The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

I often scour the forums in search of my next science fiction book to read. On more than one occasion, I have been presented with "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" as one of the greatest science fiction novels in history. The only reservations I have when dealing with novels considered "classics" are their readability. I have frequently read novels considered classics and they are disappointing and outdated. I can say in all honesty, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is undoubtedly a classic that holds up well. It is a tale of revolution, of the rebellion of a former penal colony on the Moon against its masters on the Earth. It is a tale of a culture whose family structures are based on the presence of two men for every woman, leading to novel forms of marriage and family. It is the story of the disparate people--a computer technician, a vigorous young female agitator, and an elderly academic--who become the movement's leaders, and of Mike, the supercomputer whose sentience is known only to the revolt's inner circle, who for reasons of his own is committed to the revolution's ultimate success. One thing I noticed right away was the way the Loonies use language differently than people from earth do. In fact, it threw me at first -- I couldn't figure out what was going on or why the language was so rough and unpolished and choppy. Eventually, though, I found the rhythm of it and settled in just fine -- I didn't even notice it after a while. It makes sense; Luna started off as a penal colony and has since developed completely seperate from Earth and relatively unmolested. Of course they would have their own dialect and speech patterns! To my mind, their language seems to be as efficent as possible. They trimmed away any unnecessary deadwood -- they don't use articles, for example, and very few personal pronouns, and they seem to prefer to use fragments to complete sentences. Only the essentials remain, much the same as the original colonists/prisoners had to start their lives over with only the bare essentials and sometimes not even that. This book was written about forty years ago, and it has stood the test of time quite well, but there are some aspects of it that do seem rather dated. For example, the idea behind the character of Mike -- the computer that is connected to everything and has "woken up" or become alive -- is one that is very familiar to modern readers, one that we accept easily. Apparently, we accept it much more easily than Heinlen expected his readers in 1965 to accept it, because he spends more time explaining it than he really needs to. When Mannie, the narrator, tells Wyoh about Mike and introduces them via a telephone conversation, she is shocked that Mike already knows what she looks like. He looked up her medical records and found a picture of her immediately after being introduced to her. To modern readers familiar with the internet, this is an obvious step and hardly shocking; we expect it, and Wyoh's shock and apparent need to have every detail and implication of Mike's "life" spelled out for her makes her seem a little bit stupid to us. If we don't remember that Heinlen is using Wyoh to explain things to his 1965 audience that his 2005 audience intuitively understands, then we'll get a little frustrated with Wyoh's denseness. All in all, this is a novel about politics -- a very complex, deep, intellectual and sophisticated look at politics, government, revolution and war. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has a very definite world-view and political philosophy, some of which I agreed with, and some of which I really, really didn't. My agreement (or lack thereof) with the politics espoused in this book didn't seem to have much bearing on my enjoyment of it. This is a book that requires the reader to think. And that, I think, is why I loved it so much. 5 Stars

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a fantastic book, one that I read with regularity because there's always something new to check out, to understand or to appreciate. Heinlein has written several novels around the SF theme of a future society where a few brave patriots fight massive oppression - always something akin to the American Revolution in 1776-83. This book is the best of the lot. It's also Heinlein's fourth and final Hugo Award for the best SF novel of the year. Told in first person by a computer technician in (not on) the Moon, "Manny" discovers that the master computer in the Moon is also now sentient, having so many lesser computers attached that it had enough circuits to parallel the human brain. Mycroft "Mike" Holmes (the Computer) is a big fun-loving kid, whose biggest issue is boredom, and his heart's passion, telling jokes that are funny, and differentiating between "funny once" and "funny always." Manny becomes his first and best friend. Then, a small riot breaks out in Luna City, one of the largest human habitats in the Moon, and a member of Manny's extended family gets involved, and suddenly, Manny and two compatriots - Bernardo de la Paz and Wyoming Knott (who hates the nickname "Wy Knott" - "funny once" joke, as Mike comes to understand it - become involved in a revolution against the oppressive "Lunar Authority" which sees all of the Moon's denizens as indentured servants 9i.e., slaves). But there's a problem. Because most of the water ice found and mined on the Moon is used to grow wheat for the chronically food-short humans on Earth - mostly in India, though this is all but irrelevant. The Lunar Authority doesn't believe this, and keeps demanding higher quotas of grain. In six years, the water resources in the Moon will be gone, and within eight years, the surviving humans will resort to cannibalism. Enough of this story. This is a great, character-driven story that, as is so often the case, loaded with sociology - in this case, with men outnumbering women by around three-to-one, how does society evolve? In Manny's case, he's in a "line marriage" that dates back generations and includes an eclectic assortment of hard-rock miners, beauticians, farmers and a minister for an outlandish offshoot of Christianity. If you love hard SF with a soul, and haven't read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, what are you waiting for?

I read this book after seeing it advertised in the television series "Black Mirror" Did not disappoint. I loved the character of Mike best

I was very excited to find this classic work from Robert A. Heinlein in a clean hardback edition. A discerning searcher can find very old used versions in this format, but finding it here on amazon as a new book is a pleasant surprise. The book appears well bound (I suspect it will last), and the print is clear and easy to read. If you want to get into Heinlein, this book (one of his most famous) is a great place to start. Learn about TANSTAAFL! If you are seeking a quality edition of this work, this hardback edition will do nicely for you. This book is about the lunar colony on the moon revolting against their rulers on planet Earth. Even though it was written in 1966, as usual, Heinlein masterfully weaves his engaging storytelling into a well crafted science fiction world that prophetically envisions the future in a believable way. One doesn’t need to read very much Heinlein to see just how many common science fiction themes sourced from his books have found their way into modern movies and TV. Thought it was original? Heinlein probably thought of it first. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is full of such instances.

His book is narrated in a little broken English though when Prof and Mike speak, the English is grammatically correct. You will need to get used to reading the broken English of the main character Manuel. As it says on the cover, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is about libertarian revolution and Heinlein makes great use of a futuristic world streaming with a political and future capitalist environment of Terra or Earth. The inhabitants of Luna City strive to break free of Terra and the Lunar Authority's authoritarian control. Essentially, the Federated Nations exerts slave labor on the moon with little freedom of its people. I thought this book to have a sense of realism in a kind of slave labor free market society that the future may hold in today's world. In my opinion, this is the best science fiction book that I have read and it contributed a realistic outlook of our present and future economic system's strangle hold on poor third world countries to produce our goods for cheap labor. Eventually, lower socioeconomic societies will revolt in the cause of being free, especially those who would earn less than a couple dollars a day making products first world countries will purchase. In a sense the underlying story in the book is a revelation of our current economic system and how it takes advantage of people who are less fortunate. People are tired of taking s*** from others who are higher in the socioeconomic chain of our current free market system. This is one underlying theme of the story in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress that I read and it is also about a society wanting to be free from authoritarian rule which I have already stated. My only hope is that science and technology will someday put an end to capitalism and realize that every human in this world will want to work to the benefit of the human species and the world. As some of you are well aware, humans are still a self destructive animal. Case in point, Robert Oppenheimer first developed nuclear fission to generate electricity and then, government came along and wanted him to make a bomb out of it. I wonder if we, the human race, will make the same decisions when we develop fusion technology. Will we want it for a clean sustainable energy source or a bomb? Hopefully the human species will be more intelligent. Sorry for rambling off subject. This book really makes me think about the future. Spoiler Alert!!! I'm sad to see that Mike is not self aware but is just a basic functioning computer. :( "Man, my only friend."

First I need to explain that I LOVE Robert A. Heinlein. I Love every book he wrote, I Love his characters, his plots, his sense of optimism for humanity, all of it. For years, now, I've said that "Intellectually speaking, Robert A. Heinlein is my Father and Ayn Rand is my Mother. Mom's a bit intense, but Dad's a lot of fun." But Dad made a mistake. One that's costing us the future. That mistake is 'The Moon Is A Harsh Mistess.' Again, I love the book. Along with 'Atlas Shrugs' and 'Stranger In A Strange Land' it's had a profound affect on my political inclinations and even affected aspects of my daily life. But I think it was a mistake. Why? Because THEY read it too. By THEY I mean the small-minded, petty, unimaginative, wanna-be tyrants that infest the political system. It wasn't really THEIR kind of book. But somehow, sometime in the late sixties one of THEM read it. And at that moment the possibility of a bright, expanding human frontier in space died. Why? Because Heinlein described the 'Loonie Revolt' so convincingly, so compellingly, that THEY could see it happen. THEY saw that there was a way that those 'annoying little people,' the ones who couldn't or would't admit that they needed to be 'managed' might break free after they'd finally been bound in swaths of red tape and regulations that had taken most of a century to enact. Not only break free, but strike back. I saw a sign once, back in the heady days of the 'L5 Society,' before it became the 'Space Studies Institute' and turned into an impotent 'cheering section' for NASA, that said: "Once we get to the Belt, the IRS will never find us!" I heard some one tell him to "Put that away, or they'll never let us go!" He was right. So imagine the terror in the minds and tiny little hearts of the worms feasting on the political apple when they read of the destruction of Cheyanne Mountain, of Washington, New York, and all the other centers of power they infest. They can't let that happen. They can't even allow it to be a possibility. And so the Space Program had to die. It was them or us, and you know who's side THEY're on!

I first read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress ages ago. TANSTAAFL showed up in other things I read and I thought I should read it again. Heinlein never disappoints and his ideas on human government are still timely.

A nice book, but not nearly as good as stranger in a strange land and, to a lesser extent, starship troopers

Robert Heinlein is one of the classic "must read" authors, one who has shaped science-fiction as we know it today. "The moon is a harsh mistress" deviates a bit from the rest of his work, but it is by its own merits a classic masterwork in SciFI. I read this book for the first time in the '70s, so it had been around for some time (if I recall well, in was published in 1966). I still read it from tie to time, and have actually three copies at home, in three different languages. The story talks about the rebellion in the colony established on the moon, which is mainly used to harvest grain for the hungry masses on Earth. The populationdoes not consist of people that have voluntarily migrated to this place - instead, it is inhabited by convicts, ex-convicts and their descendants. The situation is similar to what the UK did in Australia, dumping there their "unwanted" citizens, though many of the people seem to have a strong Russian and Chinese background. The brutality of the regime, even against non-convicts, will lead to a revolution even though most Loonies could not care less about politics. The main characters are memorable: An ice miner with a prosthetic arm turned computer repair man, a professor exiled from Earth for his political views, a for-hire mother that is politically active and a computer that likes jokes. Heinlein shows a colony that is weird to the extreme, but yet perfectly logical in the context where it exists: An extreme environment, convicts sent massively to the Moon, which is overcrowded, too few woman for so many men... a society must adapt to such situations, and the loonies have created a society that is stable and has a proper balance where people can live. The author raises also troubling questions: Is the "traditional" matrimony sacrosanct or are there other options, specially in such a disbalanced society? What is liberty, what is freedum? Is it ethically correct to do things that are morally wrong for a greater good? What are the limits? What is actually conscience and self-awareness? Keeping in mind that this book was written in the sixties, it was far more iconclastic in its days than it looks today. This is hard science fiction book, and the author takes this serious. The physics of the war are unquestionable, and the scienfic knowledge of the author shows even in such small things as the movement of the soldiers that eventually invade Luna. "The moon is a harsh mistress" is a classic that any SciFi lover should read at least once. And believe me, it's very likely that he will read it again... more than once.

Very good book. Maybe one day when we are living on the Moon it will be something like this.

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In depth articulation of a colony going independent. Inspiring and at the same time breath taking especially in the details of a Wild West society governed by an Artifical Intelligence engine.

These old writers are masters of the word. Such an interesting story full of random culture and pieces of timeless advice.