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This is a story of an expedition to Mars that uncovers a survivor of a previous expedition ("Mike") who was raised by Martians, and thus thinks like Martians. They bring him back to Earth, where he's locked up by the authorities, until a sympathetic nurse named Gillian helps him to escape to the home of Jubal Harshaw, who appears to be some sort of writer/lawyer/journalist. Jubal, who's about as salty a character as they come, is interesting to watch as he fights off the forces of the world government that's trying to kidnap Mike and lock him up again. Mike can also vaporize people on site, which comes in handy when the government tries to grab him. Overall, the first half of this book is very interesting to watch as we hold our breath to see whether the government gets its hands on Mike. The second half of the book is a different kettle of fish. Jubal gets the government to leave Mike alone by giving them control of his assets (!), and Mike goes off… to start his own quai-religion where he promotes the concept of polygamy (!). One of the main characters, Ben Caxton, is horrified by this, but then tries it out and finds that he likes it, and it isn't too long before Jubal comes on board as well. Basically, anyone in Mike's religion can, and does, have sex with anyone else at the drop of a hat (assuming they were wearing that much). If the book hadn't shattered enough traditional principals with all that free sex, the book ends with most of the main characters eating a recently deceased main character. This was the beginning of the "polygameous" strain in Heinlein's books; in later books, he didn't need to establish a religion to have everyone jumping in the sack with each other: most of his later books took place in the future, where people just did that sort of thing naturally. While I could recommend the first half of this book, because of the intrigue/action-adventure elements, the second half is little more than a love-fest. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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