My first reactions to Lilith's Brood:

1) Heriarchy is not a genetic trait.
2) The Oankali (especially Ooloi) manipulation of humans is immoral.
3) The Oankali are no more moral than humanity, since both are driven by supposedly inescapable genetic tendencies.

I’m tempted to call this novel nostalgic, for all of its debatable purpose and philosophy. Of course I wouldn’t be the first to call it so, and part of the reason the jacket calls it “The controversial classic of military adventure” is the long history it has spawned of civilian readers being to some degree upset or suspicious of the almost fond way in which this future society of citizenship through military service is described; but still I had promised myself going in that I was going to try and find Heinlein’s real philosophy behind the novel.