I keep trying to like Heinlein. I even succeed sometimes. I enjoyed Starship Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. And I even kind of liked Citizen of the Galaxy. But The Glory Road is just blah.
It's a rather dull quest-story, that takes place in a parallel-world of some kind, though it opens in our world and follows a rather meandering plotline before getting to the fantasy part.Philosophically, it touches on the standard Heinlein themes - free sex and cultural relativity.
Mainly though, it's hard to overlook his strange mix of liberal philosophy and sexism. He's actually got a scene where the main guy threatens the main woman with a spanking, and she acts meek as a result. At first I thought it was tongue-in-cheek, like they were playing with each other, but no. Heinlein meant it to be read straight. Ick.
I could take the mild sexism in Stranger in a Strange Land, but this book was just too much. I got about halfway through before deciding that the plot or the characters weren't interesting enough for me to continue, so I returned it to the library. It's rare that I abandon a book like that, but I just couldn't take it anymore.
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