“They are all from the pre-Stranger period, which I vastly prefer.”
Me too, the stuff after is disappointing.
In the sixties, when Stranger was all the rage, many hippies were greatly disappointed when they went on to read Starship Troopers and The Moon is A Harsh Mistress.
So I went out and read them, and was thrilled, especially by the latter, which I ought to read again. What I loved about Starship Troopers was the absolute respect it demonstrated toward women. One very moving part was about the cadet who went AWOL during training, and took a little girl hostage in attempting to avoid capture and killed her. They took him back to his unit, stripped him of all his military insignia down to his fatigues, then hung him by the neck in front of his former unit.