I feel bad giving this book a bad rating because a friend gifted this to me but I had a really hard time reading it. It was hard to see past the quick (and apparently totally acceptable for the times! [which doesn't make it easier to ignore]) sexism, homophobia, and racism scattered throughout the text. Por ejemplo:

She had explained homosexuality to [Mike], after he had read about it and failed to grok it--and had given him practical rules for avoiding even the appearance...Fortunately Mike's male water brothers were all decidedly masculine men, just as his others were very female women. Jill hoped that it would stay that way; she suspected that Mike would grok a 'wrongness' in the poor in-betweeners anyhow--they would never be offered water (374-5).

Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's at least partly her own fault (376).

To have discovered in herself unsuspected latent Lesbian tendencies would have been entirely too much (381).

[Dawn] made no sound, but in only a second or two a warm, full tear splashed on his chest--was followed quickly by another...and another--and still more. She sobbed almost silently. Jubal cursed and reached for her...and cooperated with the inevitable (495)

The last quote refers to Dawn desperately wanting to share her soul through sex with Jubal and can only convince him by forcing herself to cry. Not the strongest example of misogyny but still kinda weird. Racism was obviously present with a Muslim character's nickname as "Stinky." More misogyny occurred with Jubal, a secondary character, and his three women assistants that lived with him at home. They had shifts of servitude where Jubal would scream "Front!" (and center, I presume) and the woman on duty would have to appear immediately to appease his will. However, they were "sassy" and could speak back to him but it felt like such a disguise for sexism, especially considering the other instances in the book.

All this sexism, homophobia, and racism is even worse because it occurs in a future world. This blatant antagonism towards difference (from white males) isn't acceptable now, and certainly wouldn't be with the educated people that are represented in this book. My feminist soul could not be silenced in order to read this classic sci fi novel. It's unfortunate because there is a great discussion of who god is and spirituality.

One more thought: the writing style was so wonky at times that it was hard to read. One character, Jubal, was clearly Heinlein and enjoyed espousing his thoughts on everything under the sun. He would go on philosophical rants that would be egged on by clueless characters ("what do you mean?", "go on...", "That doesn't make sense to me."). My own personal taste in fiction is that discussions such as these should be organic and not like a nonfiction essay.