The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

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.