It’s a long book, but entertaining, particularly in the conversations Mike and some of the other characters have with Jubal, in particular: most of the narrative is dialogue. Mike never learns what it is to be completely human, but gathers around him a group of people – men and women – to whom he teaches the secrets of bodily health, telekinesis, and other such arcane knowledge, which are common knowledge on Mars. Under Jubal’s and Jill’s teaching, Mike gradually learns about being human, later leaving the house and studying Earth’s ways in a travelling carnival, in the Army, in a casino in Las Vegas, and so on.

Jill manages to get Mike to a safe haven of the house of Jubal Harshaw, a doctor, lawyer and writer, who has enough fame and legal clout to protect Mike from baleful outside influences by striking a deal with the Secretary-General of the World Federation. The book tells us about Mike (as he becomes known) as he is rescued from hospital by a nurse, Jill Boardman, after her friend Ben Caxton, a news reporter, alerts her to the fact that ‘The Man from Mars’ is being held a virtual prisoner for various reasons to do with his vast wealth (unknowingly inherited from his natural and legal parents) and a legal fiction which states that he “owns” Mars, with all its attendant potential real estate. Some years later, he was brought back to Earth by a second mission, and of course found it a completely alien culture, seeing everything with Martian eyes.

Although his parents – and the rest of the mission – were killed, Smith was brought up on Mars, and, essentially, was a Martian in all his thoughts and feelings. Valentine Michael Smith is a human being, born to two of the first people to visit Mars.

Robert heinlein mars