[[quoteright:250:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Stranger.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:250:"[[SincerityMode May you never thirst]]!"]]

''Stranger in a Strange Land'' is an influential 1961 novel by Creator/RobertAHeinlein, which won a HugoAward. Though written well before the 60's, it was finally published at the beginning of the hippie movement because "the time was right". As a result, it had a huge, ''huge'' influence on the sexual and social revolution that followed. Two versions exist: the version originally published in 1961, heavily edited (more for length than for content) by Heinlein himself, and the 1991 "Uncut Original Manuscript" Edition, released posthumously.

The protagonist, Valentine Michael Smith, [[TouchedByVorlons is raised on Mars]] by StarfishAliens and travels to Earth where he [[NatureHero learns how to be human]], then [[BlitheSpirit rejects the irrationality]] of his warlike human ancestors and starts a peace-and-love cult.

This book is the source of the word 'grok', which indicates a complete understanding of a person or idea, like Kant's Noumenon. Like with ''Literature/AClockworkOrange'', Heinlein's new word [[PopCultureOsmosis spread into pockets of popular culture, often to the point that those using it do not recognize its provenance.]]

The book has never been out of print.

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!!This novel provides examples of:

* AllMythsAreTrue: It seems all religions are, at least to Mike, and human angels appear to exist alongside Martian "Old Ones".
* AlternativeNumberSystem: The Martians apparently have a numerical system based on three and powers of three. "Three fulfilled," they call it...
* ArcWords: "Water brother," "grokked a goodness/wrongness," "grokked the fullness," "thou art God," "I am only an egg."
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: What Martians do when they "[[UnusualEuphemism discorporate]]", becoming bodiless intellects [[spoiler:and so does Mike at the end]].
* {{Astrologer}}: Becky Vesey.
* AuthorAppeal: Jubal's harem of secretaries.
* AuthorAvatar: Jubal, a pulp writer who more or less exists to expound upon Robert A. Heinlein's ideas on society, religion and women.
* AuthorFilibuster: Jubal delivers a few WallOfText speeches, as does Michael once he becomes fluent in English.
* AuthorTract: Like many of Heinlein's novels, promotes the author's ideals of polyamory and nudism.
* BadassPacifist: Mike doesn't actually use physical force at any point in the novel; he either resists peacefully or uses his PsychicPowers to "remove" potential threats. [[spoiler:And also lets the mob of Fosterites kill him at the end.]]
* BigEater: Duke, and Mike (when he doesn't [[ForgetsToEat forget to eat]]).
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: The Martians are collectivist, practice eugenics (and cannibalism), and contemplate destroying other planets because it would be "a goodness". Michael comes to a sort of middle ground between the Martian and human viewpoints and morality.
* CannotTellALie: Anne is a Fair Witness, a legal consultant who has undergone intensive training to observe events completely impartially. This skill comes in handy a few times throughout the story.
* CharacterFilibuster: Jubal gives a few of these, notably one attacking the perceived [[FamilyUnfriendlyAesop skewed morality]] of Literature/TheBible.
* CuckooNest: There's some debate whether [[spoiler:Michael actually exercised power from beyond the grave to prevent Jubal from overdosing on pills, or if this was just a hallucination]]
* ChurchOfHappyology:
** While it obviously has a televangelist aspect, some think that Smith's religion also has aspects of Scientology (Heinlein and Hubbard were friends).
** Within the story, at least, Smith ''deliberately'' borrows from a televangelist religion as it was the ideal way to get his message across, but he's only using religion as a [[TheMasquerade mask]] to deliver the true message and make it more palatable. What's even more interesting is that there really is a higher order of existence, but none of the characters are aware of it.
** Other inspirations for the Fosterites are very likely Robert H. Schuller (with his lavish megachurch, syndicated TV program and "happy" message) and the Mormons (for their often-violent origin story and elaborate organizational structure).
* CorruptPolitician: Jubal's glad to learn that Secretary Douglas is the sort of politician who, once bought, stays bought.
* DarkMessiah[=/=]{{Ubermensch}}: Michael is pretty nice compared to the examples on those pages, but he does conjure up Nietzsche's idea of a Dionysian worldview as opposed to Christianity's Apollonian one. The novel also contains the Fosterites (a direct inspiration for Michael's "church"), who are essentially a Dionysian Christian sect, as opposed to the usual Apollonian ways of such sects.
* {{Defictionalization}}:
** The water-filled sleeping sac that Heinlein imagined preceded the waterbed by several years.
** There is a [[http://www.caw.org/ real-world religious group]] which is based upon the trappings of Mike's teachings. It's even rumored that Heinlein wrote the novel on a bet with Creator/LRonHubbard (founder of Scientology), to see which one could start a bigger cult, but decided to call the whole thing off when it started getting a little ''too real''. That story, however, has never been confirmed.
* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Not only does Michael receive fan mail from potential female sexual partners, he also gets it from gay men and modifies his appearance to be more masculine to ward off these attentions.
** ButNotTooGay: Gays are "confused" and "poor in-betweeners" who will "never be offered water" in this story. Heterosexuality is the standard. Jubal points out that men do share the "kiss of brotherhood" in the Church of All Worlds, but the man he's speaking to hastens to explain that it's "not a pansy gesture".
*** Although later there is mention of a pairing between 2 females that, based on what's said, are a married couple in all but sex based on how well they know each other. Presumably to reinforce the idea that you should love who you want, even if you don't bed them. Also, it should be pointed out, at no point does Mike ever talk negatively about homosexuality, and Jubal appears to simply not care about the idea of bedding with a male. Jill is the only one who actively has negative thoughts about homosexuality that we see, and while she's never shown engaging in it, she does start to show acceptance for it.
* FantasticAnthropologist: Michael finds out he was one unknowingly when [[spoiler:the Martian Old Ones download his memories of his experiences of Earth and cut the monitoring mindlink they had established with him.]]
* ForHappiness: Patricia Paiwonski, who "wanted to sacrifice herself on an altar of happiness for the world."
* AGodAmI: Or rather, everyone is.
* GrokkingTheHorrorshow: Co-namer of the trope, for 'grok'.
* HowDoIUsedTense: Mike's initial attempts to speak English are, realistically, full of innocent grammatical errors.
* HumansAreFlawed: But capable of becoming far better.
* ImAHumanitarian: Standard practice on Mars is to eat the dead, which squicks out a few characters when Michael talks about doing the same and refers to dead humans as "food". It's mostly symbolic, though--Martians don't feel any sentimental attachment to corpses because they believe that the body is just a vessel for the soul.
* IntrepidReporter: Ben Caxton.
* IThoughtEveryoneCouldDoThat: Michael doesn't realize at first that other people can't levitate objects. [[spoiler:He can teach them to using the Martian language, though.]]
* IWantMyJetpack: Where are the [[FlyingCar flying cars]]?
** There are aircars, including self-driving ones, all the way through the book. (Ben Caxton is kidnapped in a robot cab.) Elevators have been replaced by antigravity bounce tubes. Jill reads books on "spools" that project the words onto a surface and turn themselves off when you put them down. TV is now 3D stereovision, watched via a "tank", but is otherwise as annoying as ever. By the time somebody uses a phone, you expect it to be a VideoPhone, and it is.
*** To make a comparison to technology as of 2013: no flying cars, self-driving is on the way and there are already a few automatic car features, the kindle and its ilk are replacing books and while not quite spools there is a greater library in a shorter space, TV is still unable to recorded in 3-D but can be made to appear as such, and we have video cellphones. We at least surpassed the phones.
* LanguageOfMagic: When Mike attempts to explain his astonishing PsychicPowers to Jubal, he realizes that English lacks the necessary concepts, so later in the story he starts teaching people Martian. Sure enough, it turns out that all humans can do these things, but only by first teaching themselves the mental framework that goes along with speaking the Martian language.
* TheMessiah: Mike. Just in case you didn't get the message, [[spoiler:[[CrystalDragonJesus he sacrifices himself at the end and his followers consume a symbolic amount of his flesh.]]]]
* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: In-universe version; Mike teaches other members of his nest Martian. At one point, he mentions that one member has a great grasp of the language but for reasons unfathomable even to Mike (who is at this point nearly omniscient), he manages to speak Martian with a Brooklyn accent.
* PathOfInspiration: The Fosterites.
* RaisedByNatives: Of Mars.
* TheRedPlanet: Which unfortunately [[ScienceMarchesOn we now know contains no sentient life.]]
* ReligionOfEvil: The Fosterites, who are exploitative and at times violent (and resemble the ChurchOfHappyology in more than one way).
** Although it's a downplayed. One of the most devout of Mike's followers later in the book is a Fostrite, and they do have honest people, it's just that the lesser followers are so willing to get violent that, in around a day, they can coordinate strikes that can destroy millions of dollars over a published book. Effectively, if they were to tone down their violent code, the Fosterites might seem like a downright wonderful religion.
* SarcasticConfession: When Jill smuggles the Man from Mars out of Ben's house in a large trunk, a man asks her what the trunk contains. She replies, truthfully, "A body"... he considers it a joke and lets her pass.
* ScienceMarchesOn: Sadly, subsequent exploration of the Red Planet has shown it to be far less hospitable to life than Heinlein imagined/hoped. Also, most of today's astronomers reject the theory that the asteroid belt is the remnants of a former planet.
* SexByProxy: Jubal finds out that having sex with one cult member is slightly awkward when his partner is mentally linked to ''all'' of them.
* SocietyMarchesOn: Although far from a free love utopia, open relationships are considerably more acceptable today than they were in Heinlein's time, as well as homosexuality. Women are also generally not secretaries and "girls" who enjoy being patronized.
* SpaceWhaleAesop: Free love will give you Martian superpowers, apparently.
* SpockSpeak: Mike catches up on Earth history by reading the ''Encyclopedia Britannica'', among other things, and talks like he's reading from a legal contract at some points. This is early on, when his grasp of English and Earth concepts is incomplete; when he doesn't know something, he sticks to the books he's read, and he has an eidetic memory.
* StageMagician: Michael uses his powers to this end at one point in the novel with Jill as his "lovely assistant".
* StarfishAliens: The exact physical form of Martians is never described, but it's clear they are completely unlike humans in appearance, behaviour and culture.
* TouchedByVorlons: Mike's entire worldview is shaped by his Martian upbringing.
* TrueCompanions: This is the bond between water brothers. They don't lie to each other, they share all things equally, and they are loyal to one another no matter what.
* TheUnpronounceable: Martian in general, by humans. However, it's still learnable with effort.
* UnusualEuphemism: While "grok" has several meanings, one of them is definitely "fuck".
** Which works much the same way as [[DoubleEntendre the biblical "know"]], used as an expletive only by people who take [[YiddishAsASecondLanguage Martian As A Second Language]] and either don't grok "grok" or use it as an example of MemeticMutation.
** Mike uses several: "discorporate" for "die", "nestling" for "children", etc.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Preconceived '60s counterculture (and waterbeds).
* WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove - Michael takes a long time to catch on to human emotions. He has the most difficulty with love and humor.
* {{Zeerust}}: Tape recorders and typewriters are not in common use anymore, and Heinlein's use of miniaturized nuclear reactors instead of rechargeable batteries comes across as...quaint.
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