Concept

Stranger in a Strange Land

Overview

Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by the American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians, and explores his interaction with and eventual transformation of Terran culture.

The title "Stranger in a Strange Land" is a direct quotation from the King James Bible (taken from Exodus 2:22). The working title for the book was "A Martian Named Smith", which was also the name of the screenplay started by a character at the end of the novel.

Heinlein's widow Virginia arranged to have the original unedited manuscript published in 1991, three years after Heinlein's death. Critics disagree about which version is superior.

Stranger in a Strange Land won the 1962 Hugo Award for Best Novel and became the first science fiction novel to enter The New York Times Book Review's best-seller list. In 2012, the Library of Congress named it one of 88 "Books that Shaped America".

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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1. These few were the Evil Ones and they were conquered. Then great fires raged over the land. And in these fires the Evil Ones and all the things made by the Evil Ones were burned. And the fire which is called the Dawn of the Great Rebirth, was the Script Fire where all the scripts of the Evil Ones were burned, and with them all the words of the Evil Ones. Great mountains of flame stood in the squares of the Cities…

   Ayn Rand, Anthem

   States what Stranger in a Strange Land is; the author is tied to Stranger in a Strange Land in the knowledge graph.

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2. The natural philosopher, himself, conjectures that in former ages, these comets have overthrown the surface of this mundane ball, and caused great revolutions on the earth. Independent of this extraordinary _confusion_, he is exposed to others more familiar to him: sometimes, the seasons appear to have usurped each other's place; to have quitted their regular order: sometimes the opposing…

   Paul Henri Thiry Holbach, The System of Nature, or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World. Volume 1

   States what Stranger in a Strange Land is.

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3. They come to light, the elder lively and vigorous, the younger gentle and prudent. The former becomes the father's, the latter the mother's, favorite. The strife for precedence, which begins even at birth, is ever going on. Esau is quiet and indifferent as to the birthright which fate has given him: Jacob never forgets that his brother forced him back. Watching every opportunity of gaining the desirable privilege…

   Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Autobiography

   Close in meaning to Stranger in a Strange Land; the term itself is not named.

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Philosophers who discussed Stranger in a Strange Land

• Robert A. Heinlein

Related ideas

• Library of Congress
• Astrology
• Oxford English Dictionary
• Paganism
• Polyamory
• Robert A. Heinlein
• Science fiction
• Sufism
• The New York Times
• United Nations
• Ayn Rand
• Intentional community
• Free will
• Western esotericism
• Mores
• Earth
• Book of Exodus
• Jubal Harshaw
• Dan Schneider (writer)

Place in the tradition

Part of Pandeism.

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