I feel like I just took a psychedelic trip culturally through the 60s in a dream of the life in the future. I found the book to be very reflective of the culture and philosophies of the 60s projected to the 2000s. In some ways Heinlein was ahead of his time. I found myself impressed with his treatment and characterization of the sentient AI. There was a lot of unexpected philosophy in the storytelling where they are discussion the behaviors of crowds, and people and greed and motivations. I thought he made very good points and observations about such systems.

Here's the thing, and I don't necessarily consider it (in its own right) a criticism. I think Heinlein wanted to write a story about governing systems. As a science fiction writer, he needed to put the story in space. This came across as relatively superficial. The scifi elements did necessitate the need for a sentient AI who could perform almost godlike tasks in order to ensure a successful outcome. The scifi elements were also part of why it seems like some kind of drug infused dream of the 60s than an actual scifi novel. The novel was irrevocably anachronistic. Communication with the computer was via wired telephone, the end of the novel has Mike losing his sentience and in demonstrating that its sentience is gone, he no longer accepts voice input (as if voice recognition was an indication of sentience), catapults were considered a viable form of delivery and logistics, for some inexplicable reason lower gravity resulted in much longer life (I guess the heart theoretically doesn't work as hard because of gravity but 100s of years?), etc. But technology wasn't the only anachronistic element. OMG the treatment and characterizations of women and "others" (people not white males) as Valerie says "God bless him" (Heinlein). A seemingly confused soul I fear. A chauvinistic man who saw himself as an open-minded, broad thinker and perhaps even a visionary (don't think so).

Overall I enjoyed the book in spite of its flaws. Heinlein's libertarian views, counter-feminist and polyamorous idiosyncrasies not withstanding. To be honest it was a strange cross-section of sophomoric (especially with women and to some extent libertarian) views and some advanced, sophisticated thinking and an interesting examination of governing systems. Though the subject matter may be more common today, this book written in 1965, seems to be original, innovative and ahead of it's time.

3.5+ Stars

Edited to Add: I listened to this on Audible and followed along with a paperback. Narrated by Lloyd James, the performance was good. I think the interpretation of Manuel O'Kelly with a Russian accent was strange, but it worked.

Space camp prison fun time

So we have AI, use of food as a weapon of war, philosophy, how probability influences human decisions and satirizing statistics, rebellion, how to treat colonies right or wrong and what true independence means with many side blows on history, emancipation by imbalance of sex ratio that enables women to be more powerful and what kind of family models form out of this new situation, and, as always in Heinleins´works, many dialogues and monologues.

He always played with political ideas and while Starship Troopers was quite unreflective, except of the philosophical debates, this novel has much room for interpretations. Especially anarchism, a mainly forgotten option for society design, takes a large place in the argumentation in one of the characters´ argumentations, not leaving space for counter-arguments. But it shows the inherent flaws of any concept that prioritizes the ultimate freedom of everyone over the protection of the weak from the arbitrariness of the law of the jungle, something certain ideologies seem to permanently forget mentioning. Heinlein has a special, tense relationship to democracy and regulated markets in welfare states and avoids mentioning such topics or describes them as not good options throughout his works.

His writing, dialogues, characters,… are so badass that it would be close to stereotypical, humoristic writing today because it´s so filled with cliches about that time that it´s hard to imagine that they really talked and thought like that. It´s as if the people had made a time travel to a brighter future, but kept their strange mentality, not having had the time for cognitive development and cultural evolution, so that the contrast is even stronger and they seem somehow primitive, stone agy, ugh.

The main difference to Clarke and Asimov is that they do worldbuilding and metaplots, while Heinlein is more of a character-focused writer who adds some Sci-Fi elements and a rudimentary plot, but is mainly interested in detailed descriptions of how the humans deal with the topics he wants them to talk about. And, of course, the controversial political and sexist views he added in his work, the other two were able to avoid and to stay neutral.

But with this work, he wrote a, for his standards, less agenda- and bias influenced work that is closest to what someone would call a Hard-Sci-Fi novel and it really takes place in space, just as Starship troopers, something not always the case in his works.

It´s quite funny that any planet would risk putting delinquents and criminals in a position where they have any possible advantage. It´s like building a very easy to defend, badly or not guarded open prison city at the top of a huge plateau, when all your important cities are in the range of siege weapons that could bomb them in oblivion from above with that bit of gravity and the moon has a bit more potential for that.


Because there will always be controversy around Heinleins´ work and changing world views, I want to add some personal opinion at the end of each review of one of his works.

It seems a bit as if Heinlein had been a lifelong searcher for the right ideology, as he switched from one extreme to the other, leaving marks of it throughout all of his works. This is the biggest contrast to others, who kept their work clean from bias and agenda and it certainly built both his legend, fanbase, and critics by provoking and polarizing. Of course, it´s the freedom of art to integrate serious elements, as long as they are not dangerous, but the thin red line tends to be pretty blurry and while some see him as a visionary for alternative society models the others describe him as a conservative, hate-filled, insecure man.

I don´t really care what his motives might have been, his work is something special and different, it´s just a prime example of why professional artists should keep their work clean from personal agendas, because that just, justifiably, feeds the trolls and ruins ones´ reputation as for example seen with the great three titans of sci-fi. Asimov: robots, psychohistory, foundation. Clarke: epic, subtle, philosophical, each time reading finding new depths, extremely complex. Heinlein: Meh, his writing was average, but did you know what kind of mindset he had regarding... See? While people will endlessly debate about the ingenuity of and inspiration from Asimovs´and Clarkes´work, they will remember Heinlein as the kind of strange uncle with borderline attitudes.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

UPDATE 3/15/21. I have uploaded a BookTube video review, along with The Left Hand of Darkness.


Oh, Robert Heinlein...

Read for my resolution to read classic sci-fi

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is about a prison colony on the Moon. Most of its inhabitants are criminals that have been exiled by Earth and their descendants. An engineer named Manuel Mannie" Garcia O'Kelly-Davis is a native of Luna, or Loonie, who befriend the supercomputer Mycroft whom he affectionally refers to as Mike. Mike gradually displays human characteristics over the course of the novel and starts to manipulate events around Mannie and his allies. Mannie eventually falls in with a group of Loonies who want to break free of Earth's control and soon a revolution begins. A long, complicated revolution.

Sigh

This book had such an interesting and promising start. The concept is even ingenious. Mannie, although being of mixed-race heritage, narrates in English but with a Russian accent and speaking pattern; meaning there are no articles Nataliya, if you're reading this please confirm if this is true or not. Despite this, the prose is quite readable and enjoyable. However, it all fell apart quickly.

After the initial raid on the revolutionaries in the bar, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress quickly lost its steam. Mannie and his friends Wyoming and Professor Bernardo de la Paz spent about 4 chapters in the same hotel room discussing politics and their plans for revolution. The discussion was complicated and very info-dumpy, as is much of the book, and I found myself skimming through it just to get past, as I did for most of the rest of the book. The other hindrance to the book is that Heinlein spends so much timing telling about events and certain things rather than showing them. Mannie describes certain raids, discussions, and daily life in Luna very matter-of-factly and with very little character interaction.

Perhaps I'm just an idiot, but I understood very little of the political and economic discussions, except for the basic libertarian ideals that the book revolves around: I'm not paying for something I didn't pay for, the government doesn't take my money. There were other things too that I was genuinely surprised to see in a book from the 1960s from a very libertarian man. Heinlein even criticizes the police for their brutality and how their control is used to scare the populace. Although this criticism does not include the racialized police brutality currently very prevalent in America at this time. Other than that, the constant political discussions were just so complicated and boring.

And speaking of race...who wants to hear about the racist stuff in this book!? I criticized Dunefor occasionally invoking the noble savage archetype, but this book really takes the cake. The character Wyoming is a white, blonde woman who turns her hair black and gets her skin colored brown, resembling a half-white, half-black woman in order to disguise herself. Mannie's wife, or chief wife I should say (Loonie society is polygamous) Mimi says her original tone is more beautiful but that she isn't half bad looking with dark skin. For a time, Wyoming keeps her brown skin and Mannie says she's beautiful and every man on Luna whistles at her. Later on, Wyoming goes back to her fair skin, but one of Mannie's other wives, who is also blonde, wishes Wyoming would "go back to being a brownie" so she could be the only blonde.

Like, WOW!

Yes, I'm aware most of the cast is mixed-race. Putting mixed-race characters into your story does not mean you aren't racist or can make a white woman have dark skin. Also, I don't know if Wyoming having darker skin would be considered black face because there is no mention of exaggeration of features, she's said to resemble a biracial woman, but Mannie also says she has Tamil features. I seriously don't know!

And now the women! OH BOY!

-Wyoming. Anytime she suggests an idea, she's immediately shut down as being wrong. She's strong and helps build the new Loonie society and even founds several women's militia groups, but she's mostly there just to be commented on her beauty.
-Mimi, Mannie's chief wife, was actually okay. She took no shit from anybody.
-Ludmilla, one of Mannie's other wives, got married and pregnant at 15...enough said.
-Sidris, another wife, ran a salon that gathered information. Cool, but barely there.

Loonie society has no rape, except by the evil Authority's dragoons. This is because women are rare and precious and no man would think of raping a woman. And if a woman was raped, hundreds of men would come to her aid. Women are also the ones who must give consent for any romantic or sexual interactions to happen, it all relies on them. It's kind of progressive, but at the same time, it feels like women are treated as a commodity a little.

AND THEN HEINLEIN CONSTANTLY MENTIONS LITTLE GIRLS HAVING CURVES OR HAVING LITTLE GIRL BREASTS BECAUSE WE CLEARLY NEED TO KNOW THAT!

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Stuart, a Frenchman from Earth who joins the Luna revolution has a habit of catcalling and hugging and spanking women. When he does this on Luna he is nearly killed by men because of the aforementioned protection of women. Both he and Mannie explain that he couldn't understand because things are different on Earth. To show this, when Stuart, Mannie, and the Professor are on Earth to get support for the Luna revolution, Stuart spanks an Indian nurse and she wiggles her butt in approval. Women on Earth are okay with sexual harassment and catcalling, but not Loonie women. Things are just different that way.

Luna women respect themselves, but those Earth women are all hoes! (I am being sarcastic and am not slut-shaming, don't yell at me, but still come on, y'all.)

The only character I really liked was Mike the computer. At times it felt like Heinlein was contradicting his own philosophy, especially with the way the revolution went. Maybe that was intentional, I don't know.

I really wanted to read Heinlein for the longest time and this was just such a disappointment. I heard things about him before, but I didn't think that his writing before his long illness would be THIS BAD! I will still be reading Stranger in a Strange Land, his juveniles, and possibly others, because I want to give him more chances. But dear God, this book didn't age well at all. Perhaps I'm just a hypersensitive millennial, I don't know.

2/5 stars.

I read this first when I was young...we're talking young-young here, and my memories of it were of a sort of space opera. I'd remembered it along with many of Heinlein's "teen" or youth books. When I mentioned this it was pointed out to me (rather forcefully by some) that my memories were...incomplete.

Well, they were. While a young reader will see a "space rebellion" here the story itself is a well written tale of political science and human nature. Heinlein gives a very well done debate and/or picture of humans at their best and their worst.

I also suspect that we see some of his own frustration with certain parts of society.

The book is not only good and enthralling for itself but there are side issues that are just as interesting. For example the idea of future 21st century science and technology from the viewpoint of 1966 (phones still need cords for example but there is a self aware computer).

While Mr. Heinlein and I would certainly not have agreed on all points I think we would have agreed on the most basic points of government and it's "uses". I think this book deserves my highest recommendation. And it is (as noted before me of course) a science fiction classic.

This is quite possibly Heinlein's most politically charged book. People speak of Stranger in a Strange Land as being socially revolutionary, but this book is both that (polygamous marriage to form extended families, murder generally allowed, but insults to women punishable by death) and politically charged (Libertarian, Libertarian, Libertarian, though not exactly that kind of loopy American Libertarian Party kind, but a kind based more strictly on a dismantling of governmental power).
It is a constant flow of political ideas, many of which you'll want to discard as unworkable or even offensive, but there is real power in Heinein's willingness to go out on a limb and build a radical scoiety and try, within the bounds of his Luna, to make it work.

When the Professor says, "In writing your constitution let me invite attention to the wonderful virtue of the negative! Accentuate the negative! Let your document be studded with things the government is forever forbidden to do. No conscript armies... no interference however slight with freedom of press, or speech, or travel, or assembly, or of religion, or of instruction, or communication, or occupation... no involuntary taxation," there is real power there.

3.0 Stars
The premise of this one sounded fantastic but I struggled to connect with it. I will need to reread it in a different headspace.

This is a classic SF story of the moon fighting for its independence from Earth, with a lot of parallels to the American Revolution. Heinlein has a political conversation with himself here, definitely coming down on the side of Libertarianism, but also acknowledges & points out the holes in his arguments himself. I've read some rants about Heinlein pushing his politics & I disagree with them. I think he's doing more questioning than pushing & that leads to some fun with the characters, especially Prof.

Prof is the Heinlein wise elder character while Manny is the middle aged incarnation. Hazel (who shows up as the grandmother in The Rolling Stones) is the youthful, female version. Yes, Heinlein only has 1 main character, he just changes age & sex to suit the situation. I don't consider this a horrible flaw in his books, though. They're more situational, so a steady character actually helps them out.

Prof has a wonderful political philosophy. He's a Rational Anarchist. Actually, that seems to pretty much be his take on life & I dare say it's more honest than most. He'll accept any laws you think you need & obey those he can, when he can, otherwise ignore them, but will pay up if caught. (Come to think of it, that's pretty much how I go through life.) His remarks to the new Lunar Congress on how to pay for government & what laws to make are well worth thinking about & certainly does point out the perennial problem they all have. One suggestion was they start by making laws of what the government could never do. Another was a house devoted to repealing poor laws.

Stu's observations on governing were more amusing. He wants to name Prof king because that would protect people from their biggest enemy, themselves. How true! The woman with the list of proscribed items in the early Congress is a perfect example. Anyone with half a brain can't help but make the comparisons to our own society & the creeping repressiveness as we democratically vote away our rights.

Heinlein points out another fallacy in government, one that he never explicitly states: What works for a small group often won't for a large one & that needs change over time. He makes this argument as a thread throughout the book: Manny's reflections from the future when Luna is much more populated & his other comments on its early days. The justice system of Terra versus that of Luna of Manny's time. It's important to note that Heinlein offers up no concrete answers, just a lot of questions, & he is pointing them out through a first person narrator. Manny is fairly reliable, but he's human & thus comfortable in the society he knows. There are multiple examples of how poorly this fits others - many of whom wind up paying the ultimate penalty.

The language of the book is notable. Sentences are clipped with a lot of polyglot slang & - possibly most important - he popularized the word n  tanstaafln: "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch". The link is to the Wikipedia article on it. I wish people would use & think of it more.

Racial, religious, & national slang names are commonly used & are now considered politically incorrect, but they are used in such a way that no prejudice can possibly be attached. The moon is such a mix that such designations are merely descriptive. Marriage is another institution that receives a thorough cleansing of preconceptions & homosexuality is also briefly addressed. IOW, Heinlein has a lot of fun with Civil Rights. Since this book was originally published in 1966, that's not surprising, especially given his views on the matter, but this book was well before he almost died & he hasn't gone overboard yet.

The story is quite dated as far as technology goes, but that didn't hurt it much. There are tape recorders, wall phones, & computer punch cards, but the overall experience of the moon is well done. Mike, the self-aware computer is fun, too. Not particularly realistic, but enjoyable & played his part well.

All in all, it's a must-read for anyone exploring SF. It is a classic & is a hell of a lot of fun, but gives plenty of food for thought, too.
Wikipedia has a so-so write up on it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon...

The opening chapter of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress presents an intriguing character study; Mike is a computer who wants to grow up. Mike doesn't understand humor or human nature but he wants to learn and he's got a willing teacher in the form of his assigned engineer, the clever but casual Mannie. Sound interesting? Do not get your hopes up (DNGYHU!)

Because this novel isn't about Mike's quest to make sense of humanity, it's about a libertarian revolution on the moon! (Liberty! Economic freedom! Extended-family polygamous communes!) And for this revolution to get off the ground it's going to need a supercomputer to lead it. Before you know it, he's organizing a secret phone system and issuing clandestine proclamations to revolutionaries who think he's human. Kids these days grow up so fast! But maybe it's OK that the child-with-the-microprocessor-brain plot-line gets cut short; revolutions can be fun and who doesn't like a little politics with their science-fiction? DNGYHU!

Because until final act, this is the least exciting uprising since The Whiskey Rebellion (which featured shockingly few drunk battles.) Mike the supercomputer can control all electronic systems on the moon, generate infinite money and maneuver guidance-outfitted asteroids with the precision of a master pool player. The imperious government forces don't stand a chance and the gritty lunar rebels barely matter. Mike could have won a bloodless revolution on his own; let me reiterate that he's a super-genius who can generate infinite money and control all electronic systems on the moon. The bad guys don't win a single battle and never suspect the identity of the rebel commander.

But even if the revolution is a let down, that's not the point right? Surely Heinlein scores some clever political points defending his ideology? DNGYHU! As mentioned earlier, the purported superiority of the Moon's wild-west polygamous society isn't what powers their victory over the government. And when Mannie is quizzed about how Lunar society's mob-rule ethic functions, his reply is basically that it just seems to work.

Heinlein isn't even interested in giving the novel's antagonists (corrupt government officials and mealy-mouthed moralizers) much of a literary lashing; they tend to be nameless, faceless, personality-less props. Most of them don't even qualify for straw-man status because they don't receive any dialogue. Near the novel's end, Mannie does have one dick-swinging standoff with a self-important busy-body during a council of revolutionary leaders; it's a clash of wills that injects the story with some much needed drama and is the closest the story comes to passionate politics. Alas, a few paragraphs later, the busy-body is tossed out on his busy-keister never to be seen again.

Paradoxically, Heinlein's most adroit political observation regards the greatest weakness of hardcore libertarianism that, much like communism, it is virtually impossible to put into practice. For in the end even the freedom-loving moon-folk bail on the notion 'That government is best which governs least.' This final-page turnabout makes Heinlein's lukewarm support of libertarianism fit better, but makes for boring ideological conflict.

This novel is more interested in the technical details. Mike and Mannie spend countless pages detailing an undercover phone-system, picking when and where to bombard the Earth, organizing their underlings and figuring ways to avoid detection. Heinlein was a naval engineer and a radioman, so it's fitting that he writes most comfortably about communications and mechanical systems.

And perhaps it's for the best that Heinlein's focus is on the mechanical over the personal as his writing betrays a worldview that is, at turns, psychologically incompetent or odious. A few examples; Mannie's love-interest Wyoh, a purportedly intelligent, practical woman, makes rape jokes around men she barely knows. Africa is described as a place where human life has never been valued. Mannie gets the hots for a preteen girl and employs his family to help him stalk her. A group of lunar citizens pay an exorbitant fee to have an impartial judge rule on a matter that should be obvious. Mannie makes the worst baseball bet of all time.

But for all my complaints this review is long for a reason, this is a hugely ambitious work that touches on a multitude of themes, technical ideas and arguments. Trying to encapsulate a majority (gibbous?) of the book's theses has proven one hell of a mental exercise. Heinlein may have aimed for the moon and missed by miles, but at least he enforced one useful acronym. DNGYHU!
edited 3/2/2017

I have just reread this for the third time in about a decade. It is still one of my favourite novels of all time, though this time 'round, I felt the 'controversial' sting from America / even my beloved Canada / all of Earth, being bombed by a radical insurgence. Heinlein justified it perfectly with arguments such as the Moon's resources being scientifically proven to be depleted in a matter of a few years - as are ours presently here on Earth, thus we too must act aggressively and without compromise. In this case it is precious Moon water being shipped earth side in the form of grain.

The story has much of Heinlein's favourite topics, such as alternate customs, Libertarian governmental systems and family arrangement - linear, group and such. The main characters are Manuel, a 'computer man' and Mike, a charming computer that because he has gotten to be so large, has somehow become self-aware.

A great work.

This book was yet another attempt I made to read Heinlein. I'm not surprised I didn't like it. Actually, I disliked it so much it made me mad. Not as mad as I was with Foreigner in a Foreign Land, which made me want to go to Heinlein's grave, dig him up and slap him around, but mad enough.
This time we have one and a half female characters: the half-one being the female personality of Mike, the self-conscious super-computer. When Mike is being Mike, his male half, he is assertive, inquisitive and intelligent. When he is Michelle he gets a french accent (????) and becomes coquetish and flirty.
The other one is Wyoh, a whole woman. We are told immediatly that she is hot, and to be sure that we get the idea, every man that meets her whistles at her and/or comments on her body, making clear that they wouldn't mind doing her. Of course, her reaction is to be flattered and thankful.
But Wyoh is not just beautiful, she's very smart. She understand everything, as soon as a man explains things to her--because men do not tell things to Wyoh, they explain them, with a lot of patience and with a paternal tone, as if she were a child, and a slightly retarded one. She's such a lucky girl!
The male characters aren't any better. They behave like a bunch of dogs in heat, getting all excited and slobbery whenever a woman is in sight. And, however, Heinlein thinks himself such a liberal, because he says that women have a right to sleep with anyone they want. Again, aren't we lucky!
About the political ideas he comes up with for this story, I wouldn't even know how to call them. Dictatorial anarchy? Technocratic capitalism? They have some interest as an exotic experiment, but that's all.

https://carti.blog/2025/02/16/luna-e-...

IMHO this is the best book written by Robert Heinlein.

The moon colony rebels against the tyranny of the Earth in an echo of the American war of Independence.

This book is for anyone who is a rebel at heart.