Fascinating plot but irritating and tedious overuse of dialogue as the principal means of advancing large parts of the story. By contrast, the non-dialogue portions of the narrative are more information-rich and thought-provoking.

The major flaws don't involve the sci-fi premises, but instead the depiction of human situations. It's amusing that key plot elements revolve around clever legal maneuvers and verbal arguments as a reliable way of opposing power - surely as naive a stance then as now.

And, as other readers have noted, there is also an unpleasant theme of misogynistic preaching embedded throughout the book. One of the key characters, Jubal (a proxy for the author), portrayed admiringly by all other characters as a wise multi-talented mover-and-shaker, reads like a humourless Mickey Spillane novel or James Bond caricature, and the female characters are mockingly depicted as objects of amusement or pleasure, inherently subordinate and eagerly subservient to those of men.

Apart from (or, for some readers, because of) that gratuitous slant, this is a compelling read that fitted an era of social conformity and promoted a particular blueprint for male libertine lifestyles during the 1960s for the more credulous of sci-fi readers, notably musician David Crosby. ( )

Read the first 50 pages. The dialog and this story was so dated, that the dichotomy between this very dated way of men and women relating to one another against this futuristic plot was downright weird. Read synopsis on wiki and kind of glad I skipped the whole religion part. Uhg. Serves me right for wanting to understand why my least favorite word was invented. I don’t groc it.

This book was listed in a book I have for 1000 books one must read. it didn't do it for me. Laying aside the misogyny I think the main weakness of this book is that it isn't Science Fiction. Rather the interesting set up of Tarzan from Mars was a ruse to enable Heinlein to regale us at length with his opinions on life, religion, politics, art etc. There was some similarity in the plot idea to Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos. But the huge difference is that Wyndham cranked up the tension cleverly to an exciting and memorable conclusion. This was soulless and boring in comparison. ( )

Is a captivating sci-fi novel that explores the concept of a human raised on Mars returning to Earth. It delves into themes of culture clash, spirituality, and the search for identity. A must-read for science fiction enthusiasts!

Why did I ever like this? ( )