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.

[3] 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.

[4] Prior to World War III, the crewed spacecraft Envoy is launched toward Mars, but all contact is lost shortly before landing.

Twenty-five years later, the spacecraft Champion makes contact with the inhabitants of Mars and finds a single survivor, Valentine Michael Smith.

Smith is arrested by the police, but escapes and returns to his followers, later explaining to Jubal that his gigantic fortune has been bequeathed to the church.

After describing the importance of establishing a dramatic difference between humans and aliens, Heinlein concluded, "Besides, whoever heard of a Martian named Smith?

[1] In the preface to the uncut, original version of the book reissued in 1991, Heinlein's widow, Virginia, wrote: "The given names of the chief characters have great importance to the plot.

[8] Heinlein was surprised that some readers thought the book described how he believed society should be organized, explaining: "I was not giving answers.

[citation needed] Heinlein himself remarked in a letter he wrote to Oberon Zell-Ravenheart in 1972 that he thought his shorter, edited version was better.

The book was dedicated in part to science fiction author Philip José Farmer, who had explored sexual themes in works such as The Lovers (1952).

[10] The free love and commune living aspects of the Church of All Worlds led to the book's exclusion from school reading lists.

[citation needed] Writing in The New York Times, Orville Prescott received the novel caustically, describing it as a "disastrous mishmash of science fiction, laborious humor, dreary social satire, and cheap eroticism"; he characterized Stranger in a Strange Land as "puerile and ludicrous", saying "when a non-stop orgy is combined with a lot of preposterous chatter, it becomes unendurable, an affront to the patience and intelligence of readers".

[11] Galaxy reviewer Floyd C. Gale rated the novel 3.5 stars out of five, saying "the book's shortcomings lie not so much in its emancipation as in the fact that Heinlein has bitten off too large a chewing portion".

Literary critic Dan Schneider wrote that Harshaw's belief in his own free will, was one "which Mike, Jill, and the Fosterites misinterpret as a pandeistic urge, 'Thou art God!

'"[16] Writer Sophie Kleeman has taken issue with the roles of female characters within the novel and statements made about women, such as Jill's assertion that "Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it’s partly her fault".

[citation needed] This Church still exists as a 501(c)(3) recognized religious organization incorporated in California, with membership worldwide, and it remains an active part of the neopagan community.

The word rapidly became common parlance among science fiction fans, hippies, and later computer programmers[21] and hackers,[22] and has since entered the Oxford English Dictionary.

[23] The profession of Fair Witness, invented for the novel, has been cited in such varied contexts as environmentalism,[24] psychology,[25] technology,[26] digital signatures,[27] and science,[28] as well as in books on leadership[29] and Sufism.

An inventor who attempted to patent the waterboard was initially refused on the grounds that Heinlein's description in Stranger in a Strange Land constituted prior art.