bad “now see here, kid” journalist stereotypes from a Humphrey Bogart movie. He’s pushy with Jill (she’s a woman) and doesn’t take any guff from anyone (he’s a man).]

Fact on the Fiction: The title of this book is a reference to a quote from the Bible, Exodus 2:22: “And she bare [him] a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.”