Stranger in a Strange Land

'Once upon a time when the world was young there was a Martian named Smith. Valentine Michael Smith.'

Once upon a time, when SF was young (and publishers were skittish), Robert Heinlein edited Stranger in a Strange Land. Master of his craft, he preserved the novel's scope and power. But this uncut version is the one to savor until it can be grokked fully. For in restoring the original text, the novel's memorable characters come into sharp focus—from Jubal Harshaw, crotchety individualist, to Patty Paiwonski, tattooed saint, to Jill Boardman, the first human woman the Martian ever sees—and the incredible story of Valentine Michael Smith gains added depth and richness.

Humanity's first Mars expedition had been meticulously planned, the Envoy's crew chosen for intellectual and technical superiority. But the voyage ended in tragedy.

Twenty-five years later, the Federation ship Champion landed on the red planet and discovered two extraordinary facts: 1) Mars was inhabited, and 2) there had been one survivor of the Envoy mission, a child born to two of the ill-fated astronauts...a child raised by Martians without ever seeing another human being.

They brought Valentine Michael Smith to Earth and kept him isolated, under guard, in a hospital, for the existence of the Man from Mars caused a furor—not the least of it because his parents' shrewd pre-launch investments had left him heir to a fortune. At the time, Mike knew nothing of such things.

The doctors expected him to die—which would have simplified matters for a great number of people. Mike, of course, didn't know that either.

In those first days, smothered by the rich, dangerously hot alien atmopshere—his body compressed and weakened by Earth gravity—he might have inadvertently discorporated. So he slowed his heart rate and respiration, and withdrew into himself.

In as trance state that was completely Martian and beyond human comprehension, he tried to assimilate the rush of new experiences...to cherish and praise them in order to grok them fully. But not until he met Gillian Boardman did Mike begin to understand what it was to be human.

She was a nurse who offered him to drink of water, unaware that sharing water was the most sacred of Martian rituals. A ritual that forged an unbreakable bond that would lead them into a life of true miracles, sensuality, and danger. (491 pp.)