Stranger in a Strange Land

Honestly, a really weird novel, even for science fiction. The first few chapters are fairly average, but has some intrigue to it for the most part on the first read. Of course, not fully knowing the details of Valentine's upbringing kept me theorizing on what could have potentially happened before the events of the novel in between the two missions to Mars, but other than that, it was a slow read up until halfway through the book where it truly begins to get really REALLY weird.
The cult concept was interesting, and in my opinion, could have been pretty gripping, especially since I enjoy those types of ideas in stories, but this is where one of the novel's biggest flaw begins to show. Even from the start, the characters didn't feel all that believable and fell into outdated stereotypes, but going into the second half, some of the characters actions feel so ridiculous. Needless to say, a lot of the characters actions and the way they're presented can genuinely come off as misogynistic and homophobic. It doesn't help that a large chunk of the story revolves around sexual unity, to an uncomfortable degree.
I know that's the point, yet I wouldn't actually mind if it was actually done to push a strong narrative instead of what I'd respectfully refer to as the author's wet dream. The guy literally has a self insert character that ends up writing this very novel at the end of the story. Admittedly, it had some cool ideas, but it was just executed so poorly that the entire thing feels like a joke. The protagonist even dies at the end in such an anti-climactic way. Oh yeah, there's also cannibalism. I'm obviously against that in real life, but in terms of the novel, I liked the concept and think it's one of the better plot points that comes back at the end when his followers eat Valentine, showing that they had fully integrated into his Martian culture.
Ultimately, I was more surprised and taken aback after finishing. I didn't even know what to think at first, but I did enjoy how weird and stupid it gets by the end. Humanity literally got powers from having sex with Valentine in their daily religious orgies, and killed off the Martians that decided to attack them at the end.
It's nonsensical to an extent, so at the very least, there's that to be entertained by. Still not sure how it won an award though. That gives me the impression of it being a pretentious piece of literature that was simply the first to do what it did. It just didn't age well with time.