The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

When a book appears to encourage pedophilia, and suggests that statutory rape shouldn't be a law, it's hard for me to shrug that off and focus on the good. But ignoring painfully ignorant claptrap appears to be the only way to enjoy this book.It's considered a classic, and Heinlein is considered part of the “sci-fi canon” but if there was ever a solid argument for why sci-fi fans do NOT need to read “the canon”, this shallow sexist pseudo-libertarian diatribe is a prime example.Now, one concession: This is clearly a foundational work by an influential author. Unlike many authors of his time, he tries to focus on the Everyman rather than some brilliant scientist or intrepid explorer (though the most important characters are two stereotypical “competent man” figures), and many of the military aspects of the book have been referenced and repurposed over the ages. In fact, there was quite a bit of overlap between the revolutionaries of this story and the revolutionaries of the Expanse series ([b:James S.A. Corey Expanse Series 8 Books Collection Set 53152963 James S.A. Corey Expanse Series 8 Books Collection Set (Leviathan Wakes, Caliban's War, Abaddon's Gate, Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, Babylon's Ashes, Persepolis Rising, Tiamats Wrath) James S.A. Corey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1586740617l/53152963.SX50.jpg 79948004]).That said, if military sci-fi or stories of revolutions in space sounds interesting, you don't need to read through the pages upon pages of poorly written nonsense arguments about taxation or atrocious sexism within this book. You can just read [a:James S.A. Corey 4192148 James S.A. Corey https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1573162332p2/4192148.jpg] or [a:John Scalzi 4763 John Scalzi https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1562613145p2/4763.jpg]. Scalzi cites Heinlein as one of his biggest inspirations, but unlike Heinlein, Scalzi's stories are simple to follow, more entertaining, better written, and not at all problematic.This book has tons of positive reviews though, so rather than just deride this book as crap, let me highlight why I consider this an irredeemably bad book: 1. It's poorly written and poorly constructed: Beyond the invented “creole” this book is written in - which sounds more like what a perverted toddler would talk like than any real form of slang or creole - it's structured very poorly. The dialogues run forever, in what tries to be an ode to Platonic argument, but just reads as rambling. The conversations are unrealistic, make senseless leaps of logic, go on weird and pointless tangents, and lead to unchallenged conclusions that no rational person would stand for. There's also the plot structure: the author invents a sense of tension by having an all-intelligent computer occasionally state what the odds of a successful revolution are, which basically works to tell the reader explicitly how the story is progressing, rather than actually writing about conflicts and resolutions. Without these updates, most of the book is basically a list of things the revolutionaries are doing, with no sense of opposition or tension. The updates therefore serve the purpose of telling the reader “The revolution hasn't happened yet, and for reasons I can't or won't explain, more needs to be done or else they'll fail.” That is weak, lazy writing. Even without the dumb politics or problematic stuff, this is just a bad story, poorly told. 2. The politics: If one is patient enough to sift through the garbage dialogue, you will discover Heinlein's theory of the “Rational Anarchist”, epitomized through Prof, an exiled professor. In taking about ten painstaking pages to describe it, one might be fooled into thinking it's a complex social theory, but it's not, it's just poorly written. The idea is simple: Do only what you personally think is right for you, and spend no time considering the success or wellbeing of others. If something happens due to your choices, you are solely responsible for that and its consequences. In practice, Prof is very clear this means: do not pay taxes, or for anything you don't want or need, steal from the public if you think you can get away with it, and help no one unless doing so helps or pleases you. Only a privileged white man could come up with something so naive and selfish, because only a privileged white man could get away with living this way. But wait, what about hospitals and schools? Heinlein: they're just scams. What about insurance or social security? Heinlein: Families intertwined by incest and polyamory solve that problem (Why? How? Not explained.) If everyone steals shared resources, won't that be an issue? Heinlein: just extort, blackmail or blow up a neighbouring culture. How is rational anarchy different from libertarianism? Me: it's somehow even more self-serving, more shallow and less sustainable. 3. The problematic stuff: I don't mind political incorrectness but describing a 14-year-old girl as a “sweet little tart” who's “probably a prostitute” and who “should be married, if she isn't already” is just perverted. It's not challenging cultural norms or whatever he thinks it is, he's just encouraging a culture of systemic statutory rape. This is actually one of the only parts of a book where someone disagrees with a main character: an outsider asks if paying a child for sex should be considered statutory rape, and the main character, Mannie, laughs and says, “There's no such thing as rape here.” Everyone then agrees that child trafficking is a great step forward for women's rights, as long as the child has the right to say no. Mannie goes on to explain the economic value of women on the moon, because women are basically a form of currency, and people wouldn't just take what they want because that would be stealing... Except stealing is actively encouraged (see point 2), but that glaring error in logic is not addressed. It's also worth noting that rape is the subject of multiple jokes in this book. Ironically, in this culture where women are forced into marriages with multiple men from childhood, and expected to have sex with their husbands' fathers as a marriage ritual, we are told that women are much happier on the moon than on Earth. There are multiple women characters in the book who are positioned as smart or respected, but only one character appears to have any capacity for political thought, and her ideas are laughed at as pitifully idealistic, too emotional or just a little stupid. Being a good woman though, she gracefully accepts her inferiority, becomes a puppet for the smarter men around her, and spends the second half of the book being a worried but supportive and sexually eager wife to Mannie, who's family assigned her to him. Somehow, the author honestly seems to believe that in his made-up society, women's liberation has reached its peak potential. I suspect he had never actually listened to a woman in his life. The book also positions itself as post-racist in much the same way: Sure, there's still racial slurs and only white people seem capable of having valuable thoughts, but the minorities are all happy on the moon because they know racism doesn't exist. Logic that only makes sense to ignorant white men.As a major lover of science fiction, and its history, I don't regret reading this. I think it's important to understand the flawed history this genre was born from. But there's far better writers and far better books, so now I can definitively say: Heinlein is not worth reading.Want to read classic sci-fi? [a:Ray Bradbury 1630 Ray Bradbury https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1445955959p2/1630.jpg] has aged well, [a:Arthur C Clarke 46055572 Arthur C Clarke https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] isn't the best character-writer, but it's great concept work, and I still really like [a:Isaac Asimov 16667 Isaac Asimov https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1341965730p2/16667.jpg]'s stories, even though he had a history of sexism. Unlike Heinlein, he kept that out of his books.

I should preface this review by saying that A) it is my first exposure to Heinlein and B) I am only slightly more knowledgeable about international politics than a reclusive hobbit. That said, this book was on my list and I am rather compulsive about lists, so here goes.

The book is pretty dated from the start. I found it pretty adorable when Mannie initially asks Mike to print-out all of those documents. Hi, 1966. How ya doing? That dated sense bleeds into a lot of the social aspects of the book too, particularly the role of women, but that's a risk any science fiction author takes when setting a book in the not too distant future. It jarred me out of the story a bit, but not to a level that depreciated my enjoyment.

A podcast I follow said you could really approach this book from one of two ways: as a political book and as a science fiction book. The political aspects are massive and, to me at least, pretty unbelievable. The character of Professor Bernardo de la Paz is essentially infallible and for some reason always has exactly the right answer to the situation, never losing control of his plan. The other characters (Mike excepted) serve only to ask the leading questions that allow Prof to cement his points. I was reminded somewhat of the Foundation Trilogy by some parts. Prof seemed like a high-speed Hari Seldon. Seldon, however, is a more believable prophet, because his plans are interrupted by complications. Prof's plans always go smoothly if not without sacrifice.

Politics isn't a territory I'm competent discussing though and was the least interesting part of the book for me. I definitely approached the novel from a science fiction perspective, and there I found a number of things to enjoy. First and foremost among these was Mike. Looking at Heinlein's 1966 conception of a supercomputer and comparing it with artificial intelligence levels today is really fascinating. Again, ignoring technology advances Heinlein couldn't have foreseen, Mike is a genuine character from the start and evolves as much (and frequently more) than other characters. We watch him experiment with humor, emotion, and at the end he even adopts a Loonie speech pattern or two. It's sort of an AI coming of age story. He's quite an enormous cheat (and takes a lot of the fun out of conspiracy when one of your conspirators is basically a god), but he's a fun cheat to watch.

I love the way Mike gives equal importance to understanding humor and plotting revolution. I love that Mike develops different personae and preferences for each one. I like the relationship between Mike and Mannie, and the way that Mannie accepts Mike as intelligent and even emotional based on their interactions.

The only other aspect of the book that really intrigued me was Heinlein's description of life on Luna. It does seem possible that the moon would become the next colonial Australia and have a similar development track (minus indigenous populations). I still can't say I fully understand how a line marriage works, but hey, if it becomes a socially embedded construct, it might fly. All of the rules on Luna are socially embedded constructs really. You play nice or you die. There's no leeway.

The other aspects of the book didn't do much for me. The characters were pretty flat, and I have strong issues with how Heinlein treats the “fems.” I didn't care about anyone besides Mike. I was bogged down in the political dialogues more than once and found myself pushing to get to some actual action. There's food for thought in the politics, but I'm not really up to dissecting it. Also, I don't think you can separate the politics from the surreal setting to apply it on modern earth.

Overall, it's a book I'm glad I read, but I doubt I'd read it again. It's probably a lot more interesting to the politically-minded, so if that's you, give it a shot.

This is Heinlein at his best and worst. Alongside brilliant concepts executed with an unerring acknowledgment of the physical realities involved, you get tedious political expositions and casual sexism. In other words, you get Robert Heinlein.

But I found the book well worth it. My only real criticisms were the occasional indulgences in more obvious symbolism. Some of the prof's speeches were unbearable, especially the one where he combined snatches of Churchill, Jefferson and others in what was a clumsy bit of rhetoric, to me. The snide self-righteousness was outweighed a bit by the cleverness of some plans Prof made, but as often as not it came off like attacking a straw man. Would the FN reps have been that one dimensional? Would the Authority have been that obvious in their actions and reactions?

Perhaps.

So why did I enjoy the book so much? The characters of Manny and Mike. Both well-developed. Both more realistic and more self-aware than pretty much anyone else. Both believable in their accomplishments and their foibles.

I also appreciate some of the good future predicting Heinlein does. Some of it is obviously wrong, such as the continuance of SovUnion. Or the fact that Mike has to take up so much processing power to create video. But most of the wrong bits are forgivable. A slow degradation of imagined sovereignty into a loos federation of world government seems as plasuible as not. And the idea of a harsh mining/agricolony on the Moon populated by criminals and their descendants seems perfectly likely.

As for the sexism Heinleign , as usual, makes great overtures toward treating women as more than equals, while still crediting them with allthe stereotypical weaknesses of the Victorian age. It only showed me that Heinleign really wanted to treat women as equals but had little understanding of them.

Still, if you can bracket off some lame political rhetoric and the sad state of gender affairs, you get some real gems within. It's a world richly painted that you can live in and a fight worth witnessing. The revolution is painted as a real hypocritical and far from noble enterprise carried out against the exigencies and realities of the time, with all believing the ends justify the means. That's true of any revolution and Heinlein seems to lay that bare.

It's curious. I first read this story as a teenager. Upon re-reading it, I realized that I'd forgotten much of the story, but the political ideas he explores had made a huge impression.

Heinlein gets a bad wrap for exploring socio-political ideas in his stories. (cough-cough 'Starship Troopers') . Personally, as long as it isn't actual propaganda, I think sci-fi is a fantastic medium to explore such ideas. Look at how many amazing and important sci-fi stories do this. Think 1984, Fahrenheit 451 or Brave New World. In some ways, this is what sci-fi is about.

In this story, Heinlein explores another type of political ideal. Another one that today. as a mature liberal minded adult, I find impractical and unrealistic; because humans are so very human. But I did get a sense of coming full circle, which was very interesting.

Apparently, he wrote this story either during or shortly after visiting Australia. The influence on the story is noticeable with his take on some Aussie lingo and post-colonial/post-convict attitudes shining through.

I was also blown away by his depiction of AI. While some of the technological ideas of the 1960's have been and gone - his AI character is still very relevant and spot on in terms of being a bit of a "black box" and similar to a modern "LLM".

Heinlein's depiction of life on the moon also aged well (not the cultural bits) - It turns out, the moon is an even harder mistress than he envisioned, as evidenced by the current challenges just getting remote drones to land safely and operate in its harsh conditions. Any attempt to establish a permanent base or colony will still have to overcome these same challenges - and he thought of all this before humans even got there!

I say, this novella is well worth the read, despite the very dated 1960's attitudes and cultural extrapolations.

This is a political story wrapped up in the shell of a space colony. But isn't that the basis of all good sci-fi stories? To reflect our world through the lens of a past or future that does not exist but could.

This was a more engaging story than I thought it would be. I went into it as a student to the genre but became engaged in the story. Towards the end, I found that it lagged a bit but overall it was a good story and a great example of the sci-fi genre.

I stumbled a bit with the colloquial language used but understood the purpose. If you find the stilted language as difficult in the beginning as I did, I recommend sticking it out as its worth it.

It was my first experience with [a:Heinlein Robert a. 4836500 Heinlein Robert a. http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] and I should say I am pleased, Looking forward to read more, perhaps [b:Stranger in a Strange Land 350 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1156897088s/350.jpg 908211] would be next.The story begins with a slow pace, describing characters and general atmosphere of society, and then keeps a steady acceleration in pacing and events towards the end.Reading first few chapters, being new to author style and characters I was OK, getting through rest of Book One I was like whatever, And then in Book Three I couldn't stop reading it. The final chapters were well written and gave a good farewell with characters.It was a pleasant reading. I am gonna miss Mike!

This is one of Heinlein's best books; it won the 1967 Hugo Award and was nominated for the 1966 Nebula. It's imaginative, original, and has some interesting things to say, especially on the subject of government and getting along without it. The story is mostly gripping, it stays on track and keeps to the point, unlike some of Heinlein's other books.

It starts in 2075, by which time the Moon has been used as a dumping ground for criminals (like Australia) for a long time: several generations. This isn't plausible, it would be too expensive, but in 1966 I suppose Heinlein wasn't to know; and we just have to overlook the problem.

In some ways, it deserves four stars from me, but my enjoyment of it is limited by the sketchy characterization, the lack of memorable scenes, and the oddly downbeat ending. In theory, the ending is mostly happy, but it feels rather sad.

I bought this book in 1975, though I'd already read it earlier. In those days, I liked Heinlein more than I do now, and would probably have rated it higher.