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Read 2013
This is the story of the Man from Mars, Valentine Michael Smith. Michael is all human, the off spring of the first humans to land on Mars. They never made it back home and Michael was raised a Martian. Michael is brought to earth for the first time ever where he encounters a culture and language foreign to him. It is a futuristic novel, looking at the earth in the future. Some things are very futuristic but mostly the novel is the author's excuse for a drawn out social commentary on love (free love) and religion. The story itself had some interesting parts and some of the commentary was also interesting, but enough already. This story could have been a 100 pages less. I thought I was going to give in 4 stars but because it just took tooooo long to finish, it ended up a three star. This book is suppose to be the author's masterpiece. It is suppose to be the father of all sci fi. It supposedly was an incredibly popular novel though I never read it before. It is quite dated. You have to remember that it was published in 1961 so the author was probably working on it in 1960 or even earlier. It is considered a look at the hippie generation; free love, communal living etc. It treats women as pets and servants to men. The book made a good discussion book however, if curious to know more, stop over at 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and read the discussion questions.

Similar to Kristel, when I first started reading this I assumed I was going to give this book 5 stars, and then settled on 4. This was also in part because of the way the book seemed to drag out in ways where it could have been at least 100 pages shorter (and to think- the standard published version I listened to IS the edited version), and also because the way it developed was somewhat less fascinating than the setup could have had it been.

I do appreciate that Heinlein specified that he wasn't trying to sell anyone on a particular religious, political, or moral perspective but rather wrote this book to get people to interrogate the reasoning behind are justified. Michael's naïve to Earth perspective really does work well to convey this.

I also loved the whole idea of "to grok", it consolidates many concepts- to understand, to love, to drink, to be one with- in a way that kind of does intuitively make sense.

What I didn't love is that, ironically, Michael's church that is supposed to represent a way above and detached from human biases cultures etc, but as mentioned above really does now read as dated to the fad philosophies of the 60s.

The frequent dated misogyny and sometimes homophobia is also-interesting. Sadly a lot of this is mouthpieced by Jill- including a particularly awful monologue she has about most women who get raped doing something to deserve it. I wonder if it is played straight from the author's viewpoint, or (as I saw someone suggest) is done intentionally to convey the flaws of humanity that Michael is there to help people transcend from. Either way, the book seems to suggest that their free love church/cult thing that doesn't account for human prejudices is entirely heterosexual in nature which seems...mighty unlikely to say the least lol.

Pre-2016 review:

**½

A Martian of human origin, Michael Valentine Smith, is brought back to Earth. Unaware of human customs or conditions, having been raised as a Martian, and endowed unknowingly of an immense wealth, he is in the custody of corrupt government officials until rescued by a nurse, Jill, and an eccentric lawyer/doctor named Jubal. Smith ends up adapting to human conditions while keeping his Martian traits and goes on to establish a religious sect. Even though it is a pioneering science-fiction novel, I found it hard to maintain my interest throughout. I found the discussions about possible legal and political ramifications a bit tedious. From the moment Jubal and his harem enter the stage, I felt it was more a circus than anything else. And while Mike's church pre-empted the whole hippie movement, it failed to grab my attention. I was expecting more out of this. I really didn't fully grok it.

I really enjoyed the first part of this book when Valentine Michael Smith arrives on Earth having grown up in an alien culture, kind of like the "boy raised by wolves" trope, except that the Martians are clearly extremely intelligent with a strong culture and a hive-like mentality, completely different from ours. I was looking forward to hearing more about that.

Instead, it falls into a mire of long preachy dialogues about religious cults - one cult that already exists on Earth and one that Michael sets up. As others have said, we are stuck in the 1950s in terms of gender and sexual orientation. Also, Michael has a convenient ability to make people he doesn't like disappear permanently, along with making those he does like younger and more beautiful (especially if they are women) and keeping everyone in perfect health, which is useful when you have set up a commune promoting free love, with everyone naked and always eager for sex. And since perfect health, eternal youth, and making your opponents disappear without consequences are not possible in real life, all the preaching seemed pointless to me. Because even if we agree that this kind of communal living and loving would be the perfect way forward for our society, we can't blank out the downsides the way Heinlein does in this book.

I listened to the audio, and I hope I never hear the word "grok" again. I liked the concept to begin with, but having it in my ears over and over again took all the interest out of it for me.

I feel sad about only giving it two stars, but it was so disappointing!

Compared to my memory of this read as a teen, the re-read became tedious towards the end. Maybe its because this version has added back 50k words that an editor rightly cut the first time? Or maybe because all of the preachy quasi dialogue no longer felt that fresh, too much telling, not enough showing once it becomes a theological conversation about what is moral instead of a sci-fi story. Also, I think it was way sexier in its day than it is now. As others all said, the sexism is really a turn off to modern ears. And I agree with Rosemary that the solution to humanities problems is too pat.