Stranger in a Strange Land

The complete authorial version of the legendary novel. A cult book that became a staple for the generation of 'flower children' and the entire emerging counterculture. The 'Bible of the sexual revolution' was so ahead of its time that to avoid a flood of protests from fanatics and puritans, the author was forced to shorten the manuscript under the working title 'Heretic' by almost a quarter, removing the most 'explicit' and 'ideologically questionable' episodes — and only then did 'Stranger in a Strange Land' see the light. This is one of the few genre works included by the Library of Congress in the list of 'books that shaped America.' And if 'The Lord of the Rings' liberated the imagination of millions, then 'Stranger in a Strange Land' taught them to 'grokk' in its entirety. So, meet Valentine Michael Smith — the 'Martian Mowgli.' Raised by non-human 'old ones,' he returns to Earth, where, adapting to alien customs and gravity and gaining new 'brothers of the water,' he accelerates through all stages of growing up: from a sordid origin — to an absurd legacy, from eccentric upbringing — to a scandalous career and a happy fate. 'Mind-blowingly brilliant and brilliantly mind-blowing novel, a bible of new humanism. Like Oliver Twist or Holden Caulfield, Valentine Michael Smith has become one of his own for millions of readers around the world' (Kurt Vonnegut).