In 1961, author Robert A. Heinlein, wrote a “Stranger in a Strange Land”. A “Stranger in a Strange Land” is a true American classic that many contend transformed the lowly science fiction novel into a true literary art form and a platform for social and political commentary.

It is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human born and then tragically orphaned on Mars.

Valentine Michael Smith is raised on Mars by Martians; in a cultural that is completely foreign and practically unfathomable to humans. And, he is raised by beings whose physicality is indescribable. Let us just say that water, meditation, and “groking” are very important to Valentine Michael Smith, and they become extremely important to us all when he is returned to Earth.

The book provides interesting and often profound observations of man through the eyes of one who has been alienated from those of his own kind. Smith gives us an outsider’s look at American and human culture, its underlying philosophies and social structures, and many of the everyday relationships we take for granted (do you grok?).

Some critics have called “Stranger in a Strange Land” the bible of the 1960s; a treatise of free love and the hippie movement. Many claimed the book to be radical and “socially dangerous” at the time of its publication. Now, more than forty years after it has been in print, the criticisms surrounding it dangerous content have lost most of there sting. The book is high camp with spin offs that attribute the initial concept of the water bed, the branding of computer programming languages and technical jargon.

Though somewhat controversial, Robert A. Heinlein’s a “Stranger in a Strange Land” is a true masterpiece. It is a novel that should be on every college student’s must read list.