A Fantastic science fiction book about the birth of a revolution, the rise of Mike and a reads like it's relevant even today. Great cast and some great AI.
While reading this classic, I kept hearing in the back of my mind the song "Volunteers" by Jefferson Airplane.
This is still one great read, and ages like a good fine wine.

I once believed humans would have to become self-aware (conscious or enlightened) to become a Type One spacefaring civilization. As if civilizations need to curb fossil fuel use (or other rare resources) early enough to turn them towards space travel, instead of one use coffee cups. I boiled that down to: humans will become conscious or die. I reduced that to, humans probably go extinct, with a nod to George Carlin.

This book is slightly more interesting than watching smart people chat philosophy on the internet, but only because it's more organized. Where's the sense of urgency?

 I think of this as a clean space novel versus, "Alien," a dirty space novel. That's no commentary on sexiness, its the invisible demarcation that exists in Science Fiction. Sometime in the late seventies SF lost the (inertia) notion that a spacefaring people will be more orderly and rational. Instead humans remained fallible, but somehow managed to travel into space. I'd call this Pigs in Space, but not everyone likes Muppet jokes. These lines aren't easy to define because you have Asimov and PKD on the android train--while still in the clean space era, but they can be observed as trends on a long enough timeline.

If current trends prevail, SF has crossed yet another line due to trans-humanism. It looks like consciousness might be transferable to robots who go into space without the tedious meat-suit. This disables my opening concern since man achieves no real enlightenment (as a group) before it gains the ability to travel the stars. After all, a conscious person would have no need to live forever (the egoic delusion) because it wouldn't define itself as being separate from the cosmos.  

This book is about miners and hard scrabble farmers, yet the dirtiest thing in this PRISON, was an illegal assembly. Books need to do more than serve as a backdrop for neat ideas. They need to be emotional. This is too antiseptic to accept that a revolution would happen or even matter.

If I stick this out, it won't earn more than two stars, so I'm abandoning it. I could be reading someone like Huxley, who had a much deeper understanding of the nature of people and the universe.

I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

I loved this! It has sat on my shelf for years & I am glad to have finally gotten to it. I thought this was even better than Stranger in a Strange Land!

Moon inhabitants; a self-aware computer; politics; polygamy; rebellion; the pursuit of freedom. An incredible revolutionary hard science fiction novel. There is no denying that this is a classic! My words cannot do this novel justice, so I shall leave you with this:

TANSTaaFL!


(Reading challenge: A book set in a hostile environment)

4.0 to 4.5 stars. My favorite Heinlein novel about a revolution by Lunar colonists against an oppressive Earth-based government. Libertarian science fiction at its best.

Winner: Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1967)
Nominee: Nebula Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
Voted to the Prometheus Award Hall of Fame

My first taste of Heinlein was Stranger in a Strange Land a few years back. It was, in a word, bad. So I gave up on Heinlein all together, figuring if his most famous and critically acclaimed book was no good, what chance did the others have? This conviction was met with protests from Heinlein fans, saying I need to read some "good" Heinlein before making the call. So I did, though it took me an unusually long time to finish. I just couldn't get into it. The characters were two-dimensional and shared too many qualities with those in SiaSL: the brilliant innocent (here, a self-aware computer named Mike), the levelheaded and elderly teacher/father-figure (Prof the anarchist philosopher), and the beautiful, "smart" woman whose most highly praised attribute is her ability to keep her mouth shut when the men are talking about important things (Wyoh, a revolutionary with a thing for older men - another SiaSL staple). Another recycled idea (though I don't know which book came first) was the group/line marriages, where the women are said to be in charge but actually spend most of their time at home worrying about their men. These characters weren't that great the first time around; the second time was just tedious.

The idea behind the story is fine: the moon is more or less a penal colony under totalitarian rule. With the help of Mike the computer, Mannie (a computer tech who talks - and narrates the story - in an obnoxious dialect that sounds like someone faking a Russian accent very poorly), Prof, and Wyoh engineer a revolution. There is some interesting discussion of political ideals and governmental structure, but without sympathetic characters to bring it to life the story is about as gripping as your average high school civics class. I simply could not bring myself to care one way or the other. Now I wonder, how many more of his books do I need to read before I can officially say I don't like Heinlein?

-En la actualidad, más exitosa en cuanto al fondo tratado que respecto a la forma usada.-

Género. Ciencia ficción.

Lo que nos cuenta. En el libro La luna es una cruel amante (publicación original: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, 1966) conocemos a Manuel García O’Kelly, más conocido como Mannie o Man, especialista en reparaciones generales y amigo de Mike, un computador de la colonia lunar que ha desarrollado inteligencia y conciencia de sí mismo. Mannie no simpatiza con las políticas que rigen la vida de los colonos en el satélite, pero no será hasta que tenga lugar un incidente grave, con víctimas debidas a la represión de la Autoridad Lunar terrestre, que decida volverse activo y tomar cartas en el asunto.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

https://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com...

TANSTAAFL-There Ain't No Such Thing As A Fair Libertarian.
TANSTAAFH- There Ain't No Such Thing As A Feminist Heinlein
TANSTAAHM- There Ain't No Such Thing As A Heinlein Masterwork.
TANSTAAHWBED- There Ain't No Such Thing As A Heinlein Without Boring, Expository Dialogue.
TANSTAAHFPPTDSLEOHFPP- There Ain't No Such Thing As A Heinlein First-Person Protag That Doesn't Sound Like Every Other Heinlein First-Person Protag

Moon is a bad book, even minus the usual Heinlein political rants, the misogyny and sexism just under the surface, the contempt for democracy and the blanket dismissal of the opinions of others. The plot is contrived and unrealistic, the speeches empty and lifeless, the setting just sketched in halfheartedly. There was not a single memorable scene or image in the entire book, not even during the battles. I have no idea what the moon colony looks like or how it functions. The characters are paper thin: the Professor merely a mouthpiece for Heinlein's "ideas" about anti-government, anti-taxes, so on, Manny Davis a dimwit computer repairman whose thoughts and feelings (if he had any) were of no interest to me, Wyoming a dumb blonde agitator, the bad guys and the FN authorities faceless and soulless functionaries, the Loonies an undifferentiated mass. I know the man was revered for his work during the Golden Age of the pulps and I do like his short stories, like the time travel twister and gender bender "All You Zombies," but this just stinks.

Heinlein's tale is all about the revolution of a lunar colony from the imperial unrepresentative constraints of an Earth overlord. I like revolution. Well, the concept I guess, not the doing of it. Too bloody for my tastes.

But for a book about revolution, this has absolutely 0 tension within the story. It reads like a deflated balloon. And if you've ever tried to read a deflated balloon you know that it's kind of impossible.

The book started off with promise, I was quite intrigued. Things were happening. I kind of cared about people and events and then... things fall off a cliff into seemingly endless meandering political philosophy.

The plot ends up chugging along with easy mechanical precision. It reads like a revolution how to step by step guide. It features a cool sentient computer that does all sorts of things. Mike. Good guy that Mike, always being silly and making jokes and stuff. He is the best thing about this book.

I can't in any honesty say this is a bad book. It's not. It's an ideas book. Full of interesting ideas, but I'm more of a narrative/character driven kind of reader. Now, ideas are nice, but when it comes down to it this book is just too full of political philosophy without the requisite interesting characters and plot to balance things out for me. That said, Heinlein had a lot of prescient and interesting things to say about the vital importance of communications, and no doubt, this book leaves no doubt in my mind that Heinlein was a smart@!$#!%. But sometimes I don't want smart, sometimes I just want entertaining. And sometimes I just want to use "no doubt" twice in one sentence. This is how I live my life.

The 2nd Heinlein book I've read in the last year and I'm beginning to think he just isn't my kind of writer.

2025-02-24 Just finished re-reading, after 40+ years. Too long a wait. Really holds up well... but does give me some second-thoughts about Heinlein's set-up and execution of the revolution that the book describes. But the way his does it in this book is really masterful. But the lies and coercion described as being necessary for the move to TANSTAAFL/Free Markets and more freedom does give one pause. And the ending leaves me wondering about a sequel that never appeared.

I also enjoyed noticing some of the influence of Heinlein's style, ideals and content when reading it again and thinking about James SA Corey's "The Expanse" series of novels... and others.

2009 I loved this book when I read it sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Heinlein is a master and really understands the importance and meaning of freedom. I loved how he wove into the plot the founding ideals of the US. I've given away many copies of this book, to folks who like SF and I hoped would take those ideas seriously. Excellent discussions about revolution scenarios and the importance of fighting for one's rights.

Warning: Heinlein's style of writing in this book takes some real getting used to. Kinda strange and "clipped."

2020-06-15 Just read this fascinating article on libertarians in SF - Heinlein is a major player, of course: https://quillette.com/2020/06/12/the-...

Cam pentru genul acesta de poveste (mă rog, pentru anumite aspecte ale sale, cum ar fi „performanțele” computerului Mike, cel care s-a trezit brusc că are conștiință) s-a inventat termenul datare. Să nu fiu înțeles greșit, căci, prin prisma evenimentelor din ultima perioadă, inclusiv ceea ce se petrece la noi de vreo doi ani încoace, povestea este mai actuală ca oricând. Nu degeaba s-au scris povești de genul „Noi” a lui Zamiatin sau „1984” a lui Orwell.
Cartea lui Heinlein este despre o revoluție. Revoluția cetățenilor lunari sătui să se mai spetească precum sclavii pentru niște stăpâni neîndurători și lacomi, care-i consideră barbari și sclavi. Revoluția pornește timid, dar o ia la vale precum bolovanii trimiși cu catapulta să bombardeze orașele Pământului atunci când pământenii nu înțeleg de vorbă bună că lunarii s-au săturat să mai fie tratați ca suboameni. Povestea este antrenantă, cu mici scăpări din pricina unor discursuri sforăitoare asemănătoare unor președinți de CAP-uri pe alocuri, dar cred că nu degeaba a înșfăcat un premiu Hugo în anii șaizeci. Heinlein a luat patru, a fost cel mai iubit scriitor american al generației sale.
Apropo, pe coperta a treia, pe flaps, scrie că ar fi fost unul dintre cei trei mari scriitori ai Epocii de Aur a SF-ului. De fapt, cei trei au fost patru, editura Paladin l-a trecut sub tăcere, prefer să cred că din neștiință, nu din rea-voință, pe Frederik Pohl, pe lângă Asimov, Clarke și, evident, Heinlein.
Mai multe, nu știu exact când, pe FanSF.

Reading this book in 2018, especially in the wake of the seismic shifts in our collective conversations about misogyny and rape culture and consent, must be a monumentally different experience than reading it in 1966, when it was published, would have been.

I admire Heinlein’s incredibly detailed, throughly considered approach to how a revolution could occur in the very specific and finely-drawn Lunar society he created. I love his creation of the AI character, Mike, and I wholeheartedly believe that he could exist as described.

But too often I could feel Heinlein’s deeply problematic attitudes about women (especially underage women, which was especially shocking), which he seemed to have attempted to leaven by making his women sparky and tough and willing to be whistled at, kissed, fondled, etc. It all was just a bit too icky for me.

All in all, reading this book amounted to an interesting time capsule experience for me, but one which left me uncomfortable a bit too often.