K, so...

I finished it. Could we have really been that impressionable, 30+ years ago??? Shit yeah - we were in our twenties, or younger.

SiaSL was first published in 1961 - and boy, does it look it! The uncut version is longer-winded: more Heinleinian soapboxing on the topics of religion (as opposed to faith) and jealousy... the latter being the 20-foot-high speed bump on the road to polyamory - no, not Cleveland's sister, but the proper term for the kind of multiple relationship, in and out of wedlock, to which Heinlein returned repeatedly in his senescence.

In my Google search for Net-stored commentary on Stranger, I discovered, among other things:

A site called "Libertarianism and Robert A. Heinlein" - and it's not Tom's!

The page where I first found the term "polyamory", with special reference to Stranger. The home page to this site is chock full of Heinlein links.

And, the web site of Alexei Panshin, well-known if not notorious Heinlein biographer, interpreter, and apologist (and published SF author of minor talent).

Oh yes - I also found, though didn't save the link, that the alleged connection between SiaSL and the Manson Family is an urban legend.

Though I plan to be a bit more scholarly for the rubes on the F&E board, here's the basics: there is no theology in SiaSL beyond a rudimentary pantheism: "all that groks is God", which is to say, all life - and yes, I cringe at typing the word, even though I've also found it inescapably appropriate at times. Most of the rest of the book is either early-'60s tittilation or hammer-on-the-head preachiness. Given all of his prior work, there's surprisingly little that can be called Science Fiction in this one, even after discounting the pre-Viking ideas of Mars... and now that I know the chronology of Heinlein's bibliography a little better, I can say with confidence that The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was the last good novel he ever wrote.

E'