Stranger in a Strange Land

We have five Sundays this month, meaning it is time for a brain break from the serious non-fiction I usually review, making this week’s book of the week Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein. Rounding out the trifecta of his own favorite works.

Of Heinlein’s three favorite works of his, Stranger is the only one I had not read before. Not sure why, if I had to guess it’s because it was never one of my dad’s favorites. He has all of Heinlein’s works, including Stranger, he just never really cared for it. So, I never read it because my dad and I have pretty similar reading tastes. I just want to say…always read for yourself and make up your own mind.

Valentine Michael Smith was born of man on Mars. See, the first human mission to Mars was supposed to last for three Earth years. Instead, when the 8 people aboard the first ship to land on Mars failed to return home, it was assumed the mission had been a failure. 25 years later, technology has continued to advance, and a second ship is sent to Mars, this time a full colony ship. And when they land on Mars, they send back three dispatches to Earth:

1.       Rocket Ship Envoy located. No Survivors

2.       Mars is inhabited

3.       Correction to dispatch 23-105: One survivor of Envoy located.

And when the ship Champion returns to Earth, they bring with them that one survivor, who was the baby of two of the crew members of Envoy, that baby being Valentine Michael Smith, known throughout the rest of the story as Mike. Now, Mike, having been born on Mars, as reported in the surviving Envoy logbooks, is recognized by the Federated Nations as being Martian by birth; however, he is NOT Martian. He is human. There is a Martian Species, who took him in and raised him as a Martian, taught him everything there is to being a Martian, which here on earth, new ageists would call Unlocking Your Full Potential. On Mars, telepathy, teleportation, ESP, these are normal things all Martians are capable of. When a Martian’s life has run its course, he voluntarily discorporate’s…not to be confused with suiciding yourself, he just decides to die and wills it so…and then the remaining Martians eat the body as a means of fully knowing or grokking their fellow Martian. This is all culturally normal. On Mars.

Definitely not normal on Earth.

Now, when Mike is brought to Earth, he is first brought to a hospital to acclimate to Earth’s atmosphere. And he’s essentially kept in isolation. Understand, this is not for his health or protection. The doctor on the Champion had already taken care of his overall health. The isolation was to keep him from being grafted into any scammers…so ok, partially for his protection…but it was primarily to get him to sign away his rights.

See, they know for sure his mother was Dr. Mary Jane Lyle Smith, who on the Envoy was the atomics engineer, electronics and power technician, and wife of Dr. Ward Smith, who was the physician and surgeon, and the biologist. They also know for certain, due to blood typing and probably Envoy’s logs, that Smith’s father was NOT Dr. Ward Smith. His father was Captain Michael Brant, commanding, pilot, astrogator, relief cook, relief photographer, rocketry engineer.

It is hinted at that Brant impregnating Mary Smith was met with extreme hostility by Dr. Ward Smith…like bullets flew and this is likely why the sole survivor of the mission was the baby.

But wait, there’s more. See, Mike, as the child of Mary Smith, is set to inherit all the royalties and benefits of her patent, which she owned the sole rights too prior to her demise, on the Lyle Drive, which is how ships achieve interplanetary travel. And prior to leaving for Mars, she had placed those patent rights in trust with the Science Foundation. Meaning with aggregate interest over 25 years, Mike lands on Earth inheritor to a multi-hundred-million-dollar estate. And even though he is technically a bastard, having been born from adultery, none of the jurisdictions on earth in which the three parents (Ward, Mary, or Michael Brant) lived in acknowledge such illegitimacy. Mike was born in wedlock. Does not matter who the parents are. He is a legal heir to the estate. Of not just Mary Smith. He inherits Ward Smith’s estate, being born to that marriage, and Captain Brant’s estate, being of Brants actual bloodline. AND, the entire crew had signed a “Gentleman’s Adventurer” agreement making them all heirs to each other’s estates. And with the whole crew dead and no surviving heirs on earth, Mike lands on earth never having to work ever.

And…because federation law has determined that if a person is actually living on the planet, maintaining occupation of said planet, then the planet belongs to them. Never mind it was already inhabited by the Martians. From the Federation’s perspective, Mike, having been born and raised on Mars and being the sole human survivor, by Federation law, Owns Mars.

Now…this will grab many modern readers in a WTF moment…like oh…we’re gonna steal America from the native Americans OF COURSE we’d steal an entire planet from the Native Martians. Don’t worry, this gets covered.

Now, we learn all of the above when Gillian, who is a nurse at the hospital and on the special floor where Mike is being treated, has dinner with sometimes boyfriend, intrepid reporter Ben Caxton. The Secretary General of the Federated Nations has put out word that no women are to see the Man from Mars. I think the thought was that, having never seen a woman, he would go sex crazy as soon as he saw a woman. Jill, deciding that was a ridiculous prohibition, sneaks into Mike’s room. And then does something entirely innocent, which apparently none of the Secretary General’s staff thought of, which sets the course of the rest of Mike’s life. She offers him a glass of water. And when at first, he’s not sure if he should accept, she makes the assumption that he thinks it might be toxic, like she’s trying to poison him, so she takes a sip first, to show it’s not poison. He then takes a drink, making them “water brothers.”

On Mars…. This is a Big Thing. It means they are family. Basically. But unlike on Earth where sometimes the biggest back stabbers are your closest kin, on Mars, it’s literally impossible to betray your family. That whole telepathy thing. Awfully hard to betray someone who can read your mind. And who, in the betrayal, it’s like cutting your own heart out. It just doesn’t happen on Mars.

But, Smith has pretty good instincts as to who he can trust. So, when the Secretary General, Joe Douglas shows up to have him “sign some documents” which he can’t even read, and tries to force the issue…well, Mike, having grown up on Mars, is able to put himself in to a very deep trance. The type of trance wherein the machines at the hospital think he’s died.

From there some government fuckery goes on, pretty much at the behest of Douglas’s wife, the woman behind the throne, who wants Douglas to get control of Smith’s incredibly vast fortune. Mostly, they try to pass off a fake Man from Mars in the media so they can work on Smith on their own time. And that plan goes completely awry when intrepid reporter Ben Caxton goes missing, and Jill becomes worried enough that she stumbles upon the room in the hospital they had moved Mike to while perpetrating their fraud and smuggles him out.

Needing a place to hide, she takes him to Ben’s pad, and while there, the Secretary General’s henchmen locate them, and they frighten Jill so badly that Mike makes them disappear. Like…literally vanish. And this is not a “he just moved them to the street” type of vanish. They are dead. And while that’s hinted at, it becomes explicitly clear later in the book. Jill freaks out over the two hench’s disappearing act, which causes Mike to shut down in his trance as he tries to grok what he did wrong.

Jill, not wanting to just leave him because she is now known to be complicit in his disappearance, shoves his body in a trunk and takes him to where Ben told her to go in case of his own disappearance, which is to Doctor and legal scholar Jubal Harshaw. Harshaw has retired from both of those professions and is comfortably supported by releasing works of fiction under various pseudonyms.

But Jill presents him with the Man from Mars and tells of Ben’s disappearance, and Harshaw becomes intrigued enough to offer them sanctuary at his residence. And while there, engages in many philosophical discussions with Mike, so that Mike comes to see him as a father figure, and as the only person who Groks it in English. Everyone else has to learn Martian to truly grok the meaning of life. But not Harshaw.

Harshaw is basically determined to stay out of it all until the government sends their goon squad to break down his door and take Mike by force, at which point Harshaw engineers a dog and pony show designed to get everyone to leave Mike alone. And he does this by basically getting Secretary General Douglas to agree to be the financial manager of Mike’s estate…. Specifically Douglas, in his capacity as a private citizen. This is not a right or privilege to be granted to whoever happens to be Secretary General. And if Douglas declines or becomes incapacitated, the role reverts to Ben Caxton, who is not dead, but had been detained indefinitely by the Secretary General and released only when Harshaw played his hand just right to engineer the release.

Now, throughout all of this, Mike is building up his inner circle of only to be trusted individuals all through the sharing of water. Just plain water. As one might imagine of a planet with no surface water, water is a scarce and valuable resource on Mars, so the sharing of it is a sacred right and bonding experience. And during this time, Harshaw, and eventually everyone else Mike so bonds with, comes to understand that this is a lifelong commitment, one Mike will never betray because he is literally incapable of betraying it. And Harshaw and several others get a chance to observe Mike’s ability to disappear anyone or anything that is a threat. Like, literally disappear. And when Harshaw asks if Mike can bring them back, Mike is baffled because it has never been done. Like…there’s a reason violent crime does not exist on Mars. Because Martians just make the violent person disappear.

And we do find out that the disappearing is death in a pretty straightforward matter. See, Mike refers constantly to the Martian Old Ones, who are basically Martians who, having attained full grokking of all they can grok, voluntarily discorporate and become basically spiritual advisors to the Martian peoples. And Mike’s quite serious…he can hear the Old Ones in his mind when they want to speak to him. So, death among humans, where they just cease to be, is not something he can really grasp his mind around. And when he hears on a newscast a church, called the Fosterites, has a couple of members who are ascending to heaven, he very much wants to see this for himself. So, he, Jubal, and Jill attend, as guests of one of the churches bishops, a Fosterite ceremony.

And it’s very bacchanalian, the Fosterites believe God just wants you to be happy, so drinking, gambling, sex, all of these things are allowed and encouraged…within the church. But you can only drink from brands that support the church and eat food by brands that support the church, and the church has their own slot machines. And during the tour of the church, they get to see the Sainted Foster himself. Who died a while back, and his body was basically left to mummify. And this hit Mike as wrong and it’s only because Jill told him not to make the body disappear because it would cause problems that he left the body there. But later, while Jubal and Jill are being entertained by the same Bishop that invited them, Mike is given a private audience with the church’s current prime leader, Digby. We don’t know what happened in the private meeting, but Digby did something Mike saw as aggressive because Digby disappears. And Heinlein spends a chapter going over Digby’s ascent to heaven. However off Digby’s own interpretation may have been, he was on the right path, and Foster was definitely on the right path because he is already an archangel. And Digby, when he gets to heaven, spends a while bitterly angry over his sudden discorporation and hating Mike until he gets sent elsewhere on assignment to get over it.

Back on Earth, Mike is now free to do as he wishes, he and Jill go out on the road so he can learn everything he wants. And ultimately, he Groks humans, and what it means to be human, and what the ultimate goal and role of humanity is. And immediately sets himself up as a pastor in his own church, the Church of All Worlds, and he starts proselytizing.

Now, this part…creeped me out a bit. Like, some people think this book helped spark the hippy free love movement…Fun fact, the Wikipedia page for Free Love does not cite Stranger in a Strange Land as an influence on the movement at all.

So, what was creepy about it? Well, the free love thing doesn’t bother me. I’m not in an open marriage, never even thought of it or discussed it with my husband or rather as far as we have discussed it, we both were like nope, that is not for us. We are happy being two peas in our own little pod, we do not need anyone else throwing off our chemistry. But it is for some people, and if all parties are happy consenting adults, it’s none of my business. What creeped me out reading it was it was so reminiscent of like pod people. People who reach the inner sanctum of membership with Mike at the head…they all speak Martian, which is fine, but they all communicate telepathically, some of them can teleport, some of them can move things with their minds, when a couple has sex, they will “Share” the sensation and experience with everyone in the nest. One of the priestesses, who Mike cribbed from the Fosterites, begins to look like Jill, so that they almost become twins, and sister wives to Mike.

And understand, Mike doesn’t just crib from the Fosters…. all religions are welcome and he sees no contradiction in having people be Jewish AND a member of the Church of All Worlds…or Muslim and Church of All Worlds. All are welcome. But in order to keep advancing, you do have to grok the overall message. And this is where Mike starts experiencing problems, and ultimately must loop Jubal in to see where he went wrong.

So, the final denouement happens when a member of a rival church, I don’t think it was specified, but maybe it was, because Catholic sticks in my head, announces Mike is a fraud, and gets the police after him. And while Mike is in jail, someone firebombs the temple/nest. Now, no one is hurt and all party members make it out just fine. And after the fire bombing, Mike makes a dramatic escape from jail by making all the bars in the jail disappear. Like, not just from his cell ALL the bars, so that all the prisoners are suddenly freed. Except for those Mike knows in that Martian way of knowing are completely broken inside and are inherently dangerous. Those, he disappears. Then Mike himself retreats to the nest hiding spot and waits for Jubal to show up.

And in private conversation, Mike disclosed to Jubal that he realized unexpectedly that he had been an inadvertent spy for Mars. Essentially, the Martians, having decided they learned all they could from Mike about what humanity was life, severed the connection, and he felt it go. And then he realized what had happened, and advised Jubal that Mars might decide to just blow-up earth…or they might decide to conquer earth culturally, by making humans over into their image. Which, in effect, is exactly what Mike had been doing! And once Mike made that connection, he determined that was no longer what needed to be done.

What needs to be done is his core message, the temple greeting he’s been instilling in his followers: “Thou Art God” needs to be fully grokked by everyone. He thinks Martian is the best language to grok it in…but then again, it’s his native language. But the professor doesn’t speak any Martian, and he groks it fully. The core message, Thou Art God, means simply this: “It’s not a message of cheer and hope, Jubal. It’s a defiance—and an unafraid, unabashed assumption of personal responsibility.” Mike then goes on to say “But I rarely put it over. A very few, just these few here with us, our brothers, understood me and accepted the bitter along with the sweet, stood up and drank it—grokked it. The others, hundreds and thousands of others, either insisted on treating it as a prize without a contest—a conversion—or ignored it. No matter what I said they insisted on thinking of God as something outside themselves. Something that yearns to take every indolent moron to His breast and comfort him. The notion that the effort has to be THEIR OWN…and that the trouble they are in is all their own doing…is one that they can’t or won’t entertain.”

So, some people, in reading this book, get caught up in the multi partner sex orgies that are hinted at, or the utopian possibility of perfect communism that could be achieved if we all were telepathically linked and able to share as a nest shares. But what Heinlein…through Mike…was saying is that none of this is possible as long as you continue to blame others for your life.

And therein lies Heinlein’s trifecta. Moon is a Harsh Mistress: Don’t rely on the government to administer your life. Starship Troopers: Don’t rely on the military to protect your life, although the military is a damned good way to learn self-responsibility. Stranger in a Strange Land: Don’t depend on religion to defend your soul. It’s a starting place, but ultimately, you are responsible for how your soul decays. All three are about personal responsibility. Ultimately, you are in charge of your own destiny. Thou Art God.

And that’s it for this week. If you liked what you saw, don’t forget to subscribe. I’m not gonna tell you how the book ultimately ends because you really should read it for yourself. Just know, there is an unabridged version out there which I have not read, the copy I read was released in 1981, the unabridged version was released in 1991, so it’s possible there’s a different ending out there.

This book was originally reviewed on July 2, 2023 on YouTube but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.