Stranger in a Strange Land Characters

Meet the Cast

Michael Valentine Smith

Mike is physically just like every human: two arms, two legs, a heart—you know, the works. The only difference between him and any other human is that he was born on Mars and raised by Martians....

Jubal Harshaw

Jubal Harshaw is introduced as "Jubal E. Harshaw, LL.B, M.D., Sc.D., bon vivant, gourmet, sybarite, popular author extraordinary, and neo-pessimist philosopher" (10.1). And, yeah, that's Jubal. See...

Gillian (Jill) Broadman

Jill's ever-evolving relationship with Michael Smith seems to provide the bulk of her character arc. Not that she's not her own person, but… she's not really her own person. We can basically sepa...

Ben Caxton

Ah, the exposition guru. Seriously, whenever you need someone with the information to move the story along. Ben's your man. Without him, we'd have no idea what on Earth (ahem, on Mars) happened tha...

Patricia Paiwonski

Talk about street cred: this lady is tattooed from head to toe. She's a devout Fosterite who originally works for the carnival (what a combo). But at some unknown point in time, she quits to be wit...

Secretary-General Joseph Douglas

The Secretary-General of the World Federation. Sounds menacing, right? Well, hey, if the shoe fits… As it turns out, Douglas's goal is to further his own political agenda and do whatever is neces...

Archangels Foster and Digby

Shmoopism. Has a nice ring to it! But we won't go there. Foster, on the other hand, is the founder of the Fosterite religion. On Earth, Foster founded his church on bully tactics and aggressive spr...

Anne, Miriam, and Dorcus

Anne, Miriam, and Dorcus are Jubal's blonde, red-headed, and brunette secretaries, respectively. After Jill, they are the first three women Mike meets, and each provides Mike with a different perso...

Duke and Larry

Duke and Larry are Jubal's handymen. They also happen to be handy characters—good for rounding out opinions on Mike.Duke originally has a problem with Mike and his Martian customs, particularly t...

Minor Characters

Alice DouglasAlice (sometimes called Agnes) is Joe Douglas's wife and, in truth, the one in charge of his cabinet and assistants. She practically runs Joe's office for him, and when stumped, she ca...