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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   2121 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 17, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So, what are you reading?

I'm still on Red Dynamite.

Still working on Stranger In A Strange Land and His Broken Body. Making faster progress on Stranger, partly because it's much lighter reading and partly because His Broken Body is part of my bedtime Kindle reading, which means a lot of times I fall asleep before reading very much. I'm making good progress on Stranger, and will most likely finish it sometime this week. I've really enjoyed the book so far, though with some amusement as Heinlein has been turning his central character into a sex god. It is one of those things where you have to laugh and go "man, the 60s really were a different time".

Reading Stranger I had two main thoughts:

  1. I didn't realize how influential it was. Dune is largely the same thing with heavier/harder scifi, Star Wars is largely Dune, and a million things since Star Wars are ripoffs of Star Wars. But they all come back to Heinlein.

  2. It is definitely very 60s in its view of sexuality.

Look forward to hearing more of your thoughts on it!

It is definitely very 60s in its view of sexuality.

There's a lot of deep Heinlein no one talks about. The Door Into Summer flirts with some odd subjects, and Glory Road gets kind of out there, but probably nothing tops Farnham's Freehold.

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